Help for Heth Scenario

[Civilwar803]

Hello all,
I have played the Heth scenario a few times and I have not been able to beat it yet or get close to the amount of points needed for a minor victory. Does anyone have any tips or strategies on how to beat this level?

[Little Powell]

Civilwar803 wrote:

Hello all,
I have played the Heth scenario a few times and I have not been able to beat it yet or get close to the amount of points needed for a minor victory. Does anyone have any tips or strategies on how to beat this level?

I have a good strategy for this one, but I don't want to spoil the fun for you..

Keep cracking at it. Be aggressive, and utilize all of the forces you have available.

[MrSpkr]

I found aggressive use of close range artillery to be especially helpful in this scenario. Haven't quite gotten a major victory yet -- but I hope to soon (would like to get the variant that sends both Pettigrew and Brockenbrough in as reinforcements).

Steve

[MrSpkr]

This thread has a good discussion of this scenario. You have to think outside of the box with regards to using Davis and be aggressive with your artillery.

Steve

[Taiaha]

Rushing my artillery forward was the next thing I was going to try with this scenario, but I was holding off because it seemed a little gamey. Otherwise, this scenario seems pretty difficult based on the fact that you end up being outnumbered at least two to 1 (a situation not helped by the fact that Davis' men seemed to have been plucked drunk out of the nearest brothel and Archer's regiments consist of six men each).

The OOB indicates that Brockenbrough and Pettigrew are part of your division but they are nowhere to be seen. . .unless, that is, you play the opening Union scenario when they seem to put in an appearance.

Not really loving this scenario as much as some of the others I've played so far. Don't get me wrong, I like a challenge, but the difficulty here seems a little contrived. I will defer to someone with a better knowledge of the battle, but I don't recall reading that Heth rushed his artillery up to 200 yards from the enemy line in order to pour cannister into the enemy ranks!

[RebBugler]

You don't have to move your arty up to win this one, but it helps for sure. Once you win it with canister help, go back and challenge yourself to win it historically. Once the ground and enemy troop movements become somewhat familiar, least as much as the random AI will allow, then this one could become a historical win for you...but still a challenge as always, when going up against the Iron Brigade. :ohmy:

[Criztian]

Taiaha wrote:

Rushing my artillery forward was the next thing I was going to try with this scenario, but I was holding off because it seemed a little gamey. Otherwise, this scenario seems pretty difficult based on the fact that you end up being outnumbered at least two to 1 (a situation not helped by the fact that Davis' men seemed to have been plucked drunk out of the nearest brothel and Archer's regiments consist of six men each).

The OOB indicates that Brockenbrough and Pettigrew are part of your division but they are nowhere to be seen. . .unless, that is, you play the opening Union scenario when they seem to put in an appearance.

Not really loving this scenario as much as some of the others I've played so far. Don't get me wrong, I like a challenge, but the difficulty here seems a little contrived. I will defer to someone with a better knowledge of the battle, but I don't recall reading that Heth rushed his artillery up to 200 yards from the enemy line in order to pour cannister into the enemy ranks!

I have to agree with everything in this post. I never heard of a historical General attacking a position by moving his artillery within canister range. Doing so just feels really gamey, especially since the AI seems absurdly clueless on how to attack an artillery battery.

I find the whole Pettigrew and Brockenbrough might show up thing to be silly. Either they do show up and the battle and scenario becomes absurdly easy, or they don't and the only way to win is to deploy cannons as machine gun to defend the farm.

[Criztian]

Alright I did it, Major Victory. Only Archer and Davis. Brockenbrough and Pettigrew both showed up (funny how they come when you DON'T want them to) but I did NOT use them just left them at the back.

I completely ignored the Ridge and focused on the farm. Had Archer attack from the woods on the flank while good ol' Davis' boys charged the artillary and attacked from the front.

Easily drove off the defending Yankee's and secured the farm. Now all that was left was to rack up the points... oh and deal with this so called "Iron Brigade" which are know for what? Being very poor? No? Crap...

Well they came upon my boys, I learned one quick lesson don't rely on Volunteers to fight the Iron Brigade. The volunteers of Davis' Brigade simply get torn apart. I put the 2nd Mississippi of Davis' Brigade on the left of my line (on a fence of course), they at least had "Seasoned" rating. The 1st and 14th Tennessee of Archer's Brigade was in the middle of my line (Regular and Seasoned respectfully) and Archer's 7th Tennessee on my right (Regular I think it was).

They came at me hard and fuiously. The volunteer regiment of Davis' Brigade 55th Carolina got a boot up their hindparts quickly enough and retreated a good mile away from the battle (didn't take any further part in the fighting). The 13th Alabama of Archer's Brigade (volunteer) was in the center as well and got chewed up horribly by the Iron Brigade so I pulled them out and put in one Davis' Volunteer regiment which in turn got itself chewed up, but at least didn't run away.

