ARR First Contact -- spoiler alert

[marcdhanna]

[ note - Trying to see how to embed images I think I can only do one per post]

This is an ARR of 'First Contact' German AFVs vs Russian Armored Trucks (radioless)






edit -- notice of spoiler alert added

[marcdhanna]

starting situation: The tanks are placed in a predetermined position. I don't know where the enemy is coming (first play of this scenario)

As soon as setup is done, I spot some enemy on the plateau!


edit: I had thought I could place these tanks in setup, but now I recall they were pre-determined...

[marcdhanna]

move into building and stuck in motion.

edit -- for some reason I get an error message trying to embed this picture -- something about not being allowed to post phone numbers or links... which I did not try to do.

[marcdhanna]

defensive positions after turn 1 maneuver. Note the two PzIII in over-watch. Still not sure at this point if the Russians will enter the map in flanking, but I have to deal with this platoon facing me.

[marcdhanna]

glitch in the VASL mod as initial defending firers are getting marked with prep fire markers. again could not embed the photo... same silly error message

[marcdhanna]

German tanks do their job as they knock out a couple of these boys.

edit: as you can see one of the reinforcing tanks tried to flank me but the overwatcher caught him in the act trying to descend the hill.

[marcdhanna]

command problems on turn 2!

[marcdhanna]

but the Russians have broken MA (on the left) and immobilization due to fire (on the right) after my Prep Fire.

[marcdhanna]

Superior German gunnery lays the enemy to waste. There is one more AC running around the back of the woods mass due south. I'll move in on that one soon, as it does not look like he has any other stuff coming in.

[marcdhanna]

PZIIIs move in for the kill.

[marcdhanna]

Here is an example of what I have spoken of before -- the armored truck could have fired but did not, I think because outside of covered arc, not sure? But this AI could have done so then at least have turret facing the right direction during his prep phase. But it would not have mattered, because once again a broken MA. So total for the game, so far, 1 German MA and 2 Russian MA broken. I've seen this tendency beyond just this scenario... curious about it....

[marcdhanna]

uh oh Tank aces get scared! Still one maintains his wits about him:

[marcdhanna]

but this tank (had been immobilized by the Russian PFPh) gets the job done!

[marcdhanna]

Major victory!

Points to consider:

1) Game plays very much like solo ASL WITHOUT all the hassles of looking up rules. One gets the feeling the hit and kill probabilities are very similar.
2) Enjoyable relaxing and quick. A scenario like this played FtF with the game and counters would take half an hour to find pieces, set up, then move each tank, check rules, etc... unless very advanced players ASL would take 2 + hours -- this took 15 minutes -- longer to do this write up than play the scenario
3) fog of war is fantastic and gives a great edge to game play
4) perhaps something needs to be looked at about this failure of AFVs to fire when targets are available if outside CA. Sometimes I think it happens because I am not aware that the tank has a broken MA, but in this case the MA was fine. Maybe radio-less AFV can't fire if they fail a check in DfPh? I assume the check was only for movement in the movement phase...
5) this game is only going to improve with time as the developer has time himself to fix things. I saw Peter posted somewhere he has made the AI a little more aggressive! I look forward to more excitement in the future.

[Paullus]

Great AAR. [:)] It's really nice to read your AARs. I can confirm that the AI will be more aggressive in the next Update. Peter continue to fix bugs and do some tweaking to better the. Just keep your AARs coming [:)]

[Gerry4321]

Hi Jorgen:

Will it also be more aggressive firing while on defense? Many times the AI just doesn't fire. I understand not wanting to fire at meaningless targets but then in Defensive Fire it should fire everything.

[marcdhanna]

ORIGINAL: Paullus

Great AAR. [:)] It's really nice to read your AARs. I can confirm that the AI will be more aggressive in the next Update. Peter continue to fix bugs and do some tweaking to better the. Just keep your AARs coming [:)]

Thanks I'm hoping they are interesting enough! But also hoping they provide feedback to improve this excellent game. It's hard getting back to my ASL set when I have this at my side, in spite of the quirky AI (and when isn't it, in every PC game?) [:)]

Not sure so many graphics are necessary; they do take time to patch into the AAR.

[marcdhanna]

ORIGINAL: Gerry

Hi Jorgen:

Will it also be more aggressive firing while on defense? Many times the AI just doesn't fire. I understand not wanting to fire at meaningless targets but then in Defensive Fire it should fire everything.

Am playing 'Battle of the Lastekodumägi.' for the first time now.

What I see is that the AI defender will fire MG at running Russian infantry very effectively, but holds back on the inherent firepower until the DFPh. Then sometimes won't shoot. I'm wondering if the AI is waiting for stacks, and that is a good tactic sometimes, but that moving in the open modifier is something it should take a lot of the time, imo.

I'll have an AAR on Lastekodumägi soon for those interested.

[Paullus]

So far we have only done tweaking for AI in advance but Peter wants to take a bigger look at the AI behavior in general. Some of the bugs Peter correct will make the AI better as well. Your AARs and comments to the AARs helps working on the AI behavior. [:)]