Old Dog v Young Pup Sillyflower(G) v Fiva(R) GC41 (no Fiva)

[PeeDeeAitch]

I would suggest surrendering now. As has been shown, the 1:1 rule makes it impossible - it will be more fun if you surrender when you are winning.

[Peltonx]

You seem to be doing ok in center an south and a little behind in the north.

Bletchley_Geek is right you need to put more pressure on in the center.

The south should break withen the next turn or two even vs a good Russian player.

From turn 10 to 13 I beleive the Russian player gets little for new units so it very important to get across the river by turn 6 or 7 with tanks and infantry by turn 8-10. The flood gates open after that and you can get to about anything.

But as Bletchley_Geek pointed out you have to have good pressure on Leningrad and Moscow.

Also you really need to have your mech units HQed up once they are across the river or the turn before. I am not sure where you railheads are.

Pelton

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

But as Bletchley_Geek pointed out you have to have good pressure on Leningrad and Moscow.

Hehe, I had in mind Dnepropetrovsk and the Donets basin, rather than Vladimir Ilych's namesake city. But yes, if possible, that would be very nice as well

[Michael T]

We'll see who has the last laugh after the world cup.....NZ is going to be hard to beat on home turf.

BTW did you burn your PC yet....

[:D]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

The other 2 nations being Tannu Tuva and Iceland?

[sillyflower]

T7 lets hope I get the pics right this time

This should be AGN and finns



Black lines for advances this turn, yellow possibles for next. blue circle is railhead as requested.

I have 3 reinforced amies now in tight formation close to railhead and they will get through. Note absence of Russian reserves esp adjacent to Leningrad. For reasons that will become clear i can't see much help coming for Russan defenders. R fort levels very low. All factories still in place but need to get out soon.

As others have noted, North is slightly behind due to very forward defence + aggressive c/attacks by Fiva. I'm not giving him more opportunities just for the moment.

[sillyflower]

Centre I hope. Having been educated at a school which did not teach geography ( 'it's not an academic subject') I can be a bit hazy on these matters



Red = pocket. Had 2 divs + army HQ last turn but Fiva relieved it. It now has 4 more divs as I turned on the rescuers and 1 inf and 1 tank div also kindly routed into it. I did leave pocket open until last minute to try to achieve this as retreat routes sometimes appears to be determined by people holding maps upside down or something. White lines show how I think Fiva might be able to break it. If he does, I will try to add to it again.

In the meantime I'm stretching him out and beginning to batter my way through. Note there doesn't seem to be a reserve defence line

Will post the rest tonight

[sillyflower]

Top marks to Bletchley Geek for best prediction of what I would/should do. Undoubtedly a case of great minds......



Yes. I too spotted the vulnerable Rumanian HQ just south of the pocket when drawing on this picture, so it's not there any more. No prizes for guessing that I was always last placed in class for art. Drawing tanks, bombers etc was not allowed, and I could never see the point of drawing anything lacking in decent weaponry.

I didn't use HQ build up but all armour was on about 40 MPs anyway at the start of my turn. I should be back in good supply next turn joining up bottom pincers in yellow -blue circle for railhead again. Forgot to highlight railhead making its way W of kiev but it's in plain view.

Dispositions hard to see under the combats ( would it be better to turn them off?) but shoulders of advance securely held by infantry. the furthest advance to SE cleared out airfield and routed units but I pulled my weak mot div back slightly to avoid counter attack+ to keep in supply. May have been a bit wet of me but I also wanted to keeop my options open. Also keeping it down there might really force me to carry on in the same direction ( rescue mission?) and Fiva would realise that and react accordingly. Now it's easier to go in any direction which will add to his stress levels

I expect a significant retreat both sides of the salient. It is as well protected against counterattack as it could be with help from terrain ( south edge follows river line. He would need to attack in force which would leave him horribly exposed next turn. His armoured div facing that flank ( between 2 recce flights) got kicked over the river and is not as well as it was. and certainly won't be able to do deliberate attach back over river.

Again Fiva has concentrated all in a forward defence - no unrouted troops E of Dnepr apart from 2 I kicked out of Cherkassy, and a couple behind Kiev. No sign of empty forts either.

