MWiF Global War Hot-Seat (AAR)

[brian brian]

Fine weather in J/F AND M/A for the Germans - classic "Hitler Weather". But nah, don't surrender. the French Fleet isn't in France right now and won't make it back. it increases the risk of not having a Free France though, but make the Germans work for their rewards in 1940, and Toulouse might gain you enough time for the weather to clamp down on the Germans in front of Gibraltar. Hopefully the TRS is there in Nice and you can take a unit to Morocco with it on a Combined impulse.

If the French pull their unit from Algeria, a good move against a France First strategy (though only that Axis strategy), the CW needs to replace it with one of their units ASAP. Oran and Morocco are key parts of the defense of Gibraltar and Algeria should not be just given away like the North Sea was. I don't know where the 4 CW TRS are or what they are doing, but hopefully they could still reinforce Bordeaux....which can help defend the flanks of Toulouse with a handy river line. The defense of Gibraltar really starts in Belgium actually and the CW should play accordingly.

Also a LND-4 is an offensive weapon but it's time hasn't come yet for the Allies. The CW is on the defensive in some major ways right now and will probably wish it had that powerful Candian MOT corps in a few turns, or a nice Beaufort FTR-3 covering the Royal Navy at sea. Maybe you were thinking it will help keep a German FTR in Germany, which it will some day, but that doesn't hurt the Germans much because they don't usually have enough air missions to move the Luftwaffe around as much as they'd like, but they do have the resources to leave a FTR covering the Ruhr easily.


For Barbarossa 1940, perhaps Adolf now wishes Tojo had used the Persian invasion as a pretext to enter war with the Soviet Union. If you really look at that for Japan, the economic gains can be pretty big with easy resources and a red factory in reach, compared to what you have to do to make a net gain fighting the Chinese.



I'm not sure where else to post this, but I hope the movement of supply units in enemy controlled hexes is thoroughly tested. A classic example is walking the Italian supply unit across the A-E Sudan to Libya, which works just fine as long as you don't disorganize it while playing with the Oil rule option while it is an enemy hex, then it is stuck. A class of units with a lot of special rules to code...and a lot of strange situations to test. Stacking as a division even if division rules not in use, etc.

And if MWiF will be using the 2008 Errata rules, I would hope that would include the Co-operating Major Powers may freely use each others oil rule. So much time has gone into this project to have the game look and play good for gamers who have never played World in Flames. One of the quirkiest little rules in RaW 7 2004 is the way you have to loan an oil to your ally but they can't use it until a turn later, surely one of those rules that would come across as rather dumb on a 2 month turn scale.

[Red Prince]

A few things:

There was no Fine weather in J/F '40. The best the Axis got was Rain.

The French Fleet IS in France. It just isn't very large. The TRS is in Nice, but it is disorganized.

There was no unit in Algeria. That unit was defending Tunis. However, the unit from Syria did get moved to France.

The TRS are mostly in Plymouth or Portsmouth. They were supposed to clear out the BEF, but the BEF survived as only 1 unit. That's 3 of them. The Liner just brought an INF from India to Kuala Lumpur (it was supposed to go to Singapore, but the Partisan blocked that). Similarly, there is a CW ARM or MECH (I forget which) already in Morocco, but it didn't have a chance to get to Algeria in time to stop the Italian advance.

The CW LND-4 is intended to be used actively for Strategic Bombing. The initial draw didn't really have much for Strat factors among the CW bombers, so I needed to build something that did. In the last game, I was able to knock out 1-2 German Production Points per turn, starting in J/F '40 or so, but I haven't had that option yet. I need those factors.

And, I should mention, the North Sea was not given away. The CW now owns it again. They sailed the fleet, failed to find, and at the end of the turn, the Germans returned their own inferior fleet to Kiel. It was essentially a single-impulse issue that had no effect on the game whatsoever.

[paulderynck]

deleted

[Red Prince]

Okay, so I guess I lied slightly about the weather not being Fine for the Axis, but Germany certainly didn't have Fine weather in France at all during J/F '40. The N. Monsoon is expected to have Fine weather this time of year, and the Med had a single impulse of it, which merely allowed Italy to advance a little more than it could normally have done in Greece.

