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Another one to consider: Stay out of the Swiss mountains... area below Munich. Neutral territory

[>:]
Well now ive been playing this game for a long time and i have grown fond of it , however i do feel that players twist rules to there own gain in order to win .
these days i do not play against several opponents but i play against one fellow whom i trust as we play FAIR and dont use cheats .
the rules which have served us well are simply
1-honesty
2-no tricks or cheats,mules extra supply etc
3-a max of 3 interdiction on a single corp per turn and an hq unit can only perform one interdiction per turn with as many bombers as u like.

It is a great pity that the game is spoiled by endless winners or losers at times .

Ah well ill stop my ranting for now perhaps i will find honest players someday[:(]

I have very limmited time playing this game but finding good honest players that dont resort to tricks or cheats is close to impossible. I like your air rules as i think air power is too great in this game .Would you like to hook up and play a game?

kingtiger_501@hotmail.com

Here is my suggestions. First we have to divide home rules in two categories: "technical" (it is to prevent abuse of the game mechanic. These rules will be (ideally) coded in to future releases and "historical" (to ensure historical feeling of the game).

I suggest "technical" rules as follows:

1. A corps must have at least one division sized unit in it.
2. A corps can make only one change of its commanding HQ per turn.
3. All HQ except Stavka, RGVK, West front, Italian front, OKH, OKW, Army Group North, Army Group Center, Army Group South must command at least three corps.
4. A HQ can launch only one air mission of a given type targeting a single target per turn.
5. A single target can be targeted with an air mission of a given type no more than twice per turn.
6. A corps must have x+1 Mobile division sized units in it to plot more than two squares of movement where x=number of Infantry division sized unit in it.

i'm still not entirely convinced that the HQ stacking rule as previously posted will detur some other usage of the strategy (on a second line to prevent breakthroughs, etc) so after a discussion with another player about this here's a more 'focused' rule suggestion:

HQ's may only contain 1 division per hexes away it is from a supplied enemy hex; HQ's 4 or more hexes away may contain an unlimited amount of divisions. For hex counting include the hex the friendly HQ is in.

this forces HQ's to stay WAY back, so there can be no mistakes about if a HQ is stacked or not. comments?


funny how all these house rules are turning into 'the game within the game'! gotta be done, though!

This is by far the best rule we have had on this issue, It will get my vote for it.

Rule 7, should it read....no player may have more than 1 heavy tank factory for every 2 tank factories?

or is there a difference for assult guns, tank destroyers? or are all of these classed as light/medium tanks?

Most of the rules have been covered

1 and 3 delete to keep them simple, no great effect on the game
4,5,6 are close to the ones listed here

We are getting close to a final list, I have combined all the rules again so we can get the right. I will be looking forward in playing a game with these rules.



1) A corps can only change its commanding HQ before it receive extra supply.

2) No HQ may launch more than two missions of the same type, per turn. No single enemy unit may be attacked more than 2 times per turn.

3) To plot more than 2 hexes of movement an armored Korps/Corps must be composed of AT LEAST TWO Panzer, Tank, Motorized, PanzerGrenadier (PZG), Mechanized or Cavalry Divisions FOR EVERY ONE non-mobile (Infantry) Division. If an armored Korps containing regular infantry divisions does not have the minimum amount of mobile Divisions in it, it may only plot 2 hexes as if it were an infantry Korps/Army.

4) All Soviet HQ's within 3 squares of the eastern edge of the map, are considered to be "beyond the Urals" and MAY NOT be attacked by player directed air missions, such as an airfield attacks. The air groups in these HQ's can't fight however, they must be in training mode only. This rule no longer applies once the HQ has one or more enemy korps within 7 hexes to it.


5) No Hungarian, Rumanian, or Finnish units may be sent to the West or Italian Front HQs. No Italian units may be sent to the West Front HQ.


6) Finnish forces MAY NOT attack Leningrad (40,7) or it’s supply hex (41,6). The Soviets are required to garrison Leningrad with MINIMUM 3 Divisions even though Finland may not attack. If the Germans capture Leningrad, Finnish forces are allowed to enter Soviet territory and engage in combat but they must remain on or above the 12th parallel.

7) (3.3 only) No player may have more than 1 heavy tank factory for every 2 light or medium tank factories.


8) If a korp enters a swamp or mountain hex, it must stop its advance. Under snow or blizzard conditions, the swamps are frozen and are clear terrain.

