It seems the hotfix hasn't done the job but the Christmas fairy, and a few save files from players, have helped to corner the elusive bug.
It would be much appreciated if you could try the patch and let us know in this thread how it went, good or bad, so we have an idea of it's effectiveness. The Christmas fairy never lies but it's a foolish man who places their trust in a fairy. Best to be on the safe side.
- - - How to install the Patch
Patch: http://www.vrdesigns.net/privatepatch/barbarossa_2A_Patch.dc3
or if you are having issues the zipped version here: http://www.vrdesigns.net/privatepatch/barbarossa_2A_Patch.zip
Download the barbarossa_2A_Patch.dc3 file and place it in the '\BarbScenario' directory like thus.
Fire up the game, press Load Scenario and select the above mentioned patch file. You will be starting a brand NEW GAME, not loading a saved one.
When the Settings screen flashes up do a quick check that it says '3rd Jan 18 - Cameron 2AHQ 1.05v5' at the top. It's little writing so if you can see the '3rd Jan 18' part then you're O.K
Start a game as the Germans, with whatever settings that you want.
If there is a problem with 2A HQ you'll know about it early on once you have captured Kaunus and cleared out all Soviet units from 2 hexes of the city(around turn 4 to 6). Shouldn't happen and the card for deploying 2A HQ will arrive on turn 8, at which point you can proceed with confidence.
If you wanted to do a quick test rather than a full game then ignore everything on the map apart from capturing Kaunus in AGN and the nearby hexes. To speed things up you could try setting the Soviets as Human controlled as well so you don't have to wait for the Soviet AI to process. You could even move the Soviet units away from Kaunus to supercharge the process. Bang through the turns until turn 8 when you can deploy 2A by card and know that it's a dead bug.
Once you are confident that all's well you could rename the 'barbarossa.dc3' file to something else (so you can go back to it later if need be), then rename the patch file to 'barbarossa.dc3' which will allow you to play normally with a fully working game.
Provided nothing untoward happens this will be made into an official patch fairly soon. Otherwise I'll drag the fairy outside and hang it from the nearest tree. Upside down.
Thanks for your help and a Happy New Year.
Cheers,
Cameron
