Wargammer of the Year Attempt #1

[larryfulkerson]

Around the Riga area there's lots of movement going on. Almost all the units in
this image are in motion, heading outbound from Riga in a pattern to spread out and
convert the roads and rails and find the Soviet units lurking nearby. The security
forces are through in the area NW of Riga so now they are heading east to the sound
of the guns. I've designated Riga as my rest camp for now. The rail is almost
repaired all the way to Riga and the bridges are repaired down to Jekabpils, which
is being negotiated over as we speak. An attack is scheduled and I expect to have
the crossing shortly, after which I'll attempt to repair the bridge and in any case
ship out the troops nearby as their jobs will have been done.

[larryfulkerson]

So I'm going in OOB order moving the units and I've come to the 20th Panzer Division
and it's in a special situation that I need to remind myself of. I've driven too many
units to the Minsk area and have left a section of the front lines empty of units. I
need to shift some of the Minsk crowd to the NE and to fill that vacuum. But what
should I do with the 20th in the meantime? I expect to run into some Soviet units before
I go too much further to the east and I don't want the 20th to get embroiled in a firefight
where they would have to deal with enemy units alone. I need follow on forces to be closer
to the tanks. Maybe the 20th should just rest for a turn. I'll do that.

[larryfulkerson]

It's T5 and I've finally surrounded Minsk with my recon units and engineers. There's
three broken bridges in Minsk that need to be repaired and I drove a lot of engineers
that way. I took a look at the zoomed out view and discovered that I've gathered too
many divisions in this AO so it's congested and there's at least one section of the
front lines that's scerce for Axis troops. I'm going to move about a third of these
divisions north to bypass Minsk and drive on Smolensk.

[MikeJ19]

Larry,

Awesome stuff. It is such a large theatre of operations and there is so much to think about. It would take me forever to do a turn...

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: MikeJ19
Larry,

Awesome stuff. It is such a large theatre of operations and there is so much to think about. It would take me forever to do a turn...

If I quit tinkering with stuff I can usually do a turn in about two hours. I usually check the deployment of the aircraft first, resting the yellow ones and giving missions to those that rested sufficiently to go back into combat, and maybe even moving them to a better position and trimming their range again for the spot they moved to. I like to just cover the important areas and not much overlap with deep Soviet areas. I have trimmed the range of the bombers from 83 to 50 so that they cover a given area with more dilligence and I feel like I get more performance from my aircraft.

At any rate, after I've looked at the aircraft, I usually press the '.' ( period ) key and disembark all the units riding on the train. Then starting at the beginning of the OOB I take a look at the units to see if there's any problems with them and move them. The red ones have to rest, yellow ones should be looking for a good supply spot and the green ones are the shooters. Sometimes I have to postpone the movement of a unit to move a different unit first. For instance, if I have to move a unit across a broken bridge and there just happens to be an engineer unit within range, I'll see if I can't repair that bridge with that engineer unit first to see if I can't save some MP's for the moving unit. Things like that. And if units are moving long range by rail it's a good idea to provide some CAP along the route for them so they don't get damaged by interdiction while moving. Same principle applies to ship-borne units as well.

Then after I've moved all the units and configured all the units to their best positions and all the planes have their missions and all is ready I usually review all the battles to cancel the outlayers that will take too long compared to the others. And then resolve the combats. And after the combat has been resolved I start again at the beginning of the OOB and move the units that still have MP's left. I open the OOB and check out the MP's on the last column on the right and I can scroll until I find another unit that has MP's and move it. Once all the units have 0 movement points and there's no pending battles I find that about two hours has passed.

It's like that every turn. I've learned the game mechanics sufficiently so that I can find just about everything I need to know about the units, formations, etc. I'd like to see some of the dialogs adjusted a tiny bit. On the unit display for aircraft I'd really like to know how many are being produced each turn and how many I have on hand and stuff like that because those are some of the contingencies that obtain when I need to decide whether or not to fly the plane that turn. And on the inventory dialog I'd like to be able to click on the equipment item and be directed to a screen that shows all the formations that include that equipment in their particular inventory. For those times when you have some early model planes that you need to retire from combat you have to look through the units one at a time unless it has a particular range or someother distinguishing property.

D21 is a large scenario and this version is the latest and greatest so far and I like it. I'm getting familiar with the map and it's not so large that you're constantly lost. To be honest with you I could do without the Finns and Turks and all the side shows that happen. I'd rather concentrate on the main contest without the distractions. Like ignoring China in WITP-AE. I've never been past turn 63 or so and I'm looking forward to what happens after that. It's so large a scenario that you have to take notes to keep on top oof all that needs to happen. I don't personally take notes but rather depend on my Mark 2.3 brain to stay ahead of the curve and sometimes it doesn't work out. But I play beer and pretzel games instead of tournament games so it works out fine in the long run. I'm having a blast playing three games and doing the AAR's for them. This is more fun than the Baptist church allows.

