39 game

[norseman]

winter 43/44
east:
russians force a german retreat from stalino with heavy casualties to both sides. the germans voluntarily retreat from rostov and kursk on the non-com phase and move almost the entire orel army to the weakened southern front. zhukov attacks velikiye luki and fails to take it with heavy russian casualties. the german front is like a house of cards, one good battle in the south would leave that front with scarcely more than its garrisons. germany.
italy:
briitsh disaster, they are nearly wiped out trying to take rome and the germans retake the territory north of it putting rome back in supply. america shipped some infantry down and the allies will try next turn. both sides deploy some fighters to rome.
france:
patton takes antwerp and leese advances towards alsace-loraine and the saar where germany has set up her main defenses. the allies also invaded bergen and will probably take oslo next turn. a lack of p-51's and a heavy german aa presence has led the allies to neglect strategic bombing. I figure that if germany is too have a chance to win, they must hold the western allies up for at least 3 or 4 turns along the german border. it is looking like we could hang on to berlin, warsaw, budapest, and bucharest.

[John D.]

Interesting - sounds like a close game - great!!!

[Mark]

Eagerly awaiting the outcome of this one!  Sounds like a good game down to 1944. . .I think my money may be on the Allies though

[norseman]

last few turns haven't been good for them.
the western allies have two turns to play, russia only one more and it will go down to the last turn.
The germans have engaged in a fighting withdrawal from the east and hold warsaw, budapest, and bucharest. they russians are one space away from each but in the south they only have the forces to attack romania or hungary and maybe neither. last turn they decided to attack both bucharest and transylvania and took heavy casualties in both. had they only attacked bucharest they almost certainly would have taken it, now i'm not so sure. russia took riga a few turns ago forcing the finishing surrender after a botched attempt to take helsinki. despite russia having 8 fighters to germanys 1, 4 stukas and 2 bombers have somehow survived despite being in near continuous combat.
in italy the allies have now bounced off of rome three times!!! however they took milano and florence, cutting rome out of supply and have reinforced casino with 15-20 infantry plus artillery and planes so montgomery should be able to pull out the victory there. britain also took greece in an amphib assault several turns ago.
france has been a dogfight. the allies, mostly american, have taken the ardennes, rheinland, and took the saar last turn, cutting alsace loraine out-of-supply. germany has strong defenses in bavaria and hessen and also holds holland and the ruhr moderately strongly and have several forts in berlin. germany actually has more troops than the allies but allied airpower makes a huge difference, especially combined with favorable initiative draws- germany is now outnumbered in fighters something like 14-3. Initiative will be huge for the next two turns as neither russia nor the western allies can afford to be pinned. there is a real possibility that germany could hold warsaw, budapest, and bucharest putting a lot of pressure on the western allies.

[norseman]

finish*

[norseman]

The Axis pull victory from the jaws of defeat in a hectic ending.
the russians failed to take bucharest on the regular combat phase but then incredibly took it on the mech phase with a mere one tank and one katyusha plus a sturmovick. However, the russians failed to take warsaw which was ably defended by kesselring. In the west on turn 23 the allies drove into austria with a large mech army and bavaria barely survived a vicious german counterattack designed to cut the mech army out of supply. the allies also managed to take holland., preparing for the attack on koln. their attack on hessen failed ending any chance of taking berlin. on turn 24 the allies drove into budapest but bounced off of koln and lost bavaria to a german counterattack leaving the axis with berlin, warsaw, koln, and bavaria. the axis also retained much of the balkans, western poland, and northern italy minus milano.

[Mark]

Wow - this is the closest game I think I have ever heard of - turn 23, huh?  I don't think any of our games went down this close to the wire. . .

So what do you guys think?  What worked well & what did not?

Thanks for the play by play!
Mark

[John D.]

Wow - great! - we are currently playing a game that will go down to the wire - i think...

So what is your feedback?

[Mark]

It is nice to see that the Axis can still pull out a victory on turn 23-24.  I think in most the long games we have played into late 44-45, the Allies usually have such a material advantage that they are able to plow through any resistance.  The Axis must have still been pretty tough in the West to hold onto the Ruhr and counterattack in Bavaria.

[norseman]

In the west the allies mainly pushed them back by quickly wiping out the front line and forcing retreats, they didn't have many reserves. for battles that went several rounds germany won almost all of them. In this regard the allies plethora of artillery and planes, particularly typhoons was huge. On this note, I think that stukas and typhoons are easily the most important pieces to have, particularly with the limited front line where support units are so critical. Although the axis won I still feel that the allies have the advantage, by how much i'm not sure. They could have won the game several turns earlier if not for a failed attack on rome in which the allied front line was wiped out and the axis front line survived with a mere one troop, in general the entire allied italian campaign was mismanaged and, with the game, should have been over much sooner.
Yet again I had enormous difficulty doing anything with the Italians, I have yet to play a game where they do anything more advance a space into british territory before withdrawing hastily. the germans supported them with planes but a few lucky anti-aircraft rolls finished that. I think that for the italians to do anything german support has to be pretty substantial, both in planes and ground troops.
On the eastern front german had a pretty good time of things. I love how initiative works, even though poor rolls held the germans up at perekop for three turns. had it not been for that lack of luck I think that germany would have taken stalingrad and maikop for a couple turns and would have easily held budapest and bucharest.
In general I love the mechanics of the game. all the big changes including initiative, leaders, limited front lines, and air combat worked really well. One issue was sub attacks. Despite building a bunch of subs they never really got off the ground. hunter-killer attacks against them were wildly successful and few survived more than a turn or two, although perhaps this was due to britain's large shipbuilding program.
In general I think the allies have the advantage. In this game the allies played pretty risky tactically and few of their gambles paid off, particularly in italy. germany went heavy on the eastern front early and despite poor initiative and slightly substandard rolling were on the attack until mid 43ish.

[norseman]

I'll probably play another game sometime in august.

[John D.]

It's good to get a test drive in. Next game will flow even better!