Hey everybody,
I don’t know if anyone here would be interested in this or not, but we played the game at my house last night. This is the after action report I posted on the FOTOG (Falls Of The Ohio Gamers) Yahoo group. I’ve been trying to generate interest in the group to play this, but haven’t had much luck so far. I posted this in the hope of getting a couple of guys interested to try it at the next game club meeting in two weeks.
This was the fourth game for Peter and myself, though it’s been over a year since we played until we played again last week with Patrick; this was his second game.
Anyway, for whatever it’s worth, here’s what I wrote.
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We played “WWII: The Struggle for Europe & Asia” at my house again last night and had a great time. For those of you who’ve expressed interest in the game, here’s a recap:
(Peter played Axis; Patrick played France & England; I played US, Soviet Union, and China)
Fall 1939 – Germany and Soviet Union split Poland between them. Germany also launches an amphibious invasion of southern Norway, and succeeds, though he loses 1 infantry in the assault. Japan captures a resource point from China. In the Allied turn, the Royal Navy sinks the German transport used for the Norwegian invasion, and mauls the German Surface fleet. US sends 5 points of Lend Lease to China via Burma Road.
Winter 1939/40 – Germany redeploys to western front. With the loss of one infantry in their invasion of Norway, and no transport to ferry reinforcements, the one infantry holding the south doesn’t have a realistic chance of completing the conquest of Norway; the 2 Swedish resource points for conquering Norway remain tantalizingly out of reach. SU cleans up Estonia and Lithuania. Japan continues to move slowly against China and places a CVL on the production spiral.
Spring 1940 – Germany takes out Belgium and Netherlands; France is trying to frantically prepare for the expected attack in summer. Japan begins a factory and continues to find the going slow against China; they gain some more territory, but no resource areas.
Summer 1940 – Germany slams into northeast France; France takes heavy casualties, including 3 nearly-irreplaceable armor (armor and AT guns score hits on armor first). Italy gathers forces in preparation for their declaration of war.
Up to this point, things went fairly close to history. The one joker in the pack for Germany is that Belgium and Netherlands both cost Germany more casualties than expected; they lose 6 infantry in adding these nations to the Reich. Germany was a little weak on the ground in France after their assault, but still had 4 Pz IV’s and 2 88’s, and could have used assault movement to blitz into Normandy, which was defended by only one infantry. They couldn’t have held it if the Allies committed to take it out, but taking it would have increased the French surrender roll to 2/6. As it turned out, it was irrelevant, since Patrick rolled a 3.
In the Allied turn, Patrick is in a difficult spot. Most of his armor is gone, and the Luftwaffe has air superiority. His choices are to either make an amphibious assault into Belgium to cut the Germans in France out of supply, to make a direct assault against the force in northeast France, hoping to at least bleed Peter down or force a retreat, or stand on the defensive. Of these, the least desirable is to stand on defense. Peter has a force of 7 infantry, 4 armor, 1 artillery, and 2 88’s in France, with more armor and some Panzergrenadiers in Belgium; he also has 6 fighters, 2 Stukas, and 2 bombers available to fly defensive air support if Patrick attacks. If Patrick stands on defense, Peter can select any of three French territories to attack, and bring up his reinforcements and move them again in the mechanized phase to make a second attack. The likelihood here is that he’d wind up with three French territories with a 50% chance of forcing French surrender; if he takes Paris and has at least 5 units remaining French surrender is automatic. Patrick can attack with 21 infantry, 2 armor (all he has left), and his outnumbered air force. Taking a deep breath, he goes all in against the Germans in northeast France.
In the air-to-air phase, Patrick elects to fly one carrier fighter as air-to-air, and hope to get the rest of his fighters through as bombers, along with his French bomber. 2 of Peter’s Me 109’s shoot down the carrier fighter, but in going for the bombers with his remaining 4 fighters misses ALL of them. This was to be a harbinger of what was to come.
