No difference at all

[Michael T]

6. Formula change (Sections 15.5.3 and 15.9) – The limitation that a unit will not be eligible to rout if it passes a check where it’s morale is greater than 40+Die(15) is now 40+Die(30) for any brigade or regiment sized unit that is defending alone in a battle (no other units in the hex or committed from reserve are participating in the battle). Thus, a regiment or brigade defending alone with morale between 41 and 55 will be more likely to rout, and between 56 and 70 will now have a chance to rout.

This new rule is barely making any difference at all. I am still seeing most Reg/Brig doing retreat after retreat even in pockets. This rule does nothing to dissuade the use of these ants at all, they are still overated and are performing out of all proportion to their military value.

Please get rid of security Reg totally if you can't program a correct military value for them.

[marcpennington]

I agree--- I've noticed absolutely no difference since the patch, and brigade sized units still seem absurdly resilient.

I'd go one farther and argue that any unit below a certain man power threshold should have a much higher chance of shattering etc. Or just add in some kind of over-run rules, which the game badly needs.

[Bronze]

....and I feel I am getting more 0=0 units than before too.

[Flaviusx]

The game already gets rid of the security regiments. By turn 6 or so, they are mostly gone and autodisband at a pretty quick pace.

But I'm at the point where I'd just as soon see the units removed from the game entirely just because their intrinsic performance and impact game is wildly overstated by Axis players. That is to say, I'm tired of hearing about complaints on this subject and would love to get rid of them to clarify matters and show just what a nothingburger this is. You are certainly not having any problems with the super NKVD regiments in any game you're playing Micheal T.

They do the most good on turn 1 from the Soviet standpoint and then crater in effectiveness after that.

Hint to Soviet players: crap morale rifle divisions and weak tank divisions (never put the guys on refit, you want them to rout as soon as they get hit, right off the map with luck) are perfectly acceptable units for picketing. As a matter of fact, you want these guys dead ASAP and recycled into the replacement pool.

And here's a free hint for Axis players. If you want to accelerate the disband rate, hit them hard. The chances of their failing a disband check will go up dramatically based on their TOE, so it is very likely that on the following logistical phase they will disappear. You don't need to chase them around, one good hard knock and that probably means a failed check. They are basically one shot units.

If you leave them alone they may linger.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
Hint to Soviet players: crap morale rifle divisions and weak tank divisions (never put the guys on refit, you want them to rout as soon as they get hit, right off the map with luck) are perfectly acceptable units for picketing. As a matter of fact, you want these guys dead

Could we have the "thin" guy below as commander during 1941? [8D]

[Michael T]

Well Flav I will tell you how crazy it is. I would honestly rather see a Sov ID in front of me with 6000 men and a morale of 40 than one Sec Reg with 800 men and a morale of 45. If I do a hasty against the ID with a German ID the Soviet unit will most likely rout 50% of the time. Where as the Super Sec dudes will just retreat on and on....

It's nuts, stupid, crap, rubbish and totally unjustified. There is no historical precedent that I know of where these glorified police units managed heroic delaying actions, not even one. Yet in this game they manage it time after time. If hit by a Division they should just be evaporating.

I just can't fathom why the dev's want to keep these units in the game at their current value. Its not like people haven't pointed out their super perfomances.

[Michael T]

The Soviets abviously made a huge blunder in 1941. Rather than equip 10,000 man ID's they should have produced an army of 1000 man security Reg's. In 1941 I would rather have even just 3 security dudes than 1 ID.

It's a joke. Soviet only players should be lobbying to be able to build more of them. Who needs regular army with these HOTSU.

[Schmart]

I play mostly against the AI, but I find that they don't last very long, certainly not as they used to in older versions. I feel lucky if I get one retreat per turn out of them before they route.

[Flaviusx]

Micheal, don't chase the silly buggers. Seriously. Hit them once, knock down their TOE, and they will more likely then not disband in the next logistical phase. Just brush them aside. But you do have to give them one good hard knock in order to increase the disband chances.

I guess the problem here is that Axis players aren't seeing the disband mechanic in play, as it occurs in the Soviet logistics phase. So they get sucked into unnecessary wild goose chases. The most efficient way to eliminate the units is by understanding the disband formula.

[Michael T]

But it's not the next turn I am concerned with. Its the buggers stuffing up the present turns ops!

[notenome]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

It's nuts, stupid, crap, rubbish and totally unjustified. There is no historical precedent that I know of where these glorified police units managed heroic delaying actions, not even one. Yet in this game they manage it time after time. If hit by a Division they should just be evaporating.

