MM (Axis) VS HB (Allied) Game over HB welcome

[MagicMissile]

Hello everyone, back again tell a friend as Eminem once sang [:)].

I have missed the game and havent played it for a long time but I have been reading the forums. During my absence I have relocated to a new country Thailand and also trying to change my lifestyle after some bad health news. Also trying to learn WitE2. It is in many ways a very nice game but I dont like it as much as I like Warplan I must say. I will start a GC in Wite2 vs a human and see if that makes it more fun than playing vs the AI.

Anyway back to this game. I am feeling a bit rusty and there have been many changes since I last played so we will see how it goes. Playing vs Harrybanana wont make it any easier [:)].

I generally play conservative as I want to try out the balance of the "basegame" as in doing a 1941 Barbarossa and see how that plays out. It is good that some try out the outlier strategies but I want to see that the foundation is sound. At the moment it feels like it is not with the Soviets getting stomped a lot it seems like but the changes in 1.12 might make a difference we will see.

Good luck to HarryB!

/MM

[MagicMissile]

Below the Axis tech.

Nothing special with the Germans I think. With the Italians the idea is that the infantry will all be converted to Anti tank and defend the motherland in garrisonmode whereas the offensive arm mech units and groundsupport AC will support the Germans in the east.

[MagicMissile]

September 1 1939

The war begins again. In Poland I use only one armour as I like to use nr 2 to take Copenhagen. I actually killed the Polish cav unit after I took the screenshot so it actually does not exist.

I bombed Lyon scored 4 hits. Sent out the subs a lot hinges on them please Neptune give me luck! [:)].

I was thinking of trying something different like going for Yugoslavia in the autumn but the weather will be bad so I think it might not be a good idea.

[MagicMissile]

September 15 1939

Poland and Denmark falls under our boot. Build a pz Corps. Feel strange that I wont be able to put the whole army in garrison mode to get those early builds. Been a basic strat for a long time. I remove some divisions from the westwall to use as garrison of Denmark and ports as jumping back and forth between modes is a thing of the past now.

Von Reichenau gained a 8 in mobility good for him [:)].

[MagicMissile]

September 29 1939

The French take Luxemburg under their "protection"

The subs sink 5 MM and 1 escort but one sub takes 2 hits so not so good.

Start moving forces to the west.

[MagicMissile]

End of 39

Some sinkings in the Atlantic otherwise nothing going on.

Sub war going ok 4 sunk escorts is a nice start.

My build is not well planned out. But my build for France 40 is 3 arm corps 2 mech corps 2 Stukas and 2 subs + some supply trucks and upgrades. To afford this I did take a slight economic hit by puting some corps in garrison mode. The thought process is that the subs might inflict enough damage to be worth it. We will see. What annoys me is I forgot to build a fighter that might end up as bad news.

Tech is going pretty slowly with arm and sub upgrades ok at 150 days but the assault is at 190 so no upgrades or very late of the infantry in France that also is not good news.

Of note is the lower Soviet forces pretty sure it is the mech corps that have been disbanded.

[MagicMissile]

May 24 1940

Got a cold turn in March and took the Netherlands. First turn of May was raining so the Offensive started on May 24.

With Kesselring in command Belgium fell with small losses to the Germans. The allies did not contest in the air.

I took advantage of a division in the most southern hex of the Maginotline and broke through. Should make the whole campaign easier with all the southern VP cities and maybe Metz open for capture. Means I might not have to fight over Rouen which is always nice. If enough is commited a division can always be moved. I like to keep 20 str corps in each hex of the Maginot.

My subs did fine for a while but now 2 turns in a row I lost 4 points for small sinkings so have to retreat to port for a while not so good.

[MagicMissile]

Back in action in this game too.

The German HQ dreamt of a succesful breakout through the Maginot line sweeping south conquering everything clearing the Alp garrison allowing for an early Italian DoW. But it seems unfortunately it will stay just a dream. What the German HQ forgot is that the supply situation is very bad in that area. At most I might be able to grab Metz. So not as good as hoped for.

Approaching Paris trying to keep the breakthrough wide to avoid too many dangerous counterattacks. Now though I have a mech in a
dangerous position we will see how it goes but it should have enough retreat space.

I am not in a super rush I hope to take Paris in 2 turns. I also notice St Nazaire is unoccupied for now so a sneak invasion there could save me a fight for Metz or Rouen.

[MagicMissile]

July 5 1940

Paris and Metz fall and I dont think they can be counterattacked so the campaign for France seems to be over. The defender of Paris was a British unit which surrendered. Always glad when I can get a British unit [:)]. The rest of BEF is not on ports or rail but my mech forces are tired so I dont think I will be able to harass the Bristish very much if at all.

[MagicMissile]

France Surrenders. I move some units towards Yugoslavia, Norway and the Med. Italy declares war and put Malta under siege.

Pursue the British forces so they actually leave.

Here are forces and casulaties after the campaign in France.

If we compare it with the other game I note the following:

Losses in general are lower than what I am used to.

