tyronec (Axis) vs Grognard1812. Grognard welcome.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: lastkozak

It would seem that the "run away" strategy does not work very well! I would have thought that it would have led to very poor supply conditions for the Germans, leaving them with little option but to retreat back to better supply, or die in the Russian winter under the treads of the T34!

Actually it did do just that - just not by enough. I guess there is a more moderate runaway strategy that could have succeeded?

[Nix77]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

ORIGINAL: lastkozak

It would seem that the "run away" strategy does not work very well! I would have thought that it would have led to very poor supply conditions for the Germans, leaving them with little option but to retreat back to better supply, or die in the Russian winter under the treads of the T34!

Actually it did do just that - just not by enough. I guess there is a more moderate runaway strategy that could have succeeded?

I was about to respond exactly the same way. Running away fast becomes a lucrative option once you've been on the receiving end of the big pointy German stick, but it's really difficult to measure where to make stands and where to retreat and how far.

Below is an example where Grognard might have retained more land with less hasty retreat, there's a lot of good defensible terrain that is just lost for nothing. On the other hand, Tyronec's panzerball is quite intimidating there in the middle, isn't it? But see this quote on the next turn:

AGC. My infantry can barely keep up with the retreating Soviets. We make a little attack with one Pz corps so that the river line is effectively breached for next turn.

Retreating is usually a good idea as the Soviets, but 60+ miles, with rivers left behind? Not so much, I'd say.

Grognard did an excellent job though! With just a few less miles retreated...

[Dinglir]

Congratulations to both players for a good game.

Many players simply abandon the game once it begins going badly. I admire Grognard for sticking it out as long as hope remained, and I am sure both sides have learned a lot.

[Grognard1812]

I wish to congratulate Tyronec on his win and on a game well played by him.

Hindsight being 20/20 (which it always is) the biggest error I did in this game was not better defending Moscow.
Moscow with 2 light urban hexes, 1 heavy urban hex, and +5 for a capital city is worth 16 VP, and is the key
city to hold in a Sudden death or VC 260 campaign game. I should have defended Voronezh and Rostov (each worth
3 VP) with fewer forces and sent the majority of the Soviet army to the Moscow area. The game ended with Tyronec
having 243 VP, and I was 2 VP short of preventing a sudden death campaign game loss.

[Grognard1812]

The following screenshot is from the last Soviet GT, as the game ended on GT 42.

Even though I lost 60 Heavy Industry factories, and 110 Arnaments factories there was no apparent impact on the
ability of the Soviets army to equip their units and I ended the game with a small Arnaments surplus. On the last
turn of March 1942 the Soviet army was receiving 85,880 manpower per turn.

Clearly the strategy of retreating quickly and saving the Soviet army for a winter counter-offensive is not
effective when playing a Sudden death campaign game. I still believe that in a standard campaign game
it could be an effective way to play as a Soviet player when playing against a very experienced and capable Axis
player.

[Stelteck]

Even if the runaway strategy was working, i would not advocate playing it because it is not the most fun strategy ever for both side.

[tyronec]

Hindsight being 20/20 (which it always is) the biggest error I did in this game was not better defending Moscow.
Moscow with 2 light urban hexes, 1 heavy urban hex, and +5 for a capital city is worth 16 VP, and is the key
city to hold in a Sudden death or VC 260 campaign game.

I don't think it is possible to hold Moscow if the Soviets do a rapid retreat for the first 8 or so turns. The problem is Axis can take Leningrad early and will be able to redeploy PG4 to the centre so around GT10 the Soviets will be facing some 3 Panzer armies and 3 infantry armies attacking towards Moscow. Usually I would send 1 corps of PG3 and the whole of 2nd Army to support AGN and still have a good attack towards Moscow.
The Soviets just cannot stand up to that much strength in '41, all they can do is hold it up for a few turns and to retain Moscow they need more space to play with.

[chaos45]

personally I dont think the soviets can lose Moscow and still win the game in the current versions of the game....its to much lost manpower and a huge defensive/morale wintering bonus for the germans in first winter.

Soviet manpower levels were lowered in the past and now the soviets are usually on a very tight manpower budget until probably around like early 1944 if the axis player is any good, and whats really funny is manpower is more of an issue for Soviets than it is for the Axis until that point---which is very un-historical....again alot of this has to do with the combat system in the game being extremely flawed and basically irreparable from what I have been told.

Aside from bug fixes the game system prolly cant be tweaked alot more to get a more realistic results until WITE 2 is released as my understanding is it is using much better combat models for losses and results.

[Twigster]

I called this one! [:D]

[nathangun]

Just read this from start to finish, I'm new to the game and I've a lot to learn.
Very entertaining AAR.

[56ajax]

ORIGINAL: Stelteck

Even if the runaway strategy was working, i would not advocate playing it because it is not the most fun strategy ever for both side.

Totally agree - the game is not much fun for both sides at the same time. I assume Soviet fun comes in 1943 but by then my frustrations are so high I usually don't get that far.