[sillyflower]

air losses to date. I suffered horribly previous turn from overrun in north



Hmm. Not air losses. Just making sure you are paying attention, Gentle Reader. Note heavy soviet arty losses from overunning 3 ( I think) army HQs + several airbases +their HQs. Looks like I saved over myself again. Oh well, Fiva is clearly v. good at the IT stuff from his other AARs so you had better ask him to post air losses.

[sillyflower]

dead units I hope



Hooray. ERight picture. My worst turn so far against this metric thanks to Fiva's pocket breaking skills, but I'm a patient chap.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

I would suggest surrendering now. As has been shown, the 1:1 rule makes it impossible - it will be more fun if you surrender when you are winning.

PDH - unusually for you, you are behind the curve. As you may recall from my 'I'm the silliest WITE player ever' thread, I have adopted Alfred's wise approach and set myself more demanding goals , in preference to the more arbitrary victory conditions imposed by the designers. I have already met these so I have already won. I play on simply to mentor young Fiva.

[sillyflower]

Overview time

My Germanic Superquarks continue to repel Fiva's electrically inferior unterelectrons from their positions.

Major cities taken T6 were Vitebsk, Cherkassy and Kirovograd. Fiva retreated a bit last turn in the south but not far enough and my inf were able to open a hole which I have exploited. A weak 2nd line at Kirovograd was swept away. In the north and centre he can't take the poundining without considerable reinforcement especially as pretty much all the infantry reach the front lines and supply lines close up too.

In th south he has issues, but little else, in the middle of his defences. Hopefully he will be plagued by interdiction especially after local air defences ran away. His remaining troops need to stay put for a week to discuss their feelings of separation from colleagues in an open way in a blame free environment, and to carry out a thorough, robust and transparent investigation into the loss of 2 major cities.

Economy
Kiev and Gomel had been evacuated as were the cities I captured inc. Kremenchug so no advance on last turn. On the other hand it's probably 4 turns to clear out Leningrad + D+Z towns and he will need to rail significant forces to plug the hole or risk being caugt on my side of the Dnepr.

[sillyflower]

Tactics

I've said before that I'm happy with Fiva's forward defence. Well executed though it is, it will be broken and then there is nothing to fall back on, and nothing to fall back with if he leaves it a turn too late. I don't see him doing that though.. Pretty much all my infantry is in the front line apart from a corps I had left behind to reduce Lvov pocket.

Such a defence can look very daunting especially for those who have not seen it before. In my opinion the secret is to go in with big attacks to try to ensure every one is a retreat or rout. Follow up attacks on retreated units whenever you can are essential as that will usually lead to much bigger Russian losses if you retreat them again. You will see from posts above that I got a lot of routs last turn. Most were on the follow-up attacks.

Beware trap of assuming if a unit/stack pushed him back 1st time, it will do it again after moving into the vacated hex. If your unit/stack has taken a big CV ( not casualty) hit and especially if he's retreated into bad terrain and/or a fort, a direct follow up will often be at much lower odds than the initial attack. Think about adding in another unit, or only using fresh units, if odds were quite low last time or if you seemed to get lucky with the odds because of strange CV modifications in the last combat.

I therefore generally prefer to err on the side of overkill. A bit of unnecessary force may cost a few extra MPs for some units but that's a small loss compared to a hold result. Happiness is never getting a hold result. The occasional hold is sometimes the only comfort a Russian can get, and you never, ever want your opponent to get comfort from anything - unless he's someone who takes comfort from realising that he is being beaten by someone much better than he is.

Like with any competitive activity psychological dominance is important. The trick here is also only to do it in a nice way....................those who can't be nice and polite and appropriately sporting shouldn't ruin good games for everyone else but should instead return to the Netherhells where they belong.

They should become litigation lawyers.

Ooooooooooooooooooops.

I thought I should post a picture of me sending Fiva his turn. Mwahahahaha
Obviously, I can't put this on his AAR but I would be very grateful if someone could do it for me[&o]

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4



How's about this little document checker to stiffen the resistance?

(document checker, not Redmarkus even though he is a very nice man)


Perhaps we should introduce indentity cards here after all

[sillyflower]

Tactics 2

I still think I'm on course to achieve the objectives I started with. Fiva's losses remain v high compared to other AARs and that relative weakness is partly why his forward defence is not working even though it is skillfully conducted. He has a lot of routed units. Even if they recover immediately and so can return to duty, they almost always will rout again with heavy losses after the 1st attack. The carpet is therefore not currently as sustainable as it looks against massed G infantry.

