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WWII: Struggle for Europe____WWII: Struggle for Asia => After Action Reports / Playtesting => Topic started by: British_Mike on April 13, 2009, 10:23:28 AM
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Colleagues,
John and I have been playing a game, start date Autumn 1939, for a few weeks now. Here are some installments.
- Autumn 1939 turn attached.
Cheers
Mike
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And here is the uber-dramatic Winter 1939 and Spring 1940 turn report, played last night.
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You truly must be from the Home Isles!
Photo-recce? I noticed this term in the latest book I am reading on the Battle of Britain.
It is the English term for photo-recon.
While I saw your use of "c" in defence (defense), that could have been explained away as you being Canadian (or some other Commonwealth country).
Craig
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Well spotted. I'm all British all the time. But loving being here in the USA.
OK, gotta go and do a review of the board for the next planning session. Summer 40 is coming.
Cheers
Mike
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Great quote on the loss of Norway:
“The gain to Germany was immense. In the course of a few weeks the entire Allied maritime situation in northern waters had been transformed. For Britain, instead of a friendly neutral across the North Sea limiting the area of naval patrol, there was now a hostile coastline dominated by the long-range bombers of the Luftwaffe; the tenuous patrol-line had been thrown back to the island chain = Orkneys, Shetlands, Faroes, Iceland – leading to the Denmark Strait and the icebound Greenland shore. At one stroke Germany had secured the vital iron ore route, had all but broken the stranglehold of naval blockade, and had gained for her armed forces what Hitler called ‘a wider start-line against Britain.’ Well might Raeder find satisfaction at the result of his nefarious plotting.”
From p. 41 of “Silent Victory” by Duncan Grinnell-Milne (this is a wonderful little 1958 paperback, which tells the story of Raeder’s doomed effort to come up with a way to invade Britain in the face of British sea power and with only grudging support from the Luftwaffe).
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Sometimes operations don' t evolve as planned...
Yes, Norway was a disaster....
Of course that can open other doors of opportunity
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John is trying to psych me out ... and it's working. :o
I face imminent invasion of Britain due to a daring German non-combat move by Raeder into the Channel at the end of Spring 40 move (boy do I wish I had held France for another turn). The Luftwaffe have complete air superiority. Britain is protected by Home Guard with pitchforks. These are scary times.
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All,
here is part one of the after-action on the Summer 40 turn. Lots of images.
Cheers
Mike
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And here's part two of the Summer 40 turn ...
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Guys, here is the Autumn 40 turn. Britain suffered her worst setbacks in this turn. A lightning thrust on Egypt has undone much of the good work since the war began. A couple of mistakes early on shattered me and led to a spiral of mistakes later on. As Ironside said of the French in 1940 ...
"they were defeated at the head without casualties."
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Keep a stiff upper lip and kick that Italians' butt back to Tripoli!!!!!!!! :P :P :P
Down goes Graziani!!!! Down goes Graziani!!!! ;) ;) ;)
Craig
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Well thank-you Craig, in these dark times that is much appreciated. I have a feeling Graziani will dine in Alexandria before Mark Clark dines in Rome. But that's war.
Cheers
Mike
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All,
here's Winter 40-41. More retreats and naval disasters for the Allies. Cairo holds though and Auchinleck ("the Auk") is in charge. As the great man said in his order of the day:
"The enemy is stretching to his limit and thinks we are a broken army ... He hopes to take Egypt by bluff. Show him when he gets off."
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I am about to implement Operation Madness next turn. Mike beware! - I've got an idea - Mark can attest - my ideas are either genius or pure disaster ;D
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I am about to implement Operation Madness next turn. Mike beware! - I've got an idea - Mark can attest - my ideas are either genius or pure disaster ;D
Which differs from Mark's ideas, which are all pure disasters! ;D
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Give us more, now!!!!!!! :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o ;D
Craig
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My Plans are only disasters for my oponents! Bwahahahahahah!!!!
. . .anyway. . .no kidding - where are the next batch of fotos? Is the war going that poorly for the Allies that you are forced to black out all news?
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My plan failed. That is all I can say. Nothing more. Nothing less. I'm not even sure if my opponenet knew about Operation madness - it was that bad....
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Guys,
here's Spring and Summer 41, another bruising set of turns for the Allies, but at least Russia's in!