I just can't fathom why the dev's want to keep these units in the game at their current value. Its not like people haven't pointed out their super perfomances.

In that you are actually incorrect. The border NKVD troops often defended fanatically, particularly in the south. This frequently caused mild to troubling delays.

At Olescyze cadets from a local NKVD school actually attacked the germans, setting fire to three stugs and holing up in a castle for the entire day until heavy artillery fire was brought to bear. At Premyzl NKVD border units repelled an attack from both 101 jager and 1st mountain causing a ten mile gap between german lines. In several crossings of the San river german troops were attacked as soon as they crossed, disorganizing the advance. And all this was only on 17th Army's front.

The NKVD border regiments were a major pain in the early days of Barbarossa, and probably put up the stiffest resistance along the immediate border. If you consider that turn 1 represents only 3 days, a one day delay is equal to a third of the mps of an attacking unit (aka, takes a deliberate attack to dislodge). The problem with NKVD regiments isn't that they are annoying little buggers, because they absolutely were. The problem is that there permanence on the battlefield is overstated past the initial turns.

EDIT because I cannot spell to save my life. I'm growing old. This blows.

[marcpennington]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

But it's not the next turn I am concerned with. Its the buggers stuffing up the present turns ops!

Exactly, they exert ZOCs, hence they need to retreat for the panzers to advance. Plus, a German player can't really gamble that the border regiment will disband in his opponents phase, rather then persisting in the rear of a panzer corps and hence forming the basis for the Soviet player to launch a temporary encirclement of said panzer corps...

But this is a larger issue than just NKVD border regiments and later Soviet brigades. My feeling is that the game needs either a real over-run system, or, at least for Soviet units in '41, a system where units, when they start the turn not in contact with the enemy but are attacked at some point later in the turn, suffer some kind of surprise penalty, perhaps if they fail a leadership check. This would go a long way to mitigating checkerboard defenses and 4 hex deep defensive belts...

[Michael T]

I find it quite humorous that people continue to want to defend the abilities of these units. I can only imagine they have never played any other wargame bar WITE. WITE must be the only game that assigns these units such supreme qualities of resilience. They out perform regular units almost always. Yet any other game I can think of treats border units as second rate combat troops, worthy only as overrun fodder for the invaders, rarely if ever surviving first contact with the enemy, only to be quickly dispatched to dead pile and hence returned to the counter trays. [8|]

[Flaviusx]

I want them to go away to stop the bellyaching. This will have, near as I can tell, only one significant game effect: it will make Leningrad slightly easier to take. (Because the only place the NKVD matters right now is in the Baltic states. They are quite irrelevant down south with a Lvov opening, and only marginally useful in the center.)

But Leningrad is a goner anyways.

The only ones I'd keep are the ones on the Finnish border and make those go away as well the turn after they activate.

They just are not that important in the game, and Axis players keep bringing up this nonsense and pretending that it's hurting them in some real fashion. I'm sick of it.

[Michael T]

If you ever played as Axis you would appreciate the frustration that they are capable of. They are part of the overall problem of ants in the game. I had hoped that these new rules would diminish the abilities of ants significantly. Sadly its done zippo.

[Flaviusx]

If I played the Axis I would herd them somewhere safe and ignore them, knowing that they will disband and go away.

They are like a red cape to the Axis bull, and the bull charges them and chases them mindlessly. It's mostly a psychological thing.

[AFV]

Even my old cardboard games had overrun rules.
The good ol' days of SPI. Where's Dunnigan when you need him???

[notenome]

Michael, you asked for an example and I gave you several from 17th Army alone. And the NKVD units did outperform the army in the opening of barbarrossa, as aforementioned, they were the best performing border units. NKVD border units were not regular border units. And if you want to play another wargame that features them, you should try the lost victories mega campaign for Steel Panthers. The first couple of battles involve establishing and expanding a bridgehead against them. And yes, I play Axis regularly, actually I prefer playing Axis, and I spent the first year after release complaining that the Axis were getting the short end of the stick, but a whole hell of a lot has changed since then. To me the most adequate representation of NKVD border units would be units that require a deliberate attack to displace, but take horrendous casualties and disband afterwards.

[Michael T]

I think you are confusing NKVD with just regular border units. Yes NKVD Political Troops were much tougher. But the vast majority of border units were not NKVD.

[notenome]

yes but the border regiments in the game are NKVD border regiments, which were spread out throughout the Soviet-German border in 41.