The Tennessee regiments held the line perfectly and inflicting devestating damage to the Iron Brigade. The 19th Indiana quite literally had no right flank. Their standard was the the unit on the extreme right and still they refused to run.

Eventually they began to retreat and a couple of reserve Iron Brigade regiments made the attack, but by then without any support they just got whipped and retreated.

I was then going to go for the Ridge as I had 10 min left, but the victory location disappeared :S so I didn't see the point.

I moved my Artillery just before the little creek, well outside canister range and they inflicted pretty pretty much no damage on the Yankee's (I think like 15 men killed).

So other then a couple of canister shots the captured artillery blasted at some regiment just in front of the ridge. I got a Major Victory without using the canister machine guns, or Brockenbrough and Pettigrew Brigade's. Just take the farm fast and early before the Iron Brigade can reinforce it, and simply use the good terrain and fences to position your regiments (keeping volunteer regiments in reserve when possible) and the battle will be yours. But I did completely ignore the ridge, though all things considering if I had put some effort into it I think I might have captured it later in the battle, or maybe just used Archer's brigade to take the farm and just rush Davis' over once he took the ridge and Archer was getting a fist full of Iron in the face. Coulda' woulda' shoulda'. I got the victory and defeated the Iron Brigade... so I happy.

[Taiaha]

The secret to this scenario? Play it enough times and eventually the other two brigades show up! I finally got the major victory (over 5000 points) on this one. Didn't do as well as Critzian because I used Pettigrew (but not Brockenbrough). Also made some mistakes and lost a few guns unnecessarily. Archer got beat up pretty bad but I had him holding off almost the entire Iron Brigade while I marched Pettigrew round their flank. Then the fun began. All that was left of the Iron Brigade was iron filings.

One odd thing. I had them almost completely surrounded, and the retreating brigade units headed East straight through my lines. It afforded me a great opportunity to shoot them down in droves but the behavior seemed a little odd. I was expecting them to surrender. Just too stubborn I guess.

[NatetheReb]

Taiaha wrote:

The secret to this scenario? Play it enough times and eventually the other two brigades show up! I finally got the major victory (over 5000 points) on this one. Didn't do as well as Critzian because I used Pettigrew (but not Brockenbrough). Also made some mistakes and lost a few guns unnecessarily. Archer got beat up pretty bad but I had him holding off almost the entire Iron Brigade while I marched Pettigrew round their flank. Then the fun began. All that was left of the Iron Brigade was iron filings.

One odd thing. I had them almost completely surrounded, and the retreating brigade units headed East straight through my lines. It afforded me a great opportunity to shoot them down in droves but the behavior seemed a little odd. I was expecting them to surrender. Just too stubborn I guess.

The surrender function seems somewhat random to me, except when there is a charge and a lot of guys against a much smaller unit. I've only had one surrender outside of that, and that was a fleeing Iron Brigade regiment that probably could have gotten away if it wanted. I've had units flee through my lines and not surrender. I also had General Cutler run through Davis' Brigade and only die/get captured after passing through the line. I'd think that if a unit is demoralized and has no clear path to safety, it would surrender.

As for this scenario, I finally achieved my first minor victory on my, I believe, eighth try. I accomplished this by sending the forward regiment of Archer's Brigade to take the two cannons, which I turned and had canister shoot the forward regiment of the Iron Brigade, with the aid of the regiment that took the cannons. That regiment will take quite a beating, but the Iron Brigade regiment will rout. I sent all of Archer's Brigade behind it. I also sent Lewis's artillery to help with the Iron Brigade. When the Iron Brigade is on course to the farm, then you can eliminate about half of them without engaging the other half.

Meanwhile, I sent the artillery to the creek, where they inflicted ~20 casualties the whole game, but did cause a cannon to rout. Also, I immediately send Davis to take the wheat field, bypassing the first regiment. I had official control of it within the first 10 minutes, and got ~1,000 points over the course of the scenario from it, but I stupidly spent too much time "mopping up" the area before I moved on.

Back on the Archer front (which is now led by a Lt), the stupid cannons keep routing for no good reason. One of them had a full compliment, and had killed ~75 of the enemy, and just decided that they'd rather have a picnic back at home base. No matter, I move up the two remaining of the original six behind an advance of the brigade to decimate the remaining half of the Iron Brigade, and in a pincer move bring up Davis. It took 5 minutes to mop them up, but in the process I got that surrender. By this point I immediately double time it to the farm and take it, but not without having a Davis regiment to rout. By the time I had the farm there was just less 10 minutes left, and nowhere else to get enough points for a major victory, even if I had killed every single last union soldier, and taken all the cannons without a single casualty, and try taking 7 cannons without a casualty.

I probably could have gotten a major victory if I had moved up the time table by 5 minutes and had those cannons not rout all the time, and be in the proper positions. Actually, if both of those had happened, the time table probably had moved up even faster since the cannons would have been able to annihilate the Iron Brigade a lot faster and cause a total rout/surrender of the remaining units.