I still think my statement is fairly accurate.

[Centuur]

Snow isn't that bad in winter. Rain, Storm and Blizzard are far worse, since they influence supply and movement much more. So, I consider snow in winter good weather. Yes, it's not great like the fine weather impulses, but you are still able to move around quite a lot in snow, and given high odds, it isn't that bad to fight in too.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Centuur

Snow isn't that bad in winter. Rain, Storm and Blizzard are far worse, since they influence supply and movement much more. So, I consider snow in winter good weather. Yes, it's not great like the fine weather impulses, but you are still able to move around quite a lot in snow, and given high odds, it isn't that bad to fight in too.

It also lets you move through openings in a front line and even exploit to the rear in some cases.

[Red Prince]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Centuur

Snow isn't that bad in winter. Rain, Storm and Blizzard are far worse, since they influence supply and movement much more. So, I consider snow in winter good weather. Yes, it's not great like the fine weather impulses, but you are still able to move around quite a lot in snow, and given high odds, it isn't that bad to fight in too.

It also lets you move through openings in a front line and even exploit to the rear in some cases.

This is all true, but the -2 odds levels really does hurt when trying to smash some strong stacks on the 1D10 CRT

[Red Prince]

Just want you all to know, I'm still working on this. I've had a bad few days with my chest, so I have been too tired to do much in the way of work. Sorry about that. I'll try to get some new stuff posted tomorrow or on the weekend.

-Aaron

[brian brian]

look out Allies, Hitler Tojo & Benito are tanned rested and ready...

[Red Prince]

Okay. Back to work for a bit.

I couldn't get much in the way of good attacks in China, but I got fair odds in France -- except that HQ-I Georges managed to provide HQ Support SE of Paris . . . however, this may not matter. The attack on Paris will be played out first, and if/when successful, Georges and his disorganized GARR (Ground Strike) will be in some bigger trouble than the odds show now.



And the results:

Attack on Chihkiang: Assault, Fractional Odds .900 (No), Roll = 3 = 1/- (5-3 INF destroyed, attackers disorganized)
Attack on Paris: Assault, Roll = 4 = -/1S (AA destroyed, HQ-I Billotte & INF destroyed because there was no place to retreat, FTR and LND overrun and destroyed, attackers disorganized)
Attack on France [56, 30]: Assault, Fractional Odds .474 (No), Roll = 10+1 = 11 = */2S

The reason I went for the low odds attack in China was that it would finally put HQ-I Chiang into a situation where he would be isolated until Japan messes up and lets him out of the crunch. With a 90% chance at 3:1 odds, I figured it was pretty safe. Not only did I fail by 1/1000th of a point on the Fractional Odds roll, but the '3' roll would have produced the same result, anyway. As I say, you take your chances. I wasn't willing to bet on continued good weather in the N. Temperate zone, so I gave it a shot.

The German attacks both succeeded, but I would have liked the attack on Paris to have left those units organized. The final odds for that last attack were 37.5:5, which means that I have to report a minor bug having to do with Fractional Odds. This is an easy one to fix, though. We've dealt with this before in a similar situation, and Steve had it fixed in about 10 minutes.

[Red Prince]

Next impulse, the Italians should be able to make an attack on Athens, given Fair weather (or even Rain). I'd show you what things look like, but I'm honestly too tired to keep going today. Maybe I'll finish the impulse and get some more of this posted later on. Sorry that this is all there is for now.

[Centuur]

You can't expect a disorganisation never to occur with high odds. However, with Paris controlled, the French are as good as dead now. You've got enough units left to move and conquer France, since only French units in Toulouse are in supply, if you've moved your MECH to the south of France.
Personally, as the French, I wouldn't have destroyed my AA gun in Paris, but another unit, since the AA gun was the only unit capable of retreating towards Georges. This means that next turn, the gun could appear in Toulouse, since the Germans didn't change the S result in an R result...