9) No changing the chains of command

10) HQ's may only contain 1 division per hexes away it is from a supplied enemy hex; HQ's 4 or more hexes away may contain an unlimited amount of divisions. For hex counting include the hex the friendly HQ is in.

This looks good. All I can suggest is improving rule 8 to "a corps must use all its plots (2 or 5) to enter an enemy controlled mountain or swamp hex". Otherwise you have PzKorps plotting on mountains at 5th move, that doesn't slow them at all.

tanks and tank destroyers/assault guns are 2 different catagories which cannot be mixed in game - you have to build both types almost equally to properly fill all your units. i can't think of any reason to restrict anything on the tank destroyer side, even knowing that at any 1 time there will be only 1 type of TD built in all the TD factories! if you change the rule to say 1 heavy for 2 other AFV it will double the amount of availible factory slots for heavy tanks - of course some people may choose to completly drop making any TD's anyways to get the heavies! depends on how crazy you are!

Most of the new proposed "house rules" only make it that much more difficult for the Russians to defend in '41. This is absurd, as we all know. Specifically:

#1. Special Supply: The Russians have to be able to make liberal use of special supply in '41 because of the supply penalty they suffer during the summer. Defending Moscow in August is very difficult when your formations are at 99% readiness via special supply...how can one defend when the readiness levels are in the mid 60's?

#2. Air Missions: The Russians only ace in the hole is mass; the Germans maintain a qualitative superiority both in terms of experience as well as equiptment until late '43. Thus, for the Russians to accomplish anything in the air, they have to mass their air assets and hammer away, suffering 4-1 or worse in losses. To do this, they need to execute multiple air missions. Limiting them to 2 missions takes away their ability to leverage mass, which is the Russian player's only real strategy. I do however believe in restricting maximum interdictions per unit per turn to 3 or 4, as this hurts the Germans in '41 and '42 but then hurts the Russians in '44 and '45, so it balances out and makes it somewhat easier to defend.

#10. HQ stacking: Again, this makes it very difficult to survive as the Russian in '41. HQ stacking allows the Russian player to put enough combat value in a hex to survive heavy assault, which he can't do with a stacked shock army. There are already penalties built into the game engine for stacking your HQ's, since the units can't plot, can't be special supplied, can't attack, and can't entrench. If a player stacks his HQ's, go around it, cut it off, and its doomed. I would agree to limiting the HQ stack defense to Moscow only and only in '41.

Gentlemen, guys much smarter and talented than me recognized long ago that it was virtually impossible to survive as the Russians in '41 against an expert German opponent and started the whole Possum business. I probably have some 50 games under my belt now as the Russian player (probably 15 as the German) and can tell you after extensive playtesting against some really good German players that surviving as the Russian player with the EXISTING Lorenzo house rules is almost impossible...why would anyone want to make it harder for the Russians to survive into '42?

Dave, you of all people should know the validity of my arguments, as you are probably the best German player out there. In our game, you let me move first as the Russian player allowing me to save most of my frontier army, you let me re-occuppy Leniningrad during blizzard '41 and I STILL lost the game in early spring '42!!!! C'mon..

Marc W., would you please chime into this discussion?

Russian units with high readiness shatter easily in the summer, you don't want to bring them there. Even if you do, you can fight on the defence with 10-20 OPs, but on the attack you get penalties.

Russian air only makes a (small) difference when on CAP and composed of fighters. The bombers, even if they get through, have very little impact. On the other hand, German bombers flying one wing at a time do a lot of damage. Also consider the Me110s, which can fly multiple bombing missions.

HQ stacking makes the game totally unrealistic. Most of us play WiR because it resembles reality in a way. I don't believe it's a very good tactic, but I'd give up in disgust upon meeting it.

Possum was started not for play balance but for historical accuracy reasons. It's harder to play Russian indeed, as you always have to guess your opponent's intentions. The German can mostly only consider the turn ahead. But I can't believe you lost all your 50 games as Soviet, and a victory as such is just more satisfying.

Also, people, there's more to this game than the '41 campaign. I personally dislike all the special shattering and supply rules in it. '43 is a great starting point, with a draw considered as Nazi victory. The '42 campaign is pretty good, but it needs a truce on the first turn so the Soviet doesn't get half his army out of supply, and a rule against Germany producing all Tigers. And even '44 is quite satisfying to play - the Nazis lose big time but they can still pull a few cool maneuvers. There's also an amazing '44 scenario on Dave's Corner that's made both more historical and more playable; I never PBEMd it before but I'd love to.

