I will put up a battle report for our spring event last weekend shortly, I hope, but in the meantime here is notification of the next one. We had a record attendance and 3 games on the go, so hopefully we can surpass that next time!
So if you want to join us in Derbyshire on 16 June just reply to this thread or PM Private Panic.
(PS The date of the autumn event will be 20 October)
Current numbers:
8 definites
2 hopefuls
1 possible
Which leaves room for a couple of additional players if anyone wants to join us. Get in touch! :relaxed:
Nine players played 2 games and as usual the war room was filled with screams, cheers and laughter. As always, my thanks to everyone for braving traffic and road works in order to join us, and to Dave, who very kindly allows us to use his house. :+1:
1942.2
We agreed an allied bid of 15 and then drew Powers at random, which gave us:
Axis – Leo / wittmann – Japan and Adam / Private Panic – Germany
Allies – Mark / Credulous - UK and Dave - Russia & US
The Allies placed their bid as 2 UK subs in the Indian Ocean and a R infantry. You can tell what is coming!
R1 saw a more adventurous start than usual, with a strafe of Ukraine as well as everything else stacking West Russia. Adam hid his delight, expecting G to get odds on West Russia. However, both attacks succeeded brilliantly for the loss of only 1 infantry.
Which left G unable to respond. G1 therefore focused on reducing the allied naval presence in the Med and Atlantic. Leo then announced with all his A&A experience that the Axis had lost this game! The UK sprang its attack on the J fleet off the East Indies. Disaster! Remaining UK units retreated to India, where an AC was placed to allow the retention of both fighters. Japan responded by attacking this UK fleet which it sunk, albeit with heavy J losses. J also left its 2 TTs where they could be sunk by enemy air, so in the following J turn had no TTs and only 2 of its starting 6 fighters remaining. A replacement TT was also lost to an air attack in round 2! :scream:
Meanwhile the US built all navy in the Pacific. This begun a US / J naval dance as fleets advanced to present a threat and retreated when themselves threatened. About half-way through the game the US did take East Indies, which J could not recover. J’s loss of TTs, focus on naval builds and lack of an Asian factory meant that very few units remained in Asia following the capture of China and R’s far eastern territories.
Which left G to combat R and the UK pretty much on its own. G maintained an offensive strategy against R despite a lack of units on its eastern front. Every unit that could go east did so. No attempt was made to hold France despite Leo’s urging that G should do so, the focus instead being to always retake it. On the other hand, Leo did persuade Adam to commit units to North Africa, which resulted in the capture of Egypt and the Middle East, this keeping the UK’s Indian builds from venturing into mainland Asia, where they would have significantly outnumbered J.
Leningrad was captured and held pretty early in the game. Bombing raids on Moscow during the early stages were also critical in minimising the R unit advantage. With J struggling against the US and the UK growing its ability to project a threat across the Channel, G risked stacking West Russia in the face of superior R unit numbers. As hoped, R withdrew to Moscow, allowing G to then risk taking and holding Caucasus.
R’s income was now down to 8 and G was able place 6 units in Karelia and Caucasus each turn. At last G began to have the units to match R’s. The fall of Moscow seemed imminent. :grin:
With the day coming to an end and the allies on the back foot, the US decided that an air only attack on J’s surface warships was its best chance of turning the game around, as this avoided J’s 17 subs and the US had a lot more fighters then J. This attack proved disastrous, particularly as remaining fighter moves did not allow the US fleet to reach safety. The attack was therefore pressed home until the last US fighter was shot down. Japan now had mastery of the Pacific!
So as to finish the game with some excitement, it was agreed the G would attack Moscow, even though it had no need to do so just yet. If G won then the game would be an Axis victory. If R won, the game would be a draw. Attacking and defensive power were equal, but G had three more units and so a slight advantage. Right from the off, R’s peasants out fought the Wehrmacht, whose troops ran away and cowered in a corner somewhere. Stalin made a victory speech despite only achieving a draw and Hitler killed himself. Churchill lost the election. Hirohito made a lot of noise, but then he had done that throughout the whole game! :cry:
1914
Mike / Aftertaste has kindly offered to add his battle report to this thread.
@Private-Panic Is it possible you have slighted me, your best friend and leader in
All things? The rudeness!
Great game ,and as I predicted, an Axis victory, despite PP’s erratic play and blindness in not noticing I (a visually impaired player ) would lose my defenceless TTs to a Chinese Ft amd a British Bomber, starting in far away E Africa.
@Wittmann It was a draw witt! Rescued by my marvellous G play of course 🤗
@Private-Panic Hm! You tell yourself that, Adolf.
Is Mike / Aftertaste building suspense lol?
@Slip-Capone apparently.
Central Powers: Germany (G), Austria/Hungary (AH) - Mike (aftertaste). Ottoman Empire (OE) - Jon (Jon1988).
Entente: Russia ® - Tomas (Duklapasser). France (F), UK (UK, duh!) - Andrew (holymonk). Italy (Italy, because it always sounds like I’m talking about myself when I type I), USA (US, as if it wouldn’t be obvious by this point), - Colin (GuiltyCol).
Two house rules were played throughout, 2 territory movement permitted for ‘non-combat’ moves on land, and a 4 build limit to India.