Cheers
Mike
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And here we have Autumn 41. Germans advance deeper into Russia, bypassing the tougher defences and occupying vast tracts of abandoned land. Elsewhere, Brit operations hit various horrible snags, as usual,
Cheers
Mike
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NO!!!! DON"T DO IT WINSTON!!!!!!! :o :o :o :o :o :o
The Western Med. is "fools gold" if attempted before the US can back you up. :'(
Let cooler heads prevail. ;)
Looks like you guys are having fun. Maybe too much fun in John's case. :P
Your rolls against the Graf Spee would have come out better if you had used a dice tower. ;D
Craig
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So Yoper - why don't you come out and join us at the end of the month at bring a couple dice towers with you?
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Well... ;)
What about Eric?
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John made a very perceptive comment when he said that the main reason for Allied failures is too many early failed inadequately-resources attacks, instead of later stronger attacks. I've taken that onboard, finally...
Will try to keep my hands off that nice shiny Fool's Gold ... mmm, shiny ...
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I can send along a couple of towers but I will be in Yellowstone caravan mode for the second half of June.
Like I said, Maybe Eric and I could come out in the fall.
I have update the dice tower design such that you no longer see dowels on the outside. I now use biscuits to connect the parts together.
The FMG guys are now selling them for me so that all I do is build them.
http://www.fieldmarshalgames.com/field-marshal-games-accesories/field-marshal-custom-dice-tower/custom-dice-tower.html
The one shown is still the old design but I just sent along the first batch of the new version.
Craig
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Here's Winter 41. Biggest battles since the Fall of France. A very active turn!
Had to split the PDF due to size constraints - here's part one.
Cheers
Mike
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...and here's part two, Hitler's first winter in Russia!
Cheers
Mike
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Here's Winter 41. Biggest battles since the Fall of France. A very active turn!
Had to split the PDF due to size constraints - here's part one.
Cheers
Mike
The Icelandic Manuever!
Are you sure Mark isn't there? ;D
Craig
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very cool play by play - wish I was there playing! Seems like a very good game - still don't know which way it is leaning. . .
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Disaster struck for the Axis (me) for the Spring 1942 turn. Fate smiles upon Mother Russia...
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Where are the Spring 42 Pics? ? ? I would like to see this disaster inflicted upon John ;D
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Where are the Spring 42 Pics? ? ? I would like to see this disaster inflicted upon John ;D
Dude - that's pretty coldhearted...
But I have to admit, also hilarious...
In our group, our favorite comment at the beginning of the game (and especially when we have a new player) is "No one ever fails to take out Poland" or "(fill in the blank) just in case Poland holds out - but of course that never happens..." in tribute to Peter's most (in)famous moment last year.
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Yeah - everyone really loves to beat on me. I take it as a compliment. 8)
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Spring 42 will be titled "Miracle at Gomel"
You'll see...
Has High Command grossly underestimated Russian infantry's will to fight? :o :-\ :( >:(
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Here is the Spring 1942 summary - after about a month's break. . .
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Here is Summer 42. A turn where both sides took stock in Russia and where the Axis heavily reinforced North Africa.
Cheers
Mike
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And the Autumn 42 turn report, John outflanks me in North Africa and bounces off my defences again in Russia,
Cheers
Mike
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Great summaries, Mike - when this thing is all over I think we should print out all these pdfs to make into one package outlining the war!
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Playing at this pace allows for one really feel the grind over time. It is no longer just a game, but a way of life. I think I have, on several occasions, witnessed Mike writing out orders to imaginary generals. I don't think he has any time to fit work in. ;)
Now that is a game!
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Playing at this pace allows for one really feel the grind over time. It is no longer just a game, but a way of life. I think I have, on several occasions, witnessed Mike writing out orders to imaginary generals. I don't think he has any time to fit work in. ;)
Now that is a game!
Something I would love to do with this game is to have two teams playing double-blind. There would be one big map that the referee would control and then each side would also have a map. Each side would be in separate rooms and wouldn't be able to see the main map. They would send movement and combat orders to the referee, who would roll the dice and inform each side of the results. Neither side would ever be sure exactly what was in front of them. I'm not sure if it would work - but I love the idea of doing it.
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We have a friend that created a double blind for the new A and A game - It is ALOT of fun. Scout planes and all!
Double blind for this game would be amazing...
