THE LAST KINGDOM: Sillyflower v sveint. SVEINT WELCOME

[sillyflower]

After glorious earlier performance of the BEF, British troops make a further incursion into France; invading Bordeaux in the hope that the citizens of Gascony remember their past loyalty to England in the 100 years war, and rally once more to England's cause. The objective: deterring an expected Nazi invasion of Spain. More realistically, trying to delay any invasion until the bad weather hits.



I had 7 LCs left after my earlier invasions, and I had a 7 strength div lying around and there really isn't any point in keeping 7 LCs for a rainy day; especially given the rules of this game.so it was a free move[8D]

[sillyflower]

Losses file at the end of the battle for France, though it includes the losses during the battle for Greece



I think/hope that the German losses are a bit higher than normal, though others probably know better than me.

[sillyflower]

27 Sept
I had occupied Vichy Syria the previous turn, so WDF simply moved up to the Iraqi border.

In the meantime, there were significant numbers of axis troops disembarking @ Tobruk. This surprised me because of something sveint had said because of a problem with France's surrender. It turned out that there was no problem (I'm sure sveint has explained/will explain better than I can) and all is WAD. UK reinforcements start to arrive in the Middle East and other are en route. A full size Free French inf xxx appears in UK which was a nice surprise which I have not seen before. Presumably a patch thing.

[Flaviusx]

Nope, it's always been like that. You get a Free French corps in the UK right after France surrenders. Later on you also get another one in the Middle East.

[sillyflower]

First time I noticed then!

Last post was interrupted by dog-walking duty. The Boys in Bordeaux sally south briefly to covert the hexes down to the border, then run back for the duty free shops.

I've been thinking about sveint's strategy. Last game it was all about invasions, but I've now done 3 to his 2 (by German and Italian xxx in Greece). However, he's also already done 5 airborne landings with 2 German para xxx and 2 Italian. Clearly I'm stuck in WWII mode while he's moved on to 1980/90's US air/land battle doctrine.

I'm copying the Flavius approach for the Soviets. However, the forward defence strategy looks very vulnerable to mass para drops with the ability to drop in any terrain, including swamp and mountains, without loss ( and then move gives them the ability to cut off a large part of the Red army. I doubt the Russians being able to do much about it, with their slow-moving armoured reserves having the same combat values as the paras. The only defence has to be Russian fighters but any good German player would neutralize them before the paradrops by doing bombing raids to soak up the interdictions first.

Food for thought . At least recognising the problem allows time for thought and prep. The potential downside of the strategy is costly (paras and transports) and the ground armies will be weaker as a result. Para themselves are not that useful when they are not dropping

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

Losses file at the end of the battle for France, though it includes the losses during the battle for Greece



I think/hope that the German losses are a bit higher than normal, though others probably know better than me.

The most surprising thing for me in your numbers is that only 55 UK merchants (+ 8 French) have been sunk as of September 13. By my count 40 had been sunk by February. Has Sveint not been using his u-boats for the past 6 months, or have they just not been getting as lucky as they were in the first 6 months of the War?

[Flaviusx]

Thing is, if you don't put up a solid front line in the Soviet Union, the Axis is tempted to invade early, and every game I've seen that happen ends badly for the Soviets.

So you are kind of stuck here between that and the paras. You may have to mix and match between a sacrificial front line and a defense in depth.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

The most surprising thing for me in your numbers is that only 55 UK merchants (+ 8 French) have been sunk as of September 13. By my count 40 had been sunk by February. Has Sveint not been using his u-boats for the past 6 months, or have they just not been getting as lucky as they were in the first 6 months of the War?

I did sink 1 of his a while back uboats and they've been a bit less active. I chase them with carriers and he runs away.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Thing is, if you don't put up a solid front line in the Soviet Union, the Axis is tempted to invade early, and every game I've seen that happen ends badly for the Soviets.

So you are kind of stuck here between that and the paras. You may have to mix and match between a sacrificial front line and a defense in depth.

This was kind of where I was thinking.............though life would be easier if the rules about paradrops were a bit more realistic.

