Company of Heroes Walkthrough - Invasion of Normandy - Mission 1 - Omaha Beach (Expert)

Company of Heroes Walkthrough - Invasion of Normandy - Mission 1 - Omaha Beach

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Yes, we have a walkthrough for the "tutorial" first mission -- because everyone probably did it the hard way.

Part 1 - Reach the Shingle

• To rescue the Sniper, simply have them go into Camouflage and slowly advance them.
• Afterwards, almost all units on the beach change from allied yellow/ally to blue/yours. Just grab them all and rush for the shingle.
• That is really overall the most efficient way to minimize casualties -- just keep moving. Don't even go for cover because there aren't that many machine-guns trained on the units, unlike the real D-Day invasion.
• Yes, forget about cover: The reason is there are only so many HMGs on you. If you stand still and move one unit at a time, you will lose more from attrition over time. If you rush them all, you are only exposed to fire for X seconds from Y guns. If you manually move 5-10 squads, you are exposing everyone to fire from Y guns by X seconds multiplied by the time it takes to move 5-10 squads. I think mathematically rushing works out better for manpower preservation. And as soon as anyone gets to the shingle, they are immune to damage.

Part 2 - Get off the Beach and Up the Hill

The "tutorial-on-explosives" way is to secure the eastern beach (Dog White) by advancing up and using grenades on the machine-gun nests. If you have the Sniper, have them clear the way then rush the Bunker with a Satchel Charge from Engineers.

• At the depression with the tank trap, you can grenade the machine-gun nests, but that also means at least one Rifleman model will stand up to throw, and possibly get killed.

• When you are told "Dog White is open", it is actually not because of the MG42 nest up the cliff on the far right, but there is nothing your Riflemen can do about it.

The more interesting way and useful way is to advance up the western beach (Dog Red). This way is safer because opposition is lighter. Also, there are other interesting things we can do afterwards before advancing the story. Yes, it's an exploit. We did it on Expert difficulty as follows and still regularly saved 11-12 of the initial Riflemen (see picture below where all units were saved on Expert difficulty).

• On Expert you will be taking too much attrition damage from MG42s to just dig in and wait. You have to move your Riflemen and you have to clear the MG42 nests. See the image below.
• At Dog Red, move them east.
• If they are under fire, support them immediately with Sniper fire on the nearest MG nest. Even a single casualty forcing the MG nest to bring up a new gunner will help with precious seconds where they are not under fire.
  • When sniping MG teams, always go for the gunner because the survivors immediately rearrange to man the gun, during which your sniper can retreat and possibly will go back into Camouflage before they are ready, so it is safe to kill the whole crew by sniping.
  • If you move the Riflemen at Dog Red early enough they may be completely safe and clear to run east then south out of trouble.
• At Dog White, move the Riflemen into the ditch from the Engineers blowing the barbed wire in the cutscene. It is quite deep and combined with the Tank Traps in front provides decent cover, but attrition attrition will still eventually kill off models, as will automatic unit movement causing models to stray in order to get to firing positions. Stay there till the Sniper can clear the lower nests, then continue west to get out of the fire arc of the MG bunker before heading down the beach.
• You can also inch them down south. On Normal this results in casualties so it's obviously not recommended, but you may see a yellow/allied Medic inch up the beach to grab the body. They won't restore your numbers, however.
• The Engineers should be in the clear initially and can be ordered to run south for cover and to be out of range.

• Snipe to clear the entire approach up the ramp at Dog Red. On Normal you can rush the remaining opposition but this is still risky on Expert as you take much more damage and could lose men or have a squad so injured that they become too vulnerable.
• After you get off the beach and up the hill, there will be a total of six MG42 Light Machine-Guns to pick up. An interesting distribution, if you are going to use Veteran troops later in the campaign, is 1 for each of the Engineer squads to help them gain Veterancy from kills, and 2 for each of two Riflemen squads -- 2 LMGs per squad makes for strong assault and suppressive fire ability.
• Grab the 88mm Flak 36 AT/AA. Using the AT gun, start clearing the rest of the beach with it, west to east and whatever you can northward, spotting with a Camouflaged sniper.
• At the east side, snipe the MG42 at the far cliff then move in Riflemen to kill the rest for some easy Veterancy since you are coming from their rear and they have no cover. There is a short arc of cover that will be sufficient to clear that side of Dog White. In the next phase, once your Riflemen pick up LMGs from the field, their survivability improves significantly and you can move them from cover to cover taking point.
• Leave the Machine-gun Bunker alone!
• You will get the objective to destroy the reinforcement bunkers later. But you can hit three of the five bunkers now:
• Spot the W bunker with your Sniper in Camouflage and blow it up with the 88mm.
• Spot the E bunker with riflemen (you can spot enough of it with a Riflemen unit even without going into the trenches) and blow that up with the 88mm.
• Until you destroy the machine-gun bunker, some paths will be obstructed by barbed wire so your ability to progress further up the hill is limited.
• The SE bunker is protected from the 88mm by terrain obstruction so you need to blow it with a Satchel Charge. Until you destroy the Machine-gun Bunker, no reinforcements come out of these square bunkers.
• Once you destroy the Machine-gun Bunker, you get new units and some (like the Sniper) re-position according to script.
• By going up Dog Red and clearing the hill as much as you can, you have accomplished most of your main objectives already.

Part 3 - Destroy Reinforcement Bunkers

In this mission phase, as soon as you spot one of the reinforcement bunkers, you get the objective to destroy five (on Expert you must destroy all five; on Normal, only three).

• There are five in total. Three you already know of and two behind the 88's, to the far north, at the map corners.
• You must spot a bunker (and not a completely destroyed one) to get the objective.
• If you like, you can box in the Germans at these bunkers and let them spawn in order to get Veterancy for your units.

Part 4 - Destroy Anti-Tank Guns

• You CAN destroy the mission-critical 88mm's (why don't they just capture the guns for Allied use?) with the 88mm you captured earlier, BUT it could take a long time as it is chancy whether your shot will get past terrain obstructions or not. Basically you will need to Satchel Charge them with Engineers.
• With your own 88mm, clear the way for your men by blowing up enemy positions for them, although any unit with a light machine-gun should have a pretty easy time and can earn Veterancy.
• The gun on the west side may be easier to seize first because the hedge can provide cover while you sneak up the otherwise exposed ramp (see below).

• You can kill the gunners and clear the map first if you like, leaving the 88mm's for last and letting you get at the bunkers in the rear.

In the screenshot below you can see our final unit Veterancy when we completed all objectives.