The CP opened with typical strikes into Venice, Serbia and Belgium, however, poor co-ordination between G and AH led G to under commit in Poland leaving a juicy target for R’s massive stack in Ukraine. The UK fleets were eliminated, but only a single G battleship remained in the North Sea, her crew desperately trying to pump water out of her many shell holes. Venice managed to hold, and that was as far as AH ever made it into Italy,
The Entente responded in turn 1 with a slow, defensive posture, with limited attacks by all except for R, who eliminated G’s army in Poland with ease, confident that AH was not yet in position to launch a concentrated invasion, in addition to eliminating an OE cruiser squadron. The UK made landings in Saudi Arabia and the territory west of it (I forget the name), but largely, the first turn was unremarkable. F finished off G’s battleship with his own.
It was clear that the CP went for ‘Russia First’, but with the initial G stack destroyed, most reinforcements were sent east, delaying an invasion proper, and ensuring that the CP were defensive on the western front, especially with Italy’s stubborn defence of Venice.
AH took Romania whilst OE swallowed Bulgaria and sent some units west later on to aid AH, who had to contend with the lions share of the forces committed to Russia. OE fought to contain UK incursions whilst also attempting an aggressive Med Sea campaign, which ended in unlimited glory… and hundreds of deaths, I should imagine.
The mid game was heated, with UK and OE dancing around each other in the Middle East, but OE plugging all gaps expertly. F tried to help, bless them, but the captain of a transport - whose modest force of proto-marines could have really been a thorn in the side of OE - either had the wrong charts or one too many in the mess before steering straight into an OE mine! Cheers mixed with moans of despair ensued!
The AH fleet received some unusual attention by a certain Entente member throughout the game, and managed to account for itself well, eliminated units from F, the UK and Italy, but it was eventually sunk, allowing the F/Italy landings to take place without fear of a sortie.
Italy and F promptly began landing in Albania, and whilst never a serious threat, did divert AH units from Russia. Italy eventually began an offensive into AH that was only held at bay by OE units marching across the Balkans. Africa was unusual this game, as G headed straight for Egypt and even managed to take it for a time, frustrating UK efforts to dominate OE. We subsequently learned that a player may NOT amphibious assault into an ongoing engagement, c’est la vie.
In the East, AH and a reinvigorated G took Ukraine, but at a cost. Dice rolls were good for G and AH throughout, regularly coming out above average, but the CP still had a mans job on their hands to take Moscow before the Entente could start to take advantage of their numerical superiority.
By late game, the lead had switched at least twice, with no clear winner in sight. The US had a fleet inbound to France and G had no way to stem the tide. One spoiling attack in Belgium managed to nibble off some UK units, but a strong F and eventual UK build up was probing into Germany on the absolute rampage, by the game’s end. Italy - as mentioned - was aggressive, and that really told when AH started to divert units away from Russia.
OE eventually drove the UK out of the home territories, and there was even talk of abandoning India by the UK, with a large force in Persia poised to strike. Africa was finally ‘saved’ by the Entente as the CP had no way to reinforce, and G’s remaining subs made a go at a F fleet off of Portugal, but even an unlikely victory would have had little effect on the outcome.
Before the game was called, AH and G had been making inroads into Moscow, but the Imperial Russian Air Force clearly had some secret tech, like MiG 15’s or something, because they were shooting down CP fighters like it was going out of fashion! Progress for the CP was slow and grinding, and even though G managed to cut a path through most of Russia, the northern territories were left open to that US fleet from before.
Those men really made the difference, because without them, Moscow would probably have fallen. G thought he was being sooo freaking clever when he bought a cruiser to block the Baltic Sea, but clearly the Admiral died early on, because nobody pointed out that there was a perfectly usable northern sea route! Epic Fail of the match!
However, the game was NOT over, because OE, being the team carrying champion that he is, diverted his India army to the Ukraine, in an effort to gain the final victory, at the expense of keeping the UK on the back foot.
Unfortunately, the game did end before a full conclusion could be drawn up. But the players all agreed that a game that ebbed and flowed the way that this one did deserved a final battle, or two or three, because the battle of Moscow went on until one side won or lost.
It was fought.
To…
A…
Man.
But by the end, as the sun set for the final time over the corpse choked fields and rubble filled streets of Moscow, the bullet ridden and blood stained flag of his Imperial Majesty, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, flew over what remained of the Kremlin.
The game was called as an Allied victory.
It was a hard fought game, with many a twist of fate and not too much a great deal of swearing. And in truth, we don’t really know who would have won for certain, because by the end, we were skipping almost entire goes, just to get back to the fighting in Moscow. Perhaps the CP could have reinforced before the Entente rolled into Berlin or Vienna, (G was on a very healthy income), but it is just as likely that the UK would have taken advantage of the lack of OH units and smashed Istanbul.
Whatever the result, we will always remember the look on G’s face when he realised the blunder he made purchasing that damned cruiser!
@aftertaste Great report Mike! An entertaining read. Remind me - were you truly in the RN?! :face_with_rolling_eyes: Nice to know our country’s defence rested in such capable naval hands.:cold_sweat:
@aftertaste Nice job mate, seems like a fun game.
Does your play group not use the Economic victory points to select the victor?
@Slip-Capone Yes good point, I did forget to mention that we played without the Economic Collapse thing for Russia.
@Slip-Capone And also we don’t play Economic victory.
