I had recently ordered D-Day, to play with one of my friends, who wants to learn the game, but is overwhelmed by G40. I knew it was axis biased, so I let him play as them, so that it would be a more fair fight (I can beat him consistently if the dice aren’t massively against me).
I got off the beaches pretty quickly, and it looked like it was gonna be an allied win. His blockhouses didn’t do much the first round, hit a couple of units. By the second round, I was fighting in Caen, I would hold it at the end of round 3. All of his blockhouses (the ones that could fire onto the beaches, at least) were gone by round 3. By round 5 I had Cherbourg, undisputed. I had units in St. Lo on round 5 as well.
However, after all of this, I still couldn’t manage to wipe him out of St. Lo by 10. At the end of round ten, I had two tanks in St Lo, he had three and an artillery, which is an Axis win. This surprised me, that I couldn’t get him out of the city in four rounds. He had two stacks of eight in the two territories behind the city, and constantly reinforced it. If I tried to send up troops to lock them in combat, he’d move forward, leaving his reinforcement lines clear.
How can this game be balanced? I think I’d really like this game if it was a fair fight between the two sides, but I can’t really get much enjoyment if it’s that badly axis biased. Someone being able to beat me that I can beat about 90% of the time is bad.