I've never played Possum, but from what I've read on the forum it is totally unrealistic. The production numbers for the Russians seem way too high, and the experience of their air units also seems too high. A couple guys finished a Possum game on the forum a while back, and the Russians were in Germany in 1942!! I too play for historical realism, but I assure you, Possum ain't it.

As far as HQ stacking in Moscow, it is historical. Stalin himself stayed in the city while it was threatened. So, he would have had all of his command and control, special guard, NKVD, etc. etc. on top of the already extensive amount of troops in the city. Each hex in this game is some 25 miles, you can easily get many, many divisions deployed in 25 square miles!!! You are talking about an area larger than most major cities of several million!! Of course, they would be tripping over each other, and the game model reflects this because they can't plot or attack, or entrench for that matter.

I don't lose many games as the Russians anymore, only to the best German players.

Here's the relevant thread about Possum:

fb.asp?m=407258

Check out his own post at the bottom of the page.

m39 white death, as you know I have quit playing Germany in standard WIR 41 camp and am comming close to quiting it in possumv6 aswell as i dont find them enjoyalbe anymore.. There is no reason for me to make these games easier for Germany. Most of these rules will make it harder for the German player, not easier.

1. Special Supply - How much easier will it be to defend if Germany special supplies all her panzers every turn and then has her best commander and 10 air wings with op point?

2. Air missions - The best Russian players that I have played have destroyed my airforce not by doing air missions but from cap missions on large and small scales. This rule spreads the German airforce out and and limits there attacks to only 2.

10. I would have no problem in what you are saying here if they allowed these hq's to be bombed again. There is only 1 reason these troops are bulked in hq's in this manner, it is because they can not be hit with airpower. I remember a person who I played who used this tactic when hq's could be bombed, he tried it once and only once. If I recall correctly, close to 1200 tanks and 2000 squads were destroyed in 1 turn ( 3 airmissions and an attack ). I would have no problems if people stacked there hq's if they were not magicaly immune to air attack.


I would say the only reason that I have got great results in our game was because of airpower. There rules have limmited this factor. You would of stopped alot of my piencers if your korps were only bombed 2 times and it would of been alot harder if from different hq's. I would suggest that if you are not happy with your results you should change your methods. K26 has some great play tips for Russian player that is well worth reading. I dont think you realise what a big difference 2 attacks in 41 will do for the game. I suggest you give these rules and possumv6 a go before you count them as no good.

Also, people, there's more to this game than the '41 campaign. I personally dislike all the special shattering and supply rules in it. '43 is a great starting point, with a draw considered as Nazi victory. The '42 campaign is pretty good, but it needs a truce on the first turn so the Soviet doesn't get half his army out of supply, and a rule against Germany producing all Tigers. And even '44 is quite satisfying to play - the Nazis lose big time but they can still pull a few cool maneuvers. There's also an amazing '44 scenario on Dave's Corner that's made both more historical and more playable; I never PBEMd it before but I'd love to.

I would love to play one of these games, Wir is getting old only seeing 41 turns

and tank destroyers/assault guns are 2 different catagories which cannot be mixed in game - you have to build both types almost equally to properly fill all your units. i can't think of any reason to restrict anything on the tank destroyer side, even knowing that at any 1 time there will be only 1 type of TD built in all the TD factories! if you change the rule to say 1 heavy for 2 other AFV it will double the amount of availible factory slots for heavy tanks - of course some people may choose to completly drop making any TD's anyways to get the heavies! depends on how crazy you are!

looking for more info on this rule

For every 2 pz3, pz4,panther, t-60,t70 or t34's built you can produce 1 heavy tank ( need a list heavies here )

This looks good. All I can suggest is improving rule 8 to "a corps must use all its plots (2 or 5) to enter an enemy controlled mountain or swamp hex". Otherwise you have PzKorps plotting on mountains at 5th move, that doesn't slow them at all.

I like this rule

There's one more thing that needs discussion. Currently, you can rail transfer units in and out of naval supplied cities. Some people don't know of this feature or think it's a bug. I consider it to model naval transport and historical as such. There are many places where naval transport played an important role on the East Front: Russian evacuation of Odessa in '41, reinforcement of Leningrad while isolated on land, German evacuation from the Caucasus in winter '43, German and Romanian evacuation from Sevastopol, German operations in the Baltic. Surely, if supplies can get in then troops can ride on the same transport as well. What do people think of this issue? If there is anybody who has opposite arguments, please present them here.

We can help Russian side if we reduce a number of plotting squares for tank corps from 5 to 4.