Company of Heroes: 100% (Expert) Walkthrough Part 8 - St. Fromond (No Commentary)

[@StarMarshal]

Another straightforward mission here. While the objectives are to the point, there are some things to keep in mind that will make the mission easier. First is to take the time to build up your forces so you can successfully push into the town with minimal losses. Once that’s handled avoid capturing the town square right away and instead focus on capturing neighboring points. While you won’t be receiving any resources due to them being cut off until the TS is captured, you can focus your forces better instead of splitting them up to garner more resources. It’s very important that you keep an eye on how many points you capture because the game will auto-capture the TS for you as it did for me after a certain amount are capped. The devs clearly anticipated this happening. While you have units capturing posts, make sure the engineers are building tank traps to deny vehicle entry on the flanks. The ai will sender Panzer IVs and half-tracks upgraded with flamethrowers to your rear line and then you will be overwhelmed trying to adjust to that threat while still fighting the mob of Grenadiers coming at you from the North. Best to funnel them all into a kill-zone so your defenders will stand a chance. Whenever the town square is captured you need to destroy those nebelwerfers ASAP. No matter how perfect your defense is, they will blow it to pieces while their counter-attack force cleans up whatever survives the barrages. I like to send the Sherman Crocodile in because the flamethrower melts them and the AI doesn’t leave any anti-tank defense for 2/3 of the positions (middle and right). Left does have a Pak-43, but if you attack from behind the house you won’t be shot at. One critical thing to know is that the Axis are using the Terror Doctrine for this mission. They’ll have access to Zeal (a passive where the infantry will fight harder when they lose members of their squads), Inspired Assault (activated ability that grants higher damage at the expense of lower defense), Propaganda War (an ability that will cause one infantry squad to retreat back to base), and finally Firestorm (a devastating barrage). That last one is especially dangerous due to how spontaneous it can be. Your units will announce it ahead of time, so be ready to respond to move them out of the AoE (area of effect). If you don’t care about the medal that’s all you need to know to win. However, if you do want that medal you’ll need to be putting pressure on the Chateau base while defending the town square+surrounding territory. I suggest using the Sherman Calliope to harass and barrage the base from a safe distance to soften up the defenses and buildings and send in upgrades Sherman tanks to clean up whatever is left. Push in from the left after the Pak-43 is knocked out and focus on any tanks/buildings left standing. Once the buildings are destroyed the medal is yours. Enjoy!

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Those Nazi terror tactics and Moaning Minnies (another name for the infamous Nebelwerfers) never even made a hard dent, I see.

[@StarMarshal]

@@michaelandreipalon359 that’s because I knocked them out before any real damage could be done. However, they did fire off a firestorm barrage that devastated my riflemen and destroyed a Sherman crocodile before they could push up into their base.

[@balthasargelt5823]

@@michaelandreipalon359 I remember hearing that alternative name from CoD 3. Good times.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

@@balthasargelt5823 Never played that game much, but I heard of the name from documentaries and some books.

[@antonstrasser2349]

Well done dude. Nailed it.

[@soflaney1299]

Believe it or not I downloaded coh1 a week ago. I’m in love with it and war games in general I can’t believe I didn’t play this back in the day. It has become my favourite from day 1. This mission was the first that made me look for a walkthrough video. I watched half of it and beat the mission cause u were a frkn genius with it. After that I came back to watch ur entire playlist and subscribe. I’m very impressed with your game sense. Thank you so much

[@StarMarshal]

@@soflaney1299 I know it's crazy to miss gems like this. I got lucky and saw it back when Target still had a PC section for their games. This and Faces of War was my jam back then. Glad the walkthrough helped! On expert mode it really forces you to get good or take a lot of losses for it.

[@blacksamurai76]

"Give it some gas 'Tiny', I SAID ADVANCE!" I really love both the Sherman Crocadile and the Colliepe, here great use of all your units

[@StarMarshal]

The quotes and lines they have in this game are so memorable. There's even special ones like for the Wehrmacht if you put in Volksgrenadiers into a halftrack then put in regular Grenadiers they'll say "This halftrack smells like Volksgenadiers."

[@colossus1012]

That was extremely satisfying to watch! Such a good balance between aggressive pushes and tactical defense. Especially enjoyed the fact the game had to end early due to how bad you wrecked their base. You're easily one of the best players I've seen for this game.

[@StarMarshal]

Thank you kindly. I appreciate hearing that. Gotta keep it up for the viewers.