[cpt flam]

Larry i see a little problem with your troops.
With latest version you are not authorized to mix units of different army group, they must stay together.
Otherwise, always a pleasure to read. [8D]

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: cpt flam
Larry i see a little problem with your troops.
With latest version you are not authorized to mix units of different army group, they must stay together. Otherwise, always a pleasure to read.

I'm not allowed to "mix units" of different Army Groups with this version of scenario? I did not know that. I would be curious to know how in the world you got that idea.

[MikeJ19]

Larry,

Thanks for the outline of your turn. I keep thinking of writing myself a short guide to a turn - a checklist - so that I stop forgetting to do things - like move up the reinforcements. I think I have a handle on getting lots of combat rounds in, but remembering to move everyone or dig units in or check my air force still seems to be a problem for me.

Have fun!

[larryfulkerson]

This is the view of Minsk from outer space. I've moved some units north so that the
glaring open spot isn't so obvious and I did a lot of mop up around Minsk but I still
have to grab the city hex itself. My Panzer dudes turned yellow in the hex adjacent
to the city and I can't attack with yellow units. D'oh. Anyway, it's looking better
and soon there wil be an epic battle for Smolensk.

[larryfulkerson]

I just learned quite by accident that the overextended supply threashold is 5 and
not 0 like I thought. That means if one of my units wanders into a hex with less
than 5 it will be overextended and the pretty pernitious pestilence policy starts
for that unit. So the rule of thumb is to stay out of less-than-5-supply hexes.
Now I know. I'll start doing that from now on.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm going to use the RR arty on Odessa if and when I ever get rail repaired that
close, but I don't have such a rail yet, so I thought I'd drive it down south and
let it support getting across the river. Past experience has taught that losses
tend to be high assaulting these positions so the more arty you have the better. I
need these crossings for free flow of supply from Bessarabia to the Dnieper. I also
think it important to get some Panzers to blaze a path to the south so that the
follow on forces can try to trap some Soviet units on the west side of the river
and kill them.

[cpt flam]

Larry, I had to look in the background.
House rule 4 say that only white with black can go anywhere. Others must stay in their respective army group until March 31, 1942.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: cpt flam
Larry, I had to look in the background.
House rule 4 say that only white with black can go anywhere. Others must stay in their respective army group until March 31, 1942.

I knew about that one. Did I violate it somewhere? I'm not aware of it.

[cpt flam]

from your images
you've got at least one infantry division from AGN near Minsk
and a Motorized one in the north from AGC with supports

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines in T7 before I have moved anybody. I've been making the most
progress in the south and I'm disappointed in the rail repair speed because there
were two turns in which no progress was made. I've established a rest camp for the
aircraft at Warsaw with two HQ units ready to assist anybody parked there. There's
several yellow aircraft but most of the planes are green. The supply levels are
starting to drop as I drive east away from the river. I'll have to watch for the
overextended levels to make sure I don't drive into those bad boys.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm moving units and I've come to the AGN unit and I noticed that it doesn't have
any of it's 170mm Guns and I wondered if I had some kind of supply distribution
problem or what so I thought I'd go see how many there are on hand and discovered
that we don't start building them until turn 80 and that's why there aren't any in
the units yet. I wish I had known that when I was looking at the unit display.

[larryfulkerson]

I've got units approaching Pskov and as I suspected it's got a garrison. I'll direct
the Panzers this way and we'll see if we can't get some kind of drama started. I
thought about maybe doing a syncronized advance to meet the Soviet units at the river
but actually as long as the units can support each other laterally then we're good
and the advance can continue. It's when there are gaps that is a worry. But I don't
insist that it be perfectly syncronized.

[larryfulkerson]

Axis units are entering the frame from the left and we're approaching the spot in
the front lines where there's no river to hide behind. Orsha is the place where
the rivers bend and there's a spot where it's possible to generate the most attacking
power. I need to drive some arty this way and get everything ready for a push through
there.

[larryfulkerson]

July 16, 41 T8
The Axis forces are reaching Orsha and the river running north and south near there.
Smolensk isn't far away....I'll be going there next. Most of what's possible depends
on the supply level(s). I need to stay out of hexes that have less than 6 supply
because the overextended supply threashold is 5. Pestilence applies to overextended
units. That's the penalty for moving and shooting while low on supply, I think. I'm
not sure I understand pestilence fully. I know enough to avoid it.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the number, location, and results of the Soviet attacks during the Soviet
T8 turn.