As usual I suck in the air war. I lost 1:2 as the allied and managed to hold 1:1 as the Axis. I think it is because I leave air on full support because I forget to turn it off [:)].

BoA is doing pretty similar but I have done slightly better because of that carrier strike. In general in both games I feel the subs are not doing too good they get hit all the time and have to go back and repair.

With the subs doing soso I realise I have overbought as I wrote earlier on the escorts and my British army is smaller than HBs.

HB has disbanded mech and a couple of Soviet air to build more corps and I guess arm units. Just to try out something different I will build less corps but disband some mech on the first turn of the war to build more armies. I havent played with this corps converting to armies stuff so not sure what to expect but I always built a fair amount of armies on turn 1 of the war I will continue to do that.

Ill post the same post in the other thread

[MagicMissile]

August 16 1940

Invade Yugoslavia. Italian arm corps heroes Overrunning the Yugoslavian airforce and locking down Belgrade.

[MagicMissile]

The Proud German subfleet now 6 strong fully refitted set sail for the Atlantic. This sortie feels important want good results this time. The BoA so far seems not to be doing as good as it used too but its fairly early yet [:)].

Bad news the British is also lurking with a Uk unit outside the coast of Norway. Also defending Vichy Africa but I dont really care about Africa so that is ok.

[MagicMissile]

End of 1940

Skipping forward a bit. I have taken a lot of screen shots but I have been a bit lazy and also lack of time a little bit so havent updated the AAR.

What happened in September to December

1) I took Norway. I invaded with a full corps and paras so fell easily but cost 3 landing ships. But there was a lot of Naval action around Narvik as the UK tried to put a division there before I could get a German unit there. It was a close call. Bismarck heavily damaged but in the end I sank 2 UK inf divisions and got a German unit to Narvik. It was a very close call and if the UK player is awake it can really mess up the German plans when they invade Norway.

2) After Yugoslavia I also went after Greece. 2 reasons 1 is so the games wont be completely the same. Some variance at least. Also BoA going pretty badly so some MM to the UK dont bother me that much. 2. I am sure other people have realised it too but if you dont dont take Greece you wont get Bulgaria which means when the tide turns in the East the Soviets can declare war and invade and capture 2 ports and get a unit 2 hexes from Budapest. Combined with an invasion of France for example so railcap might be limited it might create some problems for the axis at least. We will see if I can use it in the other game later.
Greece itself fell prety easily but a UK div landed on Crete and it took me 4 landingships to invade and retake it. Also Italian Navy have suffered lost 2 BB in a battle later land based air and italian subs retaliated and sank 2 UK BBs I think, at least one might be a bit of propaganda here , But losses in factors was like 1:1 in the end but the UK is fine with that I think.

3) Complete standoff in Egypt no one is moving anything. UK waiting for the Germans to head east before doing anything I guess.

4) BoA goes really bad. My six sub sortie in august ended up losing 1 sub and 13 sub factors in total for 12 merchants sunk not very good. Later sortie doing a bit better but German subs get hit in almost every attack they make.

5) Building up in the East. I have played a bit different this time building more air and less mech also upgrading more than usual so I think German army wont be much more than 1500-1550 and will only have 10 german mech and 3 italian when the attack against the Sovietunion begins. The Soviets have so many units on the map looks a bit scary .

[MagicMissile]

Casualties and forces end of 1940

[MagicMissile]

And the tech situation

[Flaviusx]

As the Axis I would sooner invade Bulgaria myself than take Greece. I think Greece is just not worth it.

As for Barbarossa, imo the optimal build is not this mech heavy force people used to do. That was a great idea before trucks got nerfed. And before the garrisons. What I found in playtesting is that this big old panzer ball just runs out of gas and the Axis has a hard time sustaining the drive. You also end up burning them out attacking those garrisons.

I think your idea is better for where the game is now. A dozen or so mobile corps and more airpower and maybe more infantry. A more balanced force.

[MagicMissile]

Hello,

Yes the better solution might be to invade Bulgaria and that might well be the standard after people have read this but so far I dont think I have seen an AAR where the Axis actually do invade Bulgaria but that might be because the Sovietunion havent lived long enough to actually invade [:)]

Ok sounds good less mech more air exactly as the doctor ordered [:)].

[sveint]

Personally I've changed my mind on Norway and Greece, I think both are worth taking. Don't want easy Allied landings anywhere.

[Flaviusx]

How much do you intend to defend Greece with?

I think the allies could take Athens in one shot even if you planted a full German infantry corps there. You'd need airpower on top of that to dissuade them. But that is airpower not being used to defend Italy.

Better, imo, to let the allies land there and defend inland. (And out of reach of the Allied Fleet.) The logistics aren't amazing down there, either. You have one rail line to work with. If the Allies want to to march overland towards Bulgaria and Yugoslavia as opposed to Italy, okay, fine. That doesn't knock Italy out of the war. Anything that diverts the Allies away from Taranto and Naples is a win imo. All this stuff directed at Italy could actually knock it out.

[MagicMissile]

Feb 41

Nothing going on. Here is a picture of Soviet defenses. Army size 2127.