[@AdmiralPrestonJColeTheGigaChad]

"One of the best"? Nah......Star Marshall is "the best" COH player.Period.I've watched too many let's players of this game sacrifice all their troops for no reason in exchange for little tactical gain or success.Seeing them make dumb decisions and so on makes watching their playthroughs unbearable.

[@nicolasulloa9286]

I've been waiting for this video. Great.

[@balthasargelt5823]

Very cool to see some of the more experimental stuff from the Allies like the T34 Sherman Calliope. So satisfying to see those rockets launch in crisp 60fps while hearing it on speakers.

[@StarMarshal]

For me it’s the V2 rocket. Such a satisfying build up before total destruction ensues.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Rocket barrages for the win... as long as they're not nukes, of course.

[@filiptrescec]

What timing! First I am rewarded with a golden medal for beating Ardennes Assault on hard and now you release a new video.

[@StarMarshal]

You got the gold? Nice! What was the score this time? What companies were you using?

[@filiptrescec]

The score was 25897 and I was using Able, Dog and Baker companies. It was also the highest score I got for beating Ardennes assault on any difficulty. It was hard and we suffered losses but the german army couldn't break us.

[@StarMarshal]

@@filiptrescec That's really good to hear! What strategies did you use that made you go from Silver to Gold?

[@filiptrescec]

I honestly used the same strategies I used before. If I had to be agressive I was agressive, if I could defend and build up I did. Bulligen was tough, It was vehicle kills reduce points only. So I grabbed the first two vehicles I could and retreated to the base and prepared for the german attacks. Attacked they did and I broke them. I got a Panzer 4, a Puma and Jaeger hunting tiger from that retreat. I had to adapt to the objective and make sure the germans couldn't escape to reinforce their other territories. At the end Dog and Baker were close to reaching veterancy three while Able reached it at it's last mission. Adapt and overcome is the name of the best strategy to beat Ardennes Assault.

[@StarMarshal]

@@filiptrescec yes, you definitely need to be able to alternate between offense and defense depending on your circumstance. That’s really awesome to hear that you achieved the gold on hard.

[@Piece-Of-Time]

0:57 probably the saddest cutscene to me in the entire game(not by a mile though). The soldiers are crossing the bridge, then they see a robot and are like "wow, what is it?" and then get blown up

[@chriscannon2341]

I remember in the early 2010s when I played this mission the first few times, I tried to get the medal here and it was really tough. I thought the best way was to call in a recon plane, have their flaks shoot it down and have the plan crash into the chateau. Little did I know you can push up and it’s easier lol

[@QueenSydon]

Will you be playing the other campaigns as well? Would be awesome to see you use their different arsenals to the fullest as you've been showing already.

[@StarMarshal]

Of course I will. Probably will take a break after this campaign, but they will definitely get their turns as well!

[@michaelandreipalon359]

I don't know, you're better off finishing the expansion pack campaigns one by one (so there won't be too much waiting and little or no loose ends), but yeah, you can take breaks.

[@StarMarshal]

@@michaelandreipalon359 maybe. We’ll see how I feel by the end of the Normandy campaign.

[@antonstrasser2349]

Hahaha I love how the AI realized it was screwed and the game let you win early.

[@Forgotten_Foods]

Gotta love it when the CPU hyper-micro the pioneer squad which is really resisting suppression

[@StarMarshal]

Drives me nuts when it just decides it can ignore suppression and wiggle the flame pioneers to torch my defenses.

[@doommarine1667]

I love that Calliope barrage!

[@danmacka4425]

Great walkthrough. How do you increase the population cap?

[@JohnWMichell]

This level is quite difficult. I had to make two attempts to pass it, and still couldn't complete the bonus objective. If I rush to capture the square at the beginning, the counterattack will be extremely fierce, and I won't stand a chance. I have no choice but to occupy the surrounding strongholds first, set up landmines, and eliminate the first wave of rocket launchers to withstand the retaliation. I'm planning to give it another try and complete the bonus mission.

[@robbycricket6611]

Yo what’s up marshal. are you going to do the halo ce walkthrough if so when will that be roughly?

[@StarMarshal]

Just been playing Tarkov and Fallout tactics on the side while wrapping this walkthrough up. I plan on playing CE sometime this year, but I’m waiting to see if they’ll fix the graphics first. Seems like the MCC has been making improvements.

[@fireteamdelta9108]

with company of heroes 3 announce what do you think about the civ 5 style gameplay

[@StarMarshal]

It reminds me heavily of the Ardennes Assault campaign from CoH 2 so it seems they wanted to expand more on that if anything.