[Red Prince]

ORIGINAL: Centuur

You can't expect a disorganisation never to occur with high odds. However, with Paris controlled, the French are as good as dead now. You've got enough units left to move and conquer France, since only French units in Toulouse are in supply, if you've moved your MECH to the south of France.
Personally, as the French, I wouldn't have destroyed my AA gun in Paris, but another unit, since the AA gun was the only unit capable of retreating towards Georges. This means that next turn, the gun could appear in Toulouse, since the Germans didn't change the S result in an R result...

I may be mistaken about this, but you can't retreat a unit into a hex that is being attacked, so it didn't matter which unit got destroyed -- all were going to die anyway.

[Red Prince]

ORIGINAL: Red Prince

Okay. Back to work for a bit.

I couldn't get much in the way of good attacks in China, but I got fair odds in France -- except that HQ-I Georges managed to provide HQ Support SE of Paris . . . however, this may not matter. The attack on Paris will be played out first, and if/when successful, Georges and his disorganized GARR (Ground Strike) will be in some bigger trouble than the odds show now.



And the results:

Attack on Chihkiang: Assault, Fractional Odds .900 (No), Roll = 3 = 1/- (5-3 INF destroyed, attackers disorganized)
Attack on Paris: Assault, Roll = 4 = -/1S (AA destroyed, HQ-I Billotte & INF destroyed because there was no place to retreat, FTR and LND overrun and destroyed, attackers disorganized)
Attack on France [56, 30]: Assault, Fractional Odds .474 (No), Roll = 10+1 = 11 = */2S

The reason I went for the low odds attack in China was that it would finally put HQ-I Chiang into a situation where he would be isolated until Japan messes up and lets him out of the crunch. With a 90% chance at 3:1 odds, I figured it was pretty safe. Not only did I fail by 1/1000th of a point on the Fractional Odds roll, but the '3' roll would have produced the same result, anyway. As I say, you take your chances. I wasn't willing to bet on continued good weather in the N. Temperate zone, so I gave it a shot.

The German attacks both succeeded, but I would have liked the attack on Paris to have left those units organized. The final odds for that last attack were 37.5:5, which means that I have to report a minor bug having to do with Fractional Odds. This is an easy one to fix, though. We've dealt with this before in a similar situation, and Steve had it fixed in about 10 minutes.

Since it happened here, I thought I'd give you a little bit of a look at part of the beta-testing process that isn't really mentioned that much. The text in red talks about a bug in the Fractional Odds calculations. Well, this is one of those occassions when a bug that gets reported isn't actually a bug at all. Instead, it's a misunderstanding or some other confusion on the part of the tester.

In this case, I mis-read 37:5 as 37.5:5 and thought the odds roll was being worked out incorrectly. I reported it as a bug and Steve noted the error, clearing the problem up in about 2 minutes of reading and thinking on his part.

This actually happens fairly often, and usually it's another one of the beta-testers who finds the error, so that Steve doesn't have to spend even those 2 minutes on the problem. We tend to check each other fairly closely, so that we can double-check things before Steve has to deal with them and make sure we are sending him legitimate problems. During the 2 months that I spent creating daily reports of all of the reported bugs, I didn't keep records for this, but I would estimate that 25-35% of all bugs reported end up as situations like this.

-Aaron

[Red Prince]

To continue:

Germany and Italy both rebased bombers to the "new" fronts, and HQ-I von Leeb reorganized an ARM and a fast-moving INF unit. I know you aren't supposed to use up your HQs like this so early in the turn, but I'd like to get as many units as possible into position to make a bid for Toulouse, and he won't be needed anywhere just yet.

[Red Prince]

Here you can see that I did take the advice to block the retreat to Toulouse with my 7-6 MECH (was actually going to do it anyway, but it was good advice). I also took Nantes and moved into position to take both Bordeaux and Bayonne (with the possibility of capturing the Bearn!) and have HQ-I von Bock ready to bring supplies to the over-extended troops.

If they have the opportunity at good odds (meaning in Fine weather), those LND will attempt to disorganize the French ARM while waiting for the troops to arrive. Even if it is during a potential "last" impulse of the turn, they'll still try, since the ARM is now cut off from access to the Oil the French finally have stored in Martinique. The only use for that oil now, is to reorganize any parts of the French fleet that survive the next few impulses.