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"Double blind for this game would be amazing... "
Yeah, amazingly LONG!! :-)
I think the initiative system and the sheer complexity of the game already creates a lot of space for strategic and tactical surprise. Plus I think both sides had fairly good insight into force levels in the historical reality through SIGINT etc, particularly where forces were adjacent.
But here are two simple mechanisms that could be adopted to add uncertainty to the game:
1) Introduce dummy markers. Each side (Western / Sov / Axis) can have 10. They look like the normal Grey and Red markers, but they have an "X" on the underside. This allows one to create Patton's phantom First US Army Group, in theory.
2) Cover the Build tables and the strategic redeployment. Advanced players with time on their hands could allow each other 1-2 specific questions each nation each turn ("how many tanks are in the "1" box of your US build table?")
Cheers
Mike
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Yes, it would be really long. Sometimes I forget that I’m not 22 years old anymore with all the time in the world for gaming… Still, I can’t help but think how much fun it would be.
The idea of having dummy chips is a good one. That reminds me – John/Mark - where do you get the chips for this game? Going to various stores all I can find are full-sized poker chips. I already raided my old A&A game, but find myself still needing more of the white one.
We’ve already discussed making the construction tables secret – I think this is something that we’re eventually going to do.
I think it would also be a good idea to have a gearing limit like they have in WiF. I always thought that was one of the more realistic things in that game. You couldn’t just say “whoops – I’m going to need some armor – I better build some. We don’t have much of an issue with this for things like armor and aircraft, but it happens a lot with infantry. You might see someone build 2 one turn, 8 the next, back to 2, etc. In real life you couldn’t just hop from producing one item to producing another item - switching from building a lot of one item to a lot of another item would require a lot of retooling and down time.
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OK - here is the chips link
http://www.mrchips.net/index.html?http&&&www.mrchips.net/games.html
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I ordered from this site not too long ago for some white and some black. It looks like they don't have any black right now.
http://www.unclesgames.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=mini+poker+chips&search_in_description=1&osCsid=323e554083d6bd946c07de4eb32a0bef&x=11&y=18
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What I really enjoy about the AARs is the pics like the last one in the Autumn report.
One guy is smiling and the other is just drowning his sorrows! :'( ;)
It's why we play the games. ;D
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Dear all,
here's Winter 42/43. Some really nail-biting stuff.
Cheers
Mike
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This turn was rough for the Eastern Front Axis. What about the western front? Stabilized? - Stay tuned. .. 8)
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Wow - that has been a lot of capital ships lost to u-boats. . . Have the Germans established a stalemate in the West? What is the current VP status?
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U-boats? Wait til you see Spring 1943...
I'll leave it at that.
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Well - here it finally is - had to be broken up because file was too large
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More..
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more...
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Look at that disgust! :o
Do those furry things have a life of their own? ???
How many "goose-stepping morons" got taken out back and shot over that beatdown! :-[
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Craig - talk is cheap - when are you going to face me. Yes - of course you can bring in your support team. ;)
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Craig - talk is cheap - when are you going to face me. Yes - of course you can bring in your support team. ;)
How about for my Birthday (01/29)? Looks like a $230 round tripper.
I don't need no stinking crew! To get beat, that is. :'(
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Well - you'll need a final copy of the rules (to read and edit). If you are a definite - let me know - can anyone else make it fron your neck of the woods? You guys can crash at my house...
Just in case - Mark will be back around the holidays - any chance of that for you?
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I had a hard enough time getting Dan to Origins. The main incentive at the time was a repeat thrashing of Mark's Germany by his Soviets. Since then, he has been around about on the job scene so he would probably be strapped anyway.
And Eric just finally got the GM pink slip so I don't see that happening either. Unfortunately, he may not be around that much longer. Hopefully he can find something, but it will probably be down in the South somewhere. His wife is from Dallas and he is looking for greener pastures.
The Holidays are so eaten up by both sides of my wife's family that there is no way to get away then. That is why I bring up an off time like my birthday.
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It's been mighty quiet around these parts.
What happen to the war? A bit of a "Sitzkrieg" going on right now?
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Yeah - no kidding. . . I need an update! Did Mike throw in the towel? What happened?
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This looks really neat, I am looling forward to the game.
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I think Mike threw in the towel in this game - he could just not break into john's Fortress Europa.
I look forward to playing this game again soon too! I am over in Europe for work for a year and don't get a chance to play anymore :'(