Rolling for his infantry, Patrick rolls 8 ones out of 21 dice! All three armor also hit, and 2 of his fighters score hits, along with his bomber – and in one round he has annihilated the Germans! Peter compounds the disaster by rolling very poorly; 1 Stuka and 1 bomber miss (out of 2 of each), 2 out of 4 armor miss, the artillery misses, and all 7 infantry miss as well. To add insult to injury, the 88’s, needing 4’s to hit, roll boxcars.
Peter is now in trouble. There isn’t enough in Belgium to mount an offensive, so he has to spend a turn bringing up reinforcements.
Distracted by the debacle in France, he makes a mistake in China and leaves a territory garrisoned only by an infantry, armor, and artillery. I decide to attack with 11 infantry, my artillery, and the Flying Tigers. In the air-to-air combat we both miss. I roll 2 hits with the infantry and hit with the artillery, and kill the hard-to-replace Ha-Go armor and artillery unit. Japan places its CVL, which gives the US an extra card draw for Level 1 tension. Unfortunately, it was a 3 – I’ve now drawn three 3’s, a 2, and a 6. At this rate, the US ought to enter the war around, say, 1948.
Fall 1940 – Germany frantically builds up in Belgium. In China, Peter brings over more Japanese infantry and places a factory (I draw an 8 – FINALLY! – and a 6). Not wishing to lose infantry to Peter’s air force and gathering infantry, I retreat all but the one required garrison unit back into the mountains; the territory I had retaken doesn’t produce income, and they served their purpose in knocking out a couple of expensive Japanese units and I don’t want to push my luck. The Soviet Union takes out Vyborg. The US sends 5 Lend Lease via the Burma Road.
Winter 1940/41 – Germany attacks again into France, and inflicts heavy casualties, forcing a French retreat. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Peter brings Italy into the war out of desperation and moves into Southern France. By a narrow margin (one damaged fortress left) Patrick holds him out; as luck would have it, this battle made the difference, as he rolled a 2 for French surrender – if Italy had succeeded in their attack France would have been out of the war. The naval battle doesn’t go as well for the Allies, and Peter damages the French battleship and cruiser and sinks the destroyers. Patrick counter-attacks on his turn with the Royal navy; unfortunately; the dice don’t go as well for him as they did earlier, and he takes more damage than he inflicts, and the Regia Marina retreats. The combined French-British army forces Germany to retreat again into Belgium.
Summer 1941 – Germany simply doesn’t have enough to get into France again, and has to waste another precious turn building up in Belgium. The Italian land-based aircraft goes after the Royal Navy and wipes out the British Mediterranean fleet, using destroyers to prevent a retreat. In the Allied turn, France invades northwest Italy, and succeeds. In the north, there is more French armor on the map, and Britain has brought over some more; it’s going to be expensive for Peter to try to get into France again. Italy passes its surrender roll. Nothing much going on in the Pacific; Japan places a fleet carrier. I’ve drawn better cards of late and draw another 8 and a 7 – I now have 51 and the US goes to Tension Level 1.
At this point we called it a night, and decided to start over next Tuesday as well. There is no hope for the Axis – Russia is already well past Tension Level 1, and is massing on the German border. Germany is so far behind the eight-ball that there’s no way even if they got a French surrender next turn that they could hope to make up the production deficit against the Soviet Union. England has two factories on the map, and now that the US is at Tension Level 1 I was planning to start sending 10 points of Lend Lease to England every turn to try to push Germany deeper into the hole.
Looking back, I think Peter made a mistake by not building subs for Germany; as a result, England was able to build unhindered by strategic warfare. Patrick, of course, got very lucky with his die rolls in the climactic battle; compounded with Peter rolling well below average I think this one battle pretty much decided it. Other than the subs and the one mistake in China, I can’t fault Peter’s strategy too much; after the debacle in France he was pretty much forced to react to events instead of being able to force things on his terms.
Anyone who wants to give this game a try is welcome to join us; we’ll be playing every Tuesday night for the rest of the summer. We also plan to play the game at the next Game Day at PSC.
