East we march

[freeboy]

The orders are confirmed, the rockets and artillery light the early morning sky, like a distant thounder we shudder knowing the hell raining down on our foe.
Turn one: we gain the fort near Lenningrad and run toward the Factory and recruiting centers, a minor coup.
In the South inept leadership causes massive supplies to accumulate unused, player note oopsi, need to correctly eval all hq and supply settings for resources.
Tom did a nifty factory/ recruiting depot/ resource setup, I truly like it best of all scenario manufacturing scemes so far.

AGN and AGC push hard north of the marshes that dominate the center of the board.

Turn two and three see more see-saw action around Lenningrad, my goal is to pull his resources into that area and allow other areas to be lessened as a result. Minsk is over run without much loss due to two rounds of aireal bombing.

Turn four, still strugling in the South, and the south center approached to Kiev being cleared allow for steady advances there.

Turn five is TERRIBLE as huge numbers of level 2 fighters appear over Lenningrad.. Airgroups massed there for support are diverrted south after one small group is pushed away.

A renewd commitment to pp developement is made all our units will need to be upgraded... As we approach smolensk few troops are seen north or south, our plan seems to be working as numerous troops cross the upper Dneipper South of Smolensk after a minor skirmish with red army conscripts guarding a vital crossing..


The situation is not too good in the North, Peskov is heavily fortified and Lenningrad now is a bastion of red steal and infantry. I did get several turns where he did not get the use of the Len factory or recruiting center, a plus in my book... we also made some infantry landings along the coast, near Lenn.

XbX also landed troops in the Black Sea, an anoyance no more than a few troops, but still showing I cannot leave that area unprotectd...

[xBoroNx]

The first turns for russia are indeed cruel in this scenario. At least we are in round 5 now, so the blitz is over.
Freeboy deployed 2 strategic bomber fleets near my fort line i built around pskov. A tempting target.

[xBoroNx]

The mighty soviet airforce wreaks havoc. Stalin is pleased.

[xBoroNx]

On the Pskov front the soviets achieve their first success. Local counterattacks destroy 3-4 german divisions and manage to even break through to the airport and overrun the survivors of our airstrike there. Enough actionpoints are left that all our divisions expect one ID can return into their fortifications after our local counterstrike.

[xBoroNx]

Small scenario glitch imho:
I got all the conscript hordes this turn. About 20-30 units a 10 conscripts spreaded across russia. Uniting them gives the soviets at least 15 extra pp. But it is annoying micromanagement. I think it would be better to give the soviets the conscripts all in moscow maybe.

[xBoroNx]

We also do smaller counterattacks around Kiev, Vitebsk and Leningrad. Has been a good turn overall.

[freeboy]

I totally want to start this game over as My missmanagment of the first two turns is killing me now .. OUCH
oh well, we will see how bad thinks get in the next turns

[JAMiAM]

I see that having a single player per side in this scenario, you are able to consolidate PP production and get away with early tech ramp ups. Likewise with consolidated general production and no front borders allowing the typical silliness I often see in AT games of massing all your aircraft into one gigantic killer horde. I'm really starting to appreciate the imposition of having the players, and their production being split up as it is in the 6 player version of the scenario and feel that this is the only way the scenario can be played with any semblance of reality.

Now, if we can get Vic to code in the ability to set some hard limits on units, so the scenario designer can restrict them to fairly historical units, then the engine's ability to be a simulation, as opposed to just a great game would be wonderfully enhanced. Maybe something for the next module?

[freeboy]

Turn six sees limited success as I punch throu his lines near Smolensk...
Kiev is a bloodbath, I get fighter lever 2.. none too soon..
I form a defensive line near Pkov ouch.. and retreat near lenningrad

[freeboy]

One plus is that I have more experienced pilots, so I shoot down a few fighters this turn, next should be better as I have all my fighters at l2
I appeal to the war"gods " for a break.. although I am willing to play this out, I think as a not ever havcing played this I learned HUGE lessons in this so far. I think the factories should be allowed at a reasonable build as well.. I leave it up to Boron as to weather we restart or continue.. Kiev still in red hands .. wiht massive casualties leaves me fearing what the winter will look like![X(]

[xBoroNx]

True JAMIAM. But if you mass your airforce in one killer horde then you can only do 1 strike per turn which is not that advantageous also.
Problem if you limit airforce is imho that then xp becomes too important. Usually the germans start with high xp, so if you say then e.g. only groups of up to 10 planes allowed then the player with the higher xp has too much advantage.

[xBoroNx]

Hm the conscript event is really unfair. According to the stats the soviets have 814 conscripts. That means 81,4 units, so something like 50-70 pp for free if you do the micromanage and gather most of them in one place so that you can disband the unneccesary empty units then.

[xBoroNx]

Kiev is a carnage. Soviet counterattacks badly damage the axis spearheads, but they also take lots of casualities.

[xBoroNx]

Casualities are high again this turn, most battles occour around Pskov, Kiev and Vitebsk.

[freeboy]

I am noyt sure how this happened look at the pix above and see, pretty batd that fewer reds beat a "better" german force with supperior armor, oh well, we are playing on..

[freeboy]

Well, we kill off some troops near Pskov, I advance near Smolensk, But kiev is sucking my blood, and now my air force is toast tooooo
oh well, I found another huge error in the south, so three massive error, not choosing to get to fighter 2, number 4? and all leaves me humbled by my oponenet

[tweber]

I see that having a single player per side in this scenario, you are able to consolidate PP production and get away with early tech ramp ups. Likewise with consolidated general production and no front borders allowing the typical silliness I often see in AT games of massing all your aircraft into one gigantic killer horde. I'm really starting to appreciate the imposition of having the players, and their production being split up as it is in the 6 player version of the scenario and feel that this is the only way the scenario can be played with any semblance of reality.

Now, if we can get Vic to code in the ability to set some hard limits on units, so the scenario designer can restrict them to fairly historical units, then the engine's ability to be a simulation, as opposed to just a great game would be wonderfully enhanced. Maybe something for the next module?

I think this shows that it is very hard to simulate a battle that follows the original closely because unless the scenario is heavily scripted, a creative player will always come up with something interesting. Nice job xBoroNx.

I like splitting a side into a couple of logical regimes because it forces players to coordinate and there were many campaigns in WWII were poor coordination was a factor in the results.

[freeboy]

Well, kie did hold out for awhile historically, and I am, like historically breaking through in the center and diverrting armor south to caprure kiev,, I played poorly and the use of large wing is far from the great panacia as u have a huge map to prottect and attack, huge formation simply cannot cover the entire area, I do think like Jamians mod of waw, increasng the xp level of sft to a threashold for upgrad is a good idea to slow upgrades of sfts.

[xBoroNx]

ORIGINAL: tweber
Nice job xBoroNx.

Thank you [:)]

I just looked at the new turn, the situation indeed doesn't look too good for the axis anymore. Since the new version is also out i am accepting freeboys surrender offer gladly.

[xBoroNx]

Showing now the various fronts and some comments.

Leningrad:
Freeboys early fin rush there was imho a very good move. Now the situation there is under control though. Currently about 3/4 of the russian airforce are also deployed in Leningrad. So i think that Freeboy would have a hard time at the Leningradfront now.