Panzer Corps 2: Frontlines – Bulge is a great place to start your PC2 journey

Even though I still haven’t made it all the way through Slitherine’s great Panzer Corps 2: Axis Operations (1939 -1946, including the Spanish Civil War before it), now they’re starting to release the parts for the Allied Offensive, in their nomenclature: Frontlines.

For me, Panzer Corps 2: Frontlines – Bulge is an excellent, if not out of time-sync, way to begin (I’m used to my scenarios in the campaigns being in order. No BFD though).

The first time in a new campaign, you choose your name and picture, which is simply for your own aesthetics. However, you have two points to spend for positive influence on yourself. Granted, you can add some negative influences which will give you more ‘points’ to spend on the positive side… but is the tradeoff worth it? Luckily (I hope), I made the choice for more auxiliary personnel, costing one of the points. There’s still a little catch there because as you’re ‘allowed’ to buy extra pieces, but it takes points out of your ‘pool’ you may need later on through each particular scenario, especially for repairs.

Also, you can buy, money permitted, some great units to help you with this part of the campaign. However, unlike your core units, the AUX’s don’t carry over for later use. They’re for this scenario only.  

The very first thing I noticed, while setting up my assault, was that the American units are way more expensive than the German ones – which I’ve grown accustomed to, lo these many years. An extra point here or there may ‘seem’ trivial, but when added together, you may have lost opportunities for more units. 

But, it is what it is — pay your money, take your chances.

Then, the admin gave me reinforcements, which are way different than the auxiliary units I bought. How? Sure, they exist to help, but I have no control over them whatsoever.

Of course, in the continuing spirit of Panzer Corps 2, they’re not going to throw you straight into the Ardennes Forest – even though one has to wonder if, even during this initial scenario, part of the Ardennes is on the east side of the map…………………..… hmm? Bueller? Bueller?

Because it sure looks like it to me. (Yeah, I know the unnamed commander says the Forest is “south-west” – but where he’s already thinking overall, I have to feel my personnel will be better equipped one skirmish/battle at a time. 

Regardless, it’s up to you to eliminate your objectives, advance through the weather… whether or not your troops can handle it (I’ve been waiting on that weather/whether pun for years!).

But most importantly, your High Command wants this all done as soon as possible!
What your superiors don’t understand is that while you may visually see (a few of) their destructive pieces before actually reaching them, what they don’t consider is that sometimes you find them by simply running into them. That both takes away some of your units, pushes them back, plus you still either have to clear them, which takes extra time, or snake your way through them

Panzer Corps 2: Frontlines – Bulge is available now for Windows PCs