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T06.

Advance three hexes towards Berlin from the East, heavy going and losing some battles. Can only get so far in a turn because although the Soviets have lots of units available to attack with once they have to cross a couple of hexes of newly captured terrain they don’t have the MPs to attack with.

From the South things are going better and have some open terrain to advance through. If the weather is still clear next turn will probably be able to cut across to the Allies in the West and split Germany into two.

Supplies very poor this turn, think the super depot last turn has some residual damage.


Dave resigned at this point.

I think this is a good Campaign, you get to play with the full map/army for both sides and still it is a short game. There is severe time pressure on the Soviets to get to Berlin in short order.
Am not sure I understand how the victory conditions are applied though it does look as if they could do with some fine tuning to give a bit more variation to the possible results and match the balance of the forces available to both sides.

I cannot see how Axis can hold out for 10+ turns in this scenario.

Think Victory conditions needs some heavy review as they're now unless weather can be a massive swing turning the map luck based.

In the playtest period this scenario got quite a bit of play and was well balanced. I think it is a learning curve for the Axis that explains this result. It is not an easy situation for the Axis but the Soviets have problems too that can be exploited by a good Axis player.

Glad I only play the BIG campaigns

I cannot see how Axis can hold out for 10+ turns in this scenario.

Think Victory conditions needs some heavy review as they're now unless weather can be a massive swing turning the map luck based.

Clearly I have had good luck with the weather this game and things are going well for me, but even with that I would not be at all certain of taking Berlin by T12 if over the next few turns there is some heavy mud as expected.
My feeling is there should be more results possible over the whole period of the game rather than the first test on T12 and the next/last one on T20, though I may be misunderstanding this.

My disappointment with this scenario is that for the axis player the outcome has more to do with the weather than any other factor, Tyronec's handling of the logistics was excellent but on my side my only option seemed to be to throw everything in front of Berlin and pray for mud. There was a chance I could hold out for a few more turns but the next turn looked to be "snow" again and Tyronec would have been at the gates of Berlin. At that point its just a turn of two for the Guards Rifle Corps (and rocket/arty) to smash into the Fuhrer bunker.

ORIGINAL: smokindave34

My disappointment with this scenario is that for the axis player the outcome has more to do with the weather than any other factor, Tyronec's handling of the logistics was excellent but on my side my only option seemed to be to throw everything in front of Berlin and pray for mud. There was a chance I could hold out for a few more turns but the next turn looked to be "snow" again and Tyronec would have been at the gates of Berlin. At that point its just a turn of two for the Guards Rifle Corps (and rocket/arty) to smash into the Fuhrer bunker.

I agree with you Smokindave34, even though I have never played the scenario and only read what was written here. I believe I will stay away from this one because of the weather being such a very high factor on who wins.

Weather seems to play a big role in several games. Summer light mud in 41, or an unusually long blizzard period during the 41/42 winter comes to mind from other AAR:s, creating headaches for the affected player (Germany ). Also quite historical, weather was important.

Isn't its extra importance in this scenario simply a consequence of it being short?

ORIGINAL: erikbengtsson

Weather seems to play a big role in several games. Summer light mud in 41, or an unusually long blizzard period during the 41/42 winter comes to mind from other AAR:s, creating headaches for the affected player (Germany ). Also quite historical, weather was important.

Isn't its extra importance in this scenario simply a consequence of it being short?

I would be curious to see the historical weather for all these turns played. I personally don't know the different turns weather but would be interesting to see.

Keep in mind that mud in good road country is not the same as mud in Russia. However, exactly when a big thaw happens in the spring is a big deal. I don't know how you get around that unless you add in a fixed weather option, which I discussed elsewhere. It's doable, but a huge job to come up with the "fixed weather" data (locations and sizes of all weather fronts for every turn).

As for victory checks, well you can add auto win checks more frequently, but that just gives the Soviets more chances to win early. The system isn't set up for different levels of victory through the auto checks.

Keep in mind that mud in good road country is not the same as mud in Russia. However, exactly when a big thaw happens in the spring is a big deal. I don't know how you get around that unless you add in a fixed weather option, which I discussed elsewhere. It's doable, but a huge job to come up with the "fixed weather" data (locations and sizes of all weather fronts for every turn).

As for victory checks, well you can add auto win checks more frequently, but that just gives the Soviets more chances to win early. The system isn't set up for different levels of victory through the auto checks.

For me the weather is OK, just one of the luck factors of the game.

On the victory checks. Really I don't think the campaign victory conditions work well for this Campaign varient. There is only one VP check and it is I think meaningless because you would have to take Berlin to trigger it which ends the game anyway.
Would it be possible to have something like (all dependent on Berlin):
T12 end - Soviet Major victory
T15 end - Soviet Minor victory
T18 end - Draw
Berlin holds out - Soviet loss

Maybe that is not worth the effort that it would take to amend the game, but it could go into the Campaign description which would be just as good.