Flaviusx v. Tyronec

[Almeron]

Do not attack flak based hex. And if the german avoid any fight, well, wait unitl Belgium.
How many german planes where killed yet? If more than 40+ you did a good job.

[Michael T]

Your Armoured counter attack force is what I have been doing since day one. I always have 3 Allied Tank Corp. In my current game I managed to kill 2 German Panzer Corp, 2 German INF Corp and over run a Bomber. Plus lots of step air/Pz/Inf losses on the German. France still fell in August but it was a bloody victory for Germany.

The basic strategy is sound. Fight in France with teeth.

The key is too know when to pack up and get out without losing BEF units.

[Flaviusx]

This is part of the reason I don't want to send in infantry. I'm afraid they won't be easily extracted when the time comes to bug out. And I frankly don't think the French need more infantry in France. There is enough there to do the job already. What is lacking is the ability to punish the German spearhead.

In retrospect I could've waited one more turn and substituted a 2nd UK armored corps for the mech that I actually built, but I am afraid of bad weather luck and having the WDF there by itself for too long.

This way the WDF gets there immediately. The UK mech arrives in February. And the French armored arrives in April. I won't be biting my nails here quite so much and fearing a stretch of cold. I am very gunshy about this now.

Now I am trying to decide what to do with advancements. Am leaning towards slapping an antitank on the French armor and infiltration on the UK one. If there is time for a second attachment, an AT on the British mech. At the point of contact the Allies would actually have superiority in armor this way and some minor bonus in forcing retreats.

Most folks seem to want to use the elite advancement. I don't know.

[Flaviusx]

Nov 10, heavy rains shut down the front. No bombing is possible nor hardly any movement. I can't even merge garrison units in this mud, which is bit awkward since I am splitting and recombining things to get it just right.

I judge the French situation sufficiently stable to start lend lease to Britain. They need the extra production quite badly. I decided, against my judgement, to forego buying an escort this turn and save up for some big ticket item. Not sure what. I very much fear finding myself without adequate escorts in mid 1940 if I keep deferring these builds. The subs are plinking away happily at British convoys already. Note that the allies only begin with 15 escorts total and 3 of those are French. This is manifestly inadequate and if the Germans chose the correct convoy route, they will find it underdefended. Subs are a much more serious threat now than before and cannot be totally ignored.

[Michael T]

I put AT on the French. One AT and one Elite for the Brits.

[Flaviusx]

So you aren't sold on infiltration?

I wish I knew just how big of a deal that extra 5% retreat was. This is very much under the hood and there is no way to gauge it. 5% could be significant depending on the retreat chance. Or not.

[Journier]

i think it also affects not only retreat but shatter chance. that 5% could be huge across 10 armored units, if you were willing to eat not having one of the other specialties.

[Flaviusx]

I do not think the infiltration bonus stacks. All you need is one unit in the combat with it, and any more besides that are wasted.

If they *do* stack, that would be crazy good. Maybe too good.

Indeed, I'm pretty sure none of the attachments stack like this. Like bombardment.

[Flaviusx]

Nov 24, snow.

I tried this little bombing thing. Result: four lost allied air factors and one lost German land factor. The luftwaffe, as expected, declined to play.

A damp squib. Won't be trying that again.

The German doesn't have to get into grinding battles of attrition in the air if he doesn't want to. It will happen only when and if he advances. It cannot be imposed on him otherwise. I'm better off sitting tight and waiting for it. They'll be coming soon enough.

[Michael T]

The infiltration thing does not stack according to the rules.

[MagicMissile]

Good luck both! I hope for a conventional Russian invasion want more data on Barbarossa but whatever happens will be interesting to follow.

/MM

[Flaviusx]

Dec 22. More heavy rains. All quiet on the western front, there has been no break at all in the weather since October. Germany continues to raid the atlantic, but the allies have finally drawn blood on the Norwegian convoy in return.

I'm not even bothering to chase his subs right now. My carriers can't fly in heavy rain anyways. Just a waste of oil.

The British treasury has enough to buy another interceptor this turn...and after mulling it over, I decide not to.

I want another mech. I have just enough time to get another into France by early May. And after that big buy is done I need to start doing more boring things like building escorts and infantry. The Germans actually sunk one of my escorts this turn.

I'm doubting that having another fighter in 6 months is going to matter very much compared to having a 3rd mobile corps in France in May.

[battlevonwar]

Full on BEF there Flavius, learning the ways of the Jedi French Defense. Make the Germans bleed a little...

[Flaviusx]

March 1, 1940. The weather finally clears for a turn, and the Germans knock out Belgium in one go.