[@johncarter4956]

This map and the Sherman Calliope will forever the pain in the ass whenever I revisit the vanilla campaign. Pre-patch SC used to be able to fire it's main gun. But that gun is not really useful as you have no vision of the other side of the river, causing that Sherman to easily getting gangbang by 2 Pumas, MG and Flakvieling on the bridge. Worse, Flak can shot down a recon plane, making it took forever to be able to fire that barrage while also try to get that engineer to repair the bridge under fire from that MG across the river. Post-patch, the version you playing now, is not any better. Free barrage every 90 seconds at the cost of it's ability to defend itself is a joke. It's barrage is not really that useful to begin with as the further you aim the wider it spread. To be effectove you have to fire from close range, something the calliope can't do now as it has no main gun to fight it's way out.

[@StarMarshal]

Yeah, the Calliope is borderline useless on Expert mode. I even ended up sacrificing it in Mission 9 to free up population space. Takes a lot of support to keep it alive only to get minimal use out of it.

[@johncarter4956]

@@StarMarshal I don't really understand why dev needs to nerf it down like this. Sherman Calliope is not cheap to get, you have to make it to the last upgrade of the Armor Company command tree and it cost 4 points to unlock. The game even already limited to allow only 2 of them per battlefield. It's not gamebreaking like those Neberwerfer.

[@StarMarshal]

@@johncarter4956 "Don't worry guys, we not only nerfed the calliope, but we gave the nebelwerfer an incendiary effect too." - Relic

[@johncarter4956]

@@StarMarshal One of the many reasons why I don't play vanilla CoH anymore. Europe at War and Blitzkrieg mod are just that good and is adapted for campaign. Especially regarding the Calliope where in both mods got it's main gun operational again with free rocket barrage. But my favorite is in EaW: Ardennes Offensive where you got A FUCKING EASY EIGHT WITH A CALLIOPE ROCKET BARGE!

[@StarMarshal]

@@johncarter4956 I remember Back to Basics being pretty good too and campaign compatible. I just might do a run with the Blitzkrieg/EAW mods in the future. The sound of a tank being penetrated was sublime. Really now? I'll have to check out that Ardennes one out!

[@lyonvensa]

30:53 WTF is that panzer lol

[@Carthaginian714]

i was also wondering what happened to those two pzIV lol

[@azeegame4879]

helooo.sir how u heden up gred simbal and gan sine

[@TomXanderGelayJr]

0:07

[@obeddiaz599]

advancing little by little defeating the nazis

[@michaelandreipalon359]

So, we're going to St. Lo... should be hard yet satisfying by the time we arrive there. (I wonder how the escort carrier with the "St. Lo" designation is faring in the Pacific front...) 0:08: "Had", old man, and now, times have changed... a pity America and her allies' enemies are still growing smarter even to this day. God really didn't lie when he said his "children" must face harsher and tougher challenges as the years go by. 0:41: "Operation Cobra". Pity I'm not going to use that in future war oper... RUN, THAT'S NOT A TOY!!! (Yep, the Nazis revolutionized drone warfare, and the nations of today are just following their example.) 1:13: ASSUMING COMMAND NOW!!! IDIOTS!!! 2:58: CALLIOPE, SHOW THE KRAUTS THAT THEY'RE NOT THE ONLY ONES WITH SPECIAL TOYS!!! 4:35: MASON, YOU MONITOR THE SEIZING OF POSITIONS, I'LL DO THE REST!!! 5:22: Looks like our Thunderbolt friend is back for more recon duties. 6:08: ...Oh no, what happened?! 8:35: Well, that Air Recon/Calliope Barrage tactic worked. Alright, repair the bridge ASAP! 10:52: Let's hope we don't blow it this time around. 11:20: Bridge is up, but we need to secure flanking positions against the Town Square. 27:25: That should do it. We automatically secured the town. Now, we expect new arrivals. 30 minutes... hoo-hah hoorah! 28:40: Well, that's just brazen. Why didn't we notice this earlier? 29:02: MOANING MINNIES!!! WATCH OUT!!! 31:15: Hallelujah. They're giving us rocket-armed P-47s. 32:20: Excellent work, people and pilots! 42:20: They really weren't kidding when they called their command structure *the Terror Doctrine.* 49:08: That... should silence their command permanently here. 52:38: Well, whaddya know? We didn't need the cavalry after all. Awesome!