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In response to hjaco's perfect gambit I decided to try a hotseat game and see what would happen if I purely sold out as the Russians for Vienna. This is, IMHO, the quickest route to TE victory since once AH goes down the Germans are in an even worse spot. I've done this vs the CPU but decided to see how a human would handle it.

My assumptions:

1. The Germans are going west with gusto.
2. The Austrians are not going after Serbia. If the AH players sends any large chunk of his army south he's doomed.

Here is the way the Russians deploy. Everything is in Galicia and weighted heavily on the left hook. Literally all non-Caucasus corps are in this area. The cavs corps are screening the Bukovinia. The goal is to tie down the AH in the forts but really run a right hand hook around their major defenses.

OK, now for the CP.

The Germans are all out in the west and have left 3 "B" corps to sit in the eastern fortress cities, a few cav units to screen and their mobile reserve of 3 "A" corps.

So Conrad is basically on his own against the Russians. The AH forces are heavily deployed into the targeted area. They have 2 "B" corps and 2 cav corps screening the Serbians and a few cavs corps screening the Bukovinia.

Turn 1: The Russians activate along the front and advance into Austria and southeastern Germany. They blow by the cav screen from the German 1st cav and slam into the mountains northeast of Brunn with 4 "A" corps. They lose the battle.

2 Impulse: OK, now the mass of the Russian army really comes into play. The Russians attack 5 hexes. They lose in 4 of the 5: N and NE of Brun and Krakow. These battles are pretty even in terms of manpower and readiness lost. They also attack Prsemyl and lose but that is a pinning action to stop the AH's from leeching the garrison off. They break the AH lines SE of Krakow in the non-mountain hex.

The AH move the 8th corps "A" holding south of Lemberg northwest towards the main action and the German mobile forces begin to move south to try and push into the Russian flank around Lodz.

Great AAR ILCK with good deployment info. Keep up the good work [8D]

Two notes to Russian setup though.

I would leave a Corps in Riga and Petrograd to guard against invasions if Germany goes east first. An army group in the Ukraine to gain ground with cavalry would be a worthwhile investment IMO.

OK, on the third impulse the Russians continued their push. The gap south of Krakow was widened as three Russian corps reach the Carpathians. The AH forces attempted to use a corps from Krakow and one from Lemberg to try and hold the Carpthains but both failed. The AH forces are split in two and have little offensive firepower at their disposal since the Russian attacks on both the fortresses and the far left of the AH line have ruined the AH forces. My problem is that the Russian forces are spent on the left and I don't have any HQ's to immediately push the gap south of Krakow. The German corps on the flank are the second stack north in the screen shot and the Russians are pulling some of their battered corps (the 9th for example) out of the line to try and delay the Germans on the flank.

At this point, The AH have weathered the worst of the storm. The 3 Germans corps will be a major problem for the Russian flank and rail movement and reinforcements should help the CP's more than Russia mostly because Russia is so low on OP's and it is hard for them to buy more and keep their armies up.

ORIGINAL: hjaco

Great AAR ILCK with good deployment info. Keep up the good work [8D]

Two notes to Russian setup though.

I would leave a Corps in Riga and Petrograd to guard against invasions if Germany goes east first. An army group in the Ukraine to gain ground with cavalry would be a worthwhile investment IMO.

House rule, I don't allow those sorts of amphibious attacks.

I could, if I was really doing this, leech a corps from Armenia to walk across the Bukovinia and grab some resources hexes. I

I should also mention that I put the Serbs on the move but their attacks failed at Sarejavo.