Mbar’s Total Newb AAR

[mbar]

Mbar’s Total Newb AAR

-NEVER PLAYED WAR IN THE PACIFIC OR UNCOMMON VALOR
I'm completely new to anything WitP and I jumped right in to AE after debating whether or not to even purchase this beast. I was scared. It’s expensive. Maybe it's too big. Maybe I'll never even play it. Will I shelve it in frustration once I'm done with a few turns or the small scenarios? But my interest in this new type of gaming labeled "grognard" and my life time interest in the subject of aircraft and carriers of WWII pushed me to take the plunge.

-WATCH THE COMPUTER DO IT
First I ran Coral Sea with both sides run by the computer. It's short and thought I can learn how things are run by examining the TFs and bases in-between turns. I ran a few turns to get a feel for what would happen. Where do things move? What is their destination? What are all those exploding sounds and machine gun fire when a turn is running? It started to make some sense after a while. I had a few questions though. One TF said it’s destination was hex 121, 140 or something like that but the final hex shown on the map didn’t match. Maybe it’s a mistake or maybe I need to learn a bit more.

-MY TURN
After watching the CPU run a few turns I got the itch to at least run a few turns as a player and see what happened. So I finally set out on the Coral Sea scenario as the allies. It's a small area. It's only a couple of weeks. There's no production to worry about. How much trouble could I get into? I found my 2 air combat TFs and decided I want to combine their firepower. I remember hearing that the early war logic was to separate the carriers so that both didn’t get attacked at the same time. However the planners quickly learned it worked much better to have the carriers together because their AA fire is best combined to protect each other. (true/false??) I guided them to the same hex during a turn so I could combine them into a single Air combat TF. I had also moved a small Australian surface TF of 1 cruiser and 2 DDs and combined them into the single Air Combat TF. The more the merrier. Meanwhile Port Moresby got hammered by Japanese bombers. Both my resupply TFs were in the same hex too and I accidentally moved all warships into the Air Combat TF. After running the turn I realized my two resupply ships were without escort. Oops. So I reloaded my old turn and made the new TF and made sure to leave the resupply destroyers were they belonged.

-MAY 5TH WAS A VERY GOOD DAY
The morning of the 5th was my lucky day. I could count on Port Moresby getting hit with bombers on every turn and this morning was no different. However my TF found the CVL Shoho TF near the Deboyne Islands and sent a sortie of 56 dive bombers with an escort of 28 Wildcats. They were met by only 4 Claudes and 7 Zeros. After 3 separate attacks by my air groups over the course of the day, the CVL Shoho was sunk.

-SUCCESS CONTINUES
That night Port Moresby was bombed again and then shelled in the morning by a cruiser, 2 destroyers and 2 Escorts. Throughout the day our dive bombers and torpedo planes attacked and sank 8 enemy cargo ships. The losses had been light with each attack but by the end of the day each carrier was down to about half a squadron of Wildcats. I transferred Yorktown's remaining Wildcats to Lexington and sent Yorktown home to Noumea with it's 6 damaged Wildcats. The Australian task force went as escort.

-MISTAKES WERE MADE
On her way to Noumea, Yorktown was attacked by aircraft from the 2 IJN fleet carriers that had been lurking in the area. Dauntless were sent out but no escort was with them. Yorktown and the cruiser were both hit and badly damaged. Yorktown lost all her dive bombers. With the task force unable to fulfill it's roll anymore it disbanded and made way for the closest port, Brisbane.

Meanwhile Lexington continued her protection of Port Moresby sinking 5 cargo ships, 2 mine sweepers, and 3 cruisers with her aircraft. There were no attacks for the next 2 days so Lexington left for resupply at Noumea. No replacements were available for her thinning squadrons. The morning of the 11th Japanese bombing raids began again. Lexington raced back to protect Port Moresby. Though Lae was not the highest profile target, Lexington bombers hit it on the nose just to let them know she were there.

END GAME
With that the game ended. The score was Allied 1429, Japanese 284. I took a look around the map to see the aftermath. Port Moresby had been successfully defended but Japanese TF 1 had 2 fleet carriers at full strength while I was down to one carrier with aircraft and the other damaged and empty.

THOUGHTS AS I PLAYED
-despite the level of detail to be attended to I was surprised at how automatic many things can be in WitP:AE.
-The carrier CAP and bombers will operate without my needing to specify targets.
-Resupply TFs can be set to automatically follow my battle TFs.
-Being able to set up to 3 waypoint patrol zones for TFs is great and minimizes micro management.
-<looks at clock> Holy cow! Where did the time go?!?! Is it really THAT late?!?!

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed. I hope my little AAR helped show how fun WitP can be. It really captures the imagination. I'm looking forward to more learning and more fun as I continue to play.

-mbar

[John 3rd]

Just wait until you try PBEM.&nbsp; I'd do the same scenario but with a human opponent.&nbsp; THAT will be something.
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Welcome and Good Luck.
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[mbar]

2nd game as Allies at Coral Sea. I'm still fumbling and bumbling and learning the system. I did stupid UI mistakes like tried to set waypoints thinking they were patrol boundaries. Then tried to clear the destination hex of that TF by selecting it's current location. Ran two turns and wondered why it wouldn't move. (duh!) Spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to clear a TF destination hex so I could set a patrol zone. Finally found the "Clear Destination" button in the TF routing screen but sometimes that button IS there and sometimes it's NOT. I have not figured out why that is.

I set my carriers to patrol the Port Moresby coast and set the surface combat TF to a short patrol there as well. I achieved a very quiet stalemate by doing that. The Shoho TF retired to Rabal and the main enemy TF loitered between my PBY patrol arcs. The result after several uneventful turns was a decisive Allied victory.

[Cribtop]

Good luck - AE is a highly addictive game and hard on the mousing arm. [:D]

[mbar]

Thanks. I really am having fun learning the system. Next I will play Coral Sea from the IJN side.

Ha! I love the name of your AAR!! I plan to follow that one!!

[Cribtop]

Thanks - it seemed appropriate for my first AE PBEM. This beast can be daunting, but eventually you digest it.