The allies advance into Belgium and counterattack an exposed German infantry corps. It takes several attacks, but eventually it is sent packing, much reduced. Presumably it was set on hold. I am gambling that the weather will turn bad again in mid March and I can hold these positions. If it remains clear, this could blow up in my face. After a round of bloody air battles over Belgium, losses stand at 66 allied versus 55 German total thus far. Not a bad ratio, all things considered. The 1st. British Mechanized corps arrives in France this turn, not a moment too soon, but needs to be railed to the front ASAP.

[Flaviusx]

Heavy rains the following turn. Whew. All quiet on the Western Front again.

It was a good bet. The odds were in my favor based on the weather table. But I took a real risk there. I was not well positioned to absorb a German blow, having moved out of my trenches and somewhat exhausted myself attacking. The Germans could've wrecked me in clear weather.

But I wanted to push the front back a bit and give myself some extra room. This also helps protect Lille a bit rather than putting it right on the front line.

[Rosseau]

Thanks for the AAR.

Was just curious, and ignore me if inappropriate, but was wondering: With your wealth of experience with WitE, etc., how does this game feel to you? Vastly simplified, much more playable, etc. I do have the game, but have not done PvP. Thanks.

[Flaviusx]

It's just a different sort of game altogether. This is grand strategy at the ETO level. You are not just pushing panzers, either. You have the economies to manage, and considerable freedom in creating you own military establishments. There are diplomatic considerations as well, and alliance management.

At the purely mechanical level it is a simpler game than WITE. There is a lot of stuff abstracted. But that doesn't make it a simpler game, there is much to think about and you have to be able to plan many moves ahead...knowing that your plans might go in the toilet, too.

It's a great game. It's rough and unpolished and needs much work, but this is *the* game to have for ETO grand strategy, imo. It is well on its way to becoming the gold standard on the subject.

[tyronec]

It was a good bet. The odds were in my favor based on the weather table. But I took a real risk there. I was not well positioned to absorb a German blow, having moved out of my trenches and somewhat exhausted myself attacking. The Germans could've wrecked me in clear weather.

But I wanted to push the front back a bit and give myself some extra room. This also helps protect Lille a bit rather than putting it right on the front line.

Yes, I pushed that unit forwards thinking that if you counterattacked, as you did, and there was CLEAR the next turn, then I could have done a lot of damage. Low odds and it didn't happen. It was not on Hold, just stuck out longer than it should have. They are being sent off to garrison Poland now and have a good rest.

Comparing Warplan to WITE. I think it is a great game with a lot to think about on the Strategic level and for the tactical moves.There probably more aspects, compared to WITE, that don't seem right - but that is a function of the higher level abstraction. So if you compare it to Steel Panthers for example that has less that feels historically wrong.

I probably have two issues with the game going forwards playing HvH. One is that I think it is going to end up being a bit linear, there will be one optimum sequence of DOWs for Axis and one optimum strategy, which looks like for now: '39-Poland, Denmark, Netherlands. '40-Belgium, France, Greece. '41-Russia.
My second issue is that it is highly important to not make small mistakes. So leave one port open in the UK, or Italy or lose a Panzer early in '40 and that could cost the game. So you need to be very methodical every move, which I find tiresome. WITE is a bit more forgiving of one unit in the wrong hex.

For me WITE is the best game ever, would put Warplan up there among the best of the rest.

[battlevonwar]

tyronec, indeed a loss of 1 unit, an empty port...in a game with such huge abstraction = a lot of consequences.

[Flaviusx]

WITE is not so punishing of individual small mistakes, but I think it requires more time and micromanagement. Turns take longer over there. It is as fiddly as you want it to be, and that can be very fiddly.

You can get by with careless play, but it will catch up to you. And the game rewards the player who takes minute attention to detail over the one who doesn't...just not immediately. It is more of a cumulative effect.

Even in WITE it is possible to make big individual mistakes, usually by failing to garrison some important city and assuming the German cannot get there. (The German side is less prone to such errors than the Soviet, obviously.) Mobile units with full movement have an enormous theoretical range of action. The combat system is also not very intuitive and takes a while to develop a feel for as compared to War Plan.

Once you get behind the curve in WITE it is difficult to recover. I have hardly ever seen it.

And over time WITE is pretty darn scripted. Veteran players practically have the opening turn down to a science and indeed one of my gripes about the game is that this opening turn is far more effective than it should be. The infamous Lvov pocket, where most of SW Front gets cut off on turn 1. I have never liked it and the designers never got around to fixing that. Min maxing this opening turn reached the point where it robbed a lot of fun of the game for me.

At any rate I am not going to say one of these games is better than the other because they are doing different things. Apples and oranges. They scratch different itches. If you are looking for operational warfare on the Eastern Front, WITE is the last word on the subject. (At least until WITE2 comes out!)