Well done Ian for bravely suggesting a change in wargaming for us. The multiple battles (although from the German side it felt a bit one-sided as hordes and further hordes appeared all over the place) worked well and added amazing dimension to the thought processes. I certainly made a few mistakes which annoyed me and Mark will admit to focusing on his ding-dong battle with Jon which sucked in troops which may have been used elsewhere.
Balance is tricky. With the troops to hand if the back tables were worth 4 points rather than 3 then we may have put more store in giving up in one area to protect the back line - but once the Alies were onto the second tables it was too easy for them with the numbers and quality.
But the concept itself worked really well. It can apply itself to different periods but definitely works for WW2. I can definitely see this working for the Eastern Front, indeed any theatre.
Well done to Russ for doing the boards in time and to Ian to organising it all.
Balance is tricky. With the troops to hand if the back tables were worth 4 points rather than 3 then we may have put more store in giving up in one area to protect the back line - but once the Alies were onto the second tables it was too easy for them with the numbers and quality.
But the concept itself worked really well. It can apply itself to different periods but definitely works for WW2. I can definitely see this working for the Eastern Front, indeed any theatre.
Well done to Russ for doing the boards in time and to Ian to organising it all.
4 comments:
Although I never knew exactly what the Germans had it did seem a bit sparse, however I think that the nature of spearhead makes the Germans a bit too good really. The British infantry fire on a 4 vs a 5. when in woods adds a further 1 making the standard German stand a 6 to suppress. The British on the other hand are a defense 5 vs a 5 or a 6 with a German HMG so evens or a +1.
Add to this the ability to change orders under direct fire and you have a rather good nation to use. If you make a German infantry battalion veteran it gets even worse!
In this game we saw an entire division of British deployed. After contemplating the result on points I think the balance was in favour of the British for sure.
The German Stug's were on a +1 vs our Armour and it did show but the sheer number of British tanks was just too much for the Germans to cope with on the day.
I thought that you made very good use of what you had and your hidden support guns proved highly effective, remember if you had not of opened fire in the woods with your infantry I was on a hiding to nothing as I had no effective counter to the fire you were pouring down on me. The only thing I had to spot you was my air asset recon.
Like I said on the previous post Jon did more than enough to occupy Mark to a level that really kept him out the game over on the A tables that we were contesting.
I am not complaining, I'll just thank Jon for keeping Mark very busy all day!
For Ian this was a tough one to balance and on paper the British outnumbered the Germans big time, I just don't know if you had enough stuff to seal a win even with superior tactical & logistical options available?
Definitely worth a reply some day.
I think you misunderstood the advantages you had and played a game that allowed the British to use their very obvious advantages. 4 points on the back tables would have allowed you to hold half the second line of tables and created a game with no reason to play on the first line of tables.
I think the balance was right
If we had not crossed the pontoon and defended from the wood screen and allowed the Stugs to attack Jon in the flank/rear we may have broken that attack with the possibility of counter attacking a bit later back to 2B
you pay the price you make your choices
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Our big advantage was the sideways attack which we didn't use to its full potential.
great game all the same
I think you're all right. The Germans do have a major superiority but changing orders was trickier with the slight tweak (as Mark found out!). I disagree slightly with Ian that we played into the British hands. We HAD to defend across the tables otherwise the Brits would have romped through unopposed to the back tables and gained easy points. We didn't use our mobility as much as we may have BUT - as Mark suggests - coming over the pontoon created more problems than it solved. Sitting on the other side of the river may have been a better solution - using ATG's rather than the Stugs. But then we needed the ATG's elsewhere anyway...and our reserve was needed in three places at once. It definitely posed us lots of problems and we made a few errors (understandable as it was a first attempt and there was lots to plan). But the overall concept is brilliant. Definitely one for a full weekend and the Eastern Front!
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