On the Italian border, the French could attempt a 4:1 attack on the Italian ART, hoping to take some of the enemy with them, or they cna try to squeeze the CAV out into the RP hex, just to be a little more annoying. I think the attack would be foolish, since it would boost the Italian production multiple, and if they moved into the hex with a win, it would boost it even more. Likewise, that RP can't be used by either side, anyway, at the moment, so instead, I'll most likely return the INF beneath the CAV to Nice. The only point in retaking the RP would be to ZOC the I Slovak MIL out of supply . . . which might be worthwhile.

[Red Prince]

In Greece, the Italians should be able to get, at worst, a 23:7 attack on Athens next impulse if the weather remains Fine (50% chance). That's why I needed that BB fleet in Gibraltar, though I had to move them back to the UK. As it stands, I only have 3 naval units available to provide any Shore Bombardment -- and that's only if the Italians fail to intercept and destroy them on their way to the E. Med. If they can't get there, This is going to end up as a 23:4 attack, which would be worth it even in Rain.

That attack would possibly mean the loss of 1 or 2 units, but it would probably take Athens, and the MIL is expendable. I'd like to keep all of the others, too, but if it means conquest of Greece (and the eventual alignment of Yugoslavia), then it is worth the price of a lost MOT. Think of all of the Yugoslavian units that will be gained by controlling Athens . . . and I'll wipe the drool off my chin now. [:)]

This, by the way, definitely shows the importance to Italy of taking Malta when it had the chance. If Malta was still in British hands, there would surely be a fleet there that could provide more help for Athens.

[Rijssiej]

How did Greece not get the chance to move the MTN next to Athens, and the fleet out of Athens?

[Red Prince]

A look at Gibraltar and the surrounding areas.

You can see that only the three remaining BB can reach the E. Med with enough movement points to get into a high enough box to offer significant Shore Bombardment.
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Edit: This statement is untrue: some of the CL could also get into a high enough Box to provide Shore Bombardment.
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The Italians haven't got the manpower right now to actually take Morocco, because of the CW MECH ready to defend the capital, but they can work toward it. However, those TRS intended to pull the BEF out of France should be able to get HQ-I Gort and another 2 units to Morocco, which will make the defense of Gibraltar a little easier. Right now it is a race, though.

If the Italians can get into a good enough position near the border of Spanish Morocco, and if the Axis can get the first impulse of M/J '40, they may be able to either take it away from the CW (when Spain aligns) or at the very least force the Spanish to use some of its valuable units to defend there instead of in the Pyranees. Until Gort arrives, which will take 2 Allied impulses, at least, the MECH can't afford to get too far away from Casablanca. Fez might be a valid hex option for it, but that doesn't remove the Italian threat to Spanish Morocco.

And, don't forget that with a 55% chance of drawing a 0 or 1, Italy could afford to DOW Spain at the same time as Germany in order to get Surprise, which would allow the INF Division waiting in Malta to land somewhere safely to disrupt things in Spain or Spanish Morocco.

One final point: some of you may be wondering why I didn't rail the CW MECH to Oran or Algiers earlier. Well, the reason is that I didn't want to, plain and simple. I wanted the Italians to take Algeria, so that if conquest became more likely than Vichy, there would be an interesting fight around this region. I know that this isn't playing "fair", but I'm not playing things that way in some areas. I'm doing my best to follow the good advice I've been given to set up defenses in France and China, and to follow the advice about conquest vs. Vichy. However, there are some clearly "unfair" choices I have made -- the claim on Bessarabia being one of them, and this being another. Sorry, that's just the way it is. [:)]

[Red Prince]

ORIGINAL: Rijssiej

How did Greece not get the chance to move the MTN next to Athens, and the fleet out of Athens?

The MTN didn't get to move because last turn ended after an Axis impulse and this one began with one. The fleet didn't move out of Athens yet (it will this impulse) because the CW needed to take Combined Actions and had to use its Naval Moves in other areas.
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Edit Also, the MTN didn't move earlier because the weather seemed destined to be terrible at the start of this turn, but the Axis got very very very lucky with it. Also, last turn ended with a Fine weather impulse in the Med (see Post #404) so Italy essentially got 2 impulses in a row of free movement in the mountains of Greece, and the MTN got screwed by it.