Matrix Games Forums

Intro
So this AAR is from my perspective as the Axis player. I have been a beta tester for the last two years and Keitherson reached out on Discord looking for someone from the beta team to play against. So I obliged. I have never played him before and most of my PBEM experience has been against Tyrone and as many who may of know of Tyrone, he is an amazing player. Oh, I did participated in a MP playtest with I think 6-8 of us and took AGS. But that is neither here nor there.

This wont be super fancy from my side, but I'll try to provide some content and screenshots as time allows and to the best of my abilities. I also told Keitherson that he is welcome to view and provide content. I'll be posting 2-4 turns behind our actual game and we both agreed not to share any strategic insides. Yet, I am also open to having this be a helpful aid if possible for new players. Using manual AD for the first turn I think you can get the most out of more so than the AI, but then for the most part I just use AI assist for the air war and tweak it to suit my needs.

A warning, I have a 4k monitor so my screenshots will be quite big, especially the map views. To this end I'll stitch together a large map of the general whole area zoomed out by three (with being zoomed in all the way being zoom level 1, from my perspective) and for the next level zoom in's I'll use the 'y' to just display the name of the formation and hide their other status and cv's.

A precursor, I am doing my best to give Keitherson a great gaming experience I am pretty sure he is even more experienced than I with regards to WitE 1; however, I am also not going to optimize every single move. I have some advantage of playing turn 1 of the CG more times then I care to count over the last 2 years. But I know there are some folks from the WitE scene that would out play me, and of course all my losses in play testing came at the hands of Tyrone, so I may just really suck at this game, lol.


General Overall plan

The overall plan for the air War on Turn 1 is to destroy as much of the VVS as possible. To achieve this I am not over optimizing things. In fact I am only creating 10 AD, 7 of which are GS the rest being GA on D1 only.

The overall plan for the Ground War on Turn 1 is to pocket as many Soviet units as possible while keeping my own losses down. Attempt to secure Riga, Minsk and isolate Lvov. Turn 2 will be the clean up of those pockets. Capture Lvov and be ready to strike the Land Bridge on turns 3-5. Also on Turn 2 to exploit as many holes as possible and to encircle as much as possible in the south. Turn 3 is to close off and destroy and remaining pockets. Reach or encircle Odessa and attempt to reach or encircle Kiev. Turn 4 goal is to capture Smolensk and Kiev and if I have not captured Odessa to take that as well. By turn 5 if all goes as planned strike east...Note since this is an ongoing AAR I don't want to reveal my strategic directions, they most likely will become apparent as we play though the game.

The 10 Air Directives Summary setup:


Turn 1 to follow.

Turn 1

Special notes

Air Loss Results from the Air Directives:



As you can see here I believe I have achieved my goal. I did not get 4,000 but achieving 3,325 with these 10 manual created AD is sufficient enough for me. My losses are a little high, but we shall see if this pays off or comes back to haunt me.

This is the air losses from just the border battles (i.e. the easy forts, NKVD and MG/arty units sitting on the border):


Ground results, advances and overall thoughts

Captured Riga, Vilnius, and Minsk. Isolated Brest Litovsk and I think I have shredded both the Western and Northwestern Front.

End of turn overview:



Highlights from this turn:

Captured Minsk and the border encirclements.



AGC encirclements and forward progress.


Losses

Ground Losses:


Air Losses:


Destroyed:

I used Imgur to rescale the images, since their so large. Hope they are not too grainy. It all looks splendid on my 4k in real life.

Turn 2

Ground results, advances and overall thoughts

Just to mop up pockets, drive east and create more new pockets. I would like to take Pskov and Smolensk by turn 4. Captured Rovno, Lvov, Stanislav, and Chernovtsy. Eliminated 85% of the pockets I believe.

End of turn overview:


Highlights from this turn:

Almost completed the pocket using Romanians:



Did not close the gap, made some mental errors of judgement here.



Losses

Ground Losses:


Air Losses:


Destroyed:

Thank you for the AAR Zhovs.
Loved those opening moves, but
Did you delay rail repair by 1 turn for those pockets? The double rail by Kaunas->Minks, the double rail by Brest Litovks->Mink, the rail to Riga

No I cleared all the double rails except for Brest-Litovsk and Lvov on turn 1, cleared those on turn two.

Oh btw that you for your comments and reading.

I'm going to read Keith's AAR on discord as well so unless you both get a lot of turns ahead of the AAR I won't be posting on either thread and risking breaches of Opsec :p. Just to let you know you have a 'silent subscriber' and to wish you good luck!

Thank you Sammy5IsAlive and much appreciated!

Turn 3

Ground results, advances and overall thoughts

Again to drive east as far as possible, mop up pockets an push towards Pskov and Smolensk.

End of turn overview:


Highlights from this turn:

The drive to Pskov.



The push towards Orsha.



The Mogilev-Podolsky pocket.



Losses

Ground Losses:


Air Losses:


Destroyed:

The fonts are too big for those corps HQs but you must be able to manage through that.

Lol....

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS

The fonts are too big for those corps HQs but you must be able to manage through that.

I believe they are "emphasized"! hehehehe

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

I'm going to read Keith's AAR on discord as well so unless you both get a lot of turns ahead of the AAR I won't be posting on either thread and risking breaches of Opsec :p. Just to let you know you have a 'silent subscriber' and to wish you good luck!

There is a discord forum with more AAR's?

There is a discord forum with more AAR's?

Sent you an invite link to your PMs

ORIGINAL: keitherson

There is a discord forum with more AAR's?

Sent you an invite link to your PMs

Thank you

Yep that is where I met Keitherson.

I may set up an AAR there, you can have AARs setup so the other fellow can’t see em.

Is this discord secret?

ORIGINAL: dudefan

Is this discord secret?

No. https://discord.gg/AFpYzhpsNs

Good to see the AAR. Good luck. I've been following Keitherson's side on discord so will avoid commenting on anything here.