Returning to the subject of psychological dominance, the Sun Tzu or Vegetius of the approach I advocate is the late Stephen Potter. His hilarious books on oneupmanship should be compulsory reading. They were turned into an excellent TV series many years ago and the original film was good too. IIRC there was a fairly recent American remake which was better than I thought it would be. However I don't think the Yanks are are up to the best of British in this area - they have other strengths.

An example of how I put his precepts into practice:

We had agreed house rule no T1 Riga gambit. On T3 I captured Odesaa and Talinn. Rules allowed naval transport of troops into both. However, I did not. I told Fiva I would play to the spirit of the house rule - no naval transport on turn port captured. He was grateful for what he saw as a sporting gesture - which it was. However, it was also an act of oneupmanship. If you don't see how, then you must read the books. If you do get it, you will love the books.

[sillyflower]

A sight to gladden every German heart

[sillyflower]

T7 air losses



Oh dear, I'm useless as well as silly. Fiva had a lot of squishy cavalry on the south, and I've never liked horses.

[sillyflower]

destroyed units



I am the Death of ants

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower
Tactics

I've said before that I'm happy with Fiva's forward defence. Well executed though it is, it will be broken and then there is nothing to fall back on, and nothing to fall back with if he leaves it a turn too late. I don't see him doing that though.. Pretty much all my infantry is in the front line apart from a corps I had left behind to reduce Lvov pocket.

He's reacting too much and not thinking in advance. There is too much stuff stacked up front, more should be deployed so to entrench the approaches of Kharkov and Moscow, or along the Dnepropetrovsk - Zaporozhye river line.

ORIGINAL: sillyflower
Such a defence can look very daunting especially for those who have not seen it before. In my opinion the secret is to go in with big attacks to try to ensure every one is a retreat or rout. Follow up attacks on retreated units whenever you can is essential as that will usually lead to much bigger Russian losses if you retreat them again. You will see from posts above that I got a lot of routs last turn. Most were on the follow-up attacks.

This is very good advice sillyflower. The psychological metagame in WitE is one of the least spoken of aspects of the game, and you're handling that very well. You might not be bagging much, but that's not relevant. Opportunities for encirclement will appear very soon, in the center and the south.

ORIGINAL: sillyflower
Beware trap of assuming if a unit/stack pushed him back 1st time, it will do it again after moving into the vacated hex. If your unit/stack has taken a big CV ( not casualty) hit and especially if he's retreated into bad terrain and/or a fort, a direct follow up will often be at much lower odds than the initial attack. Think about adding in another unit, or only using fresh units, if odds were quite low last time or if you seemed to get lucky with the odds because of strange CV modifications in the last combat.

Again, very good advice. That CV hit is reflecting the increase in fatigue of units' ground elements.

ORIGINAL: sillyflower
I therefore generally prefer to err on the side of overkill. A bit of unnecessary force may cost a few extra MPs for some units but that's a small loss compared to a hold result. Happiness is never getting a hold result. The occasional hold is sometimes the only comfort a Russian can get, and you never, ever want your opponent to get comfort from anything - unless he's someone who takes comfort from realising that he is being beaten by someone much better than he is.

And that's how the Axis should play the psychological metagame [:)] It's really hard to keep spirits high after so many turns where you have to help the Red Army from the floor. It's like watching a boxer with fluffy legs facing a huge gorilla.

ORIGINAL: sillyflower
Like with any competitive activity psychological dominance is important. The trick here is also only to do it in a nice way....................those who can't be nice and polite and appropriately sporting shouldn't ruin good games for everyone else but should instead return to the Netherhells where they belong.

They should become litigation lawyers.

Ooooooooooooooooooops.

[:D]

[sillyflower]

Finns if you are lucky



Well, not that lucky. Finns not as exciting as I'm sure they are in real life.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

And that's how the Axis should play the psychological metagame [:)] It's really hard to keep spirits high after so many turns where you have to help the Red Army from the floor.

thanks BG. My academic background is in psychology.