[sillyflower]

Oct 11

Not a lot of action. I do not see the Baddies getting Egypt as the back route thru' Palestine and Lebanon are well protected, and I'm trying to make a bad supply situation worse by port blockades.




1 pz and 2 inf xxx have been identified and 1 of the 2 mystery units must be an HQ.

Vichy fell but 2 CA and 2 patrol groups will join the Royal navy next turn. Along with the new battleship and the subs, they should persuade sveint to turn off the flow of iron ore from Narvik during the winter.

The boys in Bordeaux are hanging on, though the Wehmacht is getting very close. I gamble on more rain and leave them for now.

Most of the Nazi forces in France including the LW (apart from the fighter unit in Libya) are lined up on the north coast. The RAF bravely moves out of range.

[sillyflower]

Forces chart



USSR looks weak because a lot of units were disbanded and their replacements are in the building queue. Replacing all the inf and mech xxx per Flavius. Not sure how many new units I will be able to afford given the need to get the tanks up to strength and do some upgrading.

The Italian air force has shrunk a lot, down to 2 units (presumably tac. bombers in Sardinia (see pic) and a bomber/CAS unit at Tobruk which has been bashed around a bit.

[sillyflower]

Further evidence is discovered about sveint's airborne forces, seen on manoeuvres near Poznan.

[sillyflower]

Although if this is really a picture of sveint, it seems unlikely that he will be with his airborne troops personally unless he can source many more balloons:

[Flaviusx]

I'm no longer replacing the infantry, just fyi. I think the original rifle corps are acceptable with the new stats. Those stats literally double their on map CV (from 1 to 2). My suspicion is that the game truncates fractional unit strength in calculating combat odds. So there are breakpoints here, and the new stats push the garbage rifle corps just above the necessary breakpoint.

I've also tweaked the mech disbands a bit; leaving the ones that start as 1-5s on map to take replacements later on, and disband the 3-5 and 2-5 ones. Ironically, the weakest mech corps are best here because they can get to about 30% experience once they absorb replacements.

[sillyflower]

25 Oct '40

Not much action in north west Africa either beyond both sides putting in reinforcements and glaring at each other and both sides took a few casualties from naval bombing. Bagdad welcomes the WDF xxx, and Iraq joins the Empire.



The pz xxx menacing Egypt seems to have retreated to Tobruk which also lost its Italian bombers which disbanded. 8th Army follows up cautiously as it continues to build up its strength.

Most importantly, the Bordeaux Boys escape from Bordeaux under the cover of rain. They didn't fancy holding out vs the 3 Nazi corps which surrounded them. They've gone to Gibraltar to plan their next foray for when more landing ships are launched.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I'm no longer replacing the infantry, just fyi. I think the original rifle corps are acceptable with the new stats. Those stats literally double their on map CV (from 1 to 2).

Good luck against 8 or 9 strength paras with these [;)]

[sillyflower]

8 November



The action is all encapsulated in the screenie. A bit of mutual naval bombing but the panzers (I assume it was them) fled Tobruk back to Europe right past the waiting carriers and battleships which ignored them. Presumably the Royal navy was too busy sinking their replacements: an Italian inf xxx.

In the Atlantic the uboats sank 3 merchantmen, but their escorts sank 2 subs. In my turn escort skills advance to '41 tech and some more came off the slipway, so I think that the glory days for Doenitz' crews are over.

[sillyflower]

Another allied intelligence coup. A photo taken with the periscope camera of the Royal Navy submarine Upholder shows sveint's frantic troops fleeing the fortress of Tobruk in disorder, whilst the abandoned Italian garrison looks on in dismay and disbelief.

[Manstein63]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

Further evidence is discovered about sveint's airborne forces, seen on manoeuvres near Poznan.

[:D][:D][:D]

[sillyflower]

22 Nov.



We do the military version of dancing around our handbags, pushing just over the river. The supply state overlay shows that the Sith will have to move back from their attempted flank attack.

UK starts building its first para xxx