Two battalions of Panzer-Grenadiers (insert your favorite regiment number) with two panzer companies, raced to the village of Krasnya to prevent the Soviets from blowing the bridge there.
So goes the flimsiest setup for not one but two plays of Tabeltop Teaser #1 : The Bridge Demolition (courtesy of
Steve the Wargamer's wonderful resource). These pictures are from the second play, which occurred Sunday afternoon. The Soviets can blow the bridge on turn 12 based - based on doubling the turns it takes for infantry to reach the village.
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| I accidentally left some rubble on the table while setting up and didn't realize it until turn 3 or 4. |
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| View from the German recon unit. |
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| The random arrival of Blue force was particularly unfortunate for the Germans: on turn 1 the only unit to arrive was an ATG (represented here with the Sd.K. which is "towing" the gun). They got no further. The Soviet tanks caught and destroyed them . Turn 1 and one unit down. |
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| The recon unit raced for the road but came under fire from the other Soviet tank company. Turn 1 and two units down. |
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| With no arrivals on turn 2, the Soviets held their position. By turn six the entire German force was finally present for the festivities. |
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| The half-track is another ATG tow. I modified the infantry vs tank rules due to the 1" = 100 yard scale I was using. The Soviet tanks were forced to fall back. |
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| On the Soviet left tanks clashed north of the woods. |
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| An overview of the situation around turn 7 or 8? |
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| Gratuitous close-up. |
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| The Soviet tanks on the right fell back to the river to buy some time to reorganize. |
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| On the German right/Soviet left, the 2nd battalion / ATG arrived and deployed. |
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| A view from the German left. |
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| And the German right. |
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| The German ATGs setup within rifle range of the Soviet infantry in the hamlet, so that ended the way you would expect it to. Before the ATGs even fired once. On the bright side, the German infantry eliminated the Soviet rifles from the woods. |
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| Things started to take a turn for the worse for the Soviets in the hamlet. Their commander kept them beyond the bridge too long. |
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| And the Huns overran their position. 1st and 2nd battalions link up at the hamlet before heading south to the bridge. |
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| On the Soviet right, tanks shoot out at 500 yards.The Soviets tanks are pushed up to the river - is this a last stand? [that 1 sure makes it seem like it] |
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| Panzers win the tank battle on German right / Soviet left and the P/G companies surge forward. |
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| Turn 11. The Germans clear out the buildings north of the river. Panzers return fire on the Soviet ATGs. But lo and behold the Soviet tanks (upper right in the picture) still hold on! |
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| Panzers reach the bridge, and the Soviet engineers suffer devastating fire on Turn 12! There's no chance the bridge will be blown. A last minute German victory! Given their start, I was pretty surprised. |
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*****
Rules for both attempts at this scenario were variants on Morschauser, but today's game was pretty much just the version I played at Thanksgiving SoloCon, with modifications for range and movement where 1" = 100 yards, and a tweak for mixed heavy weapons companies.
Friday's game was more of a mashup and did feature a strength point recovery/resupply method that I prefer stylistically, but that doesn't really work with Morschauser's recommended strength points. I may write it up eventually because I think it works well
Good looking game.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Peter!
DeleteI’m hoping to get some games in this week. I will probably use Morschauser/Cordery and use the next OHW scenario on the list now that Captain Scarlett has emerged fro the POW camp he escaped from.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to your posts so I hope you do! Did you play Scarlett's escape as a game?
DeleteI tried, but it didn’t seem to work. I’ve not been well lately so any gaming is stop and go. I started Bridgehead last night but had to give up due to the blinding headache caused by switching between the rules, OHW (to remind myself of reinforcements) and having to take my glasses on and off to see any of it! On balance I could have saved myself pain by putting a card with a number on next to waiting units.
DeleteThe other thing I am having trouble with is the whole solo mechanism of deciding who does what? This isn’t usually a problem with my gaming but for some reason it is getting in the way of my enjoyment. How do you determine actions on the table?
Sorry to hear you haven't been well! I hope you're feeling better soon.
DeleteI have tried dozens of methods to control one or both sides' tactical decisions.
Most often, I like to play one side as my own and then attempt to play the other side based on my assessment of what would make my life more difficult - as I only game solo, it's in my best interest to do my best to make victory difficult, as there's no joy in a "victory" where I've preordained it.
Scenarios where the enemy is defending and has a very limited goal - delay me for x turns, hold such and such terrain, or get x troops off the table - produce enjoyable games for me with little cognitive drain from having to make decisions for both sides while trying to pretend I don't know what the other side is doing.
When there is some question about what the enemy unit might do, I either assign odds and roll for it or more often I turn to a Mythic-like system where I inquire whether the enemy does what I think they will and then act according to the results (Mythic produces results that are degrees of yes and no ranging from extreme yes to extreme no)- I have done a ton of solo RPGing using Mythic and other oracle systems and find as this works well for me in the heat of the moment. The key there is not to get bogged down thinking of every possibility when interpreting the results of the roll. It also provides a logically consistent opponent but one who isn't entirely predictable.
Having a plan for both sides, whether one is your own or you are playing both to the best of your ability, helps a lot too for deciding between options.
However, if you're playing both sides to the best of your ability, Dale (Solo Battles) makes a convincing argument that turn sequence has an impact here, and that the more interactive the turn sequence the easier it is to make a best decision for each side (I think that was the point at least): http://solo-battles.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-impact-of-turn-sequence-of-solo.html Maybe messing around with the turn sequence will make the games more enjoyable?
If you're looking for a system to control one or both sides, I have had a good bit of fun using: https://solowargamer.wordpress.com/2019/11/05/solo-dba-rulz/
Don't be put off by the "DBA" part, I borrowed the tactical engine from this many times years ago (playing VSF games using G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.) and I remember the games were quite enjoyable. At the very least they may provide some inspiration for you.
Oddly, most tactical systems I have are geared towards 1 figure = 1 man games, but I think they would work well up to a platoon per base, as in OHW and similar.
For example, these free rules are 1:1 but i think the results make sense with bases of figures: https://herkybird.tynesidewargames.co.uk/ww2.html
If you have Nuts! (Final Edition is the one I have handy, although I think I own the 2nd ed. as well and can't find it) has a non-player tactical system - it does require adjustment if you aren't using the Nuts! rep system but again, it provides a starting point. UseMe WWII has guidelines for solo play that are pretty generic, make sense and are easily implemented. If you want, I can send email you the relevant pages of either - pretty sure that falls under fair use.
I'm sure I have others as well as I have collected more PDFs and such than I can count with respect to solo gaming, but those are what came to mind.
Finally, Dale (if you can't tell, I really like his blog)reviews a system for handling decision making: http://solo-battles.blogspot.com/2018/12/hostile-tactical-ai-review-part-1.html
And just because I think it's worth a read,he provides a counter argument to randomly selecting non-player actions that I think is valid and worth reading, and he also takes on the idea that "surprise" is in itself a solo mechanic: ttp://solo-battles.blogspot.com/2019/12/surprise-activation-and-solo-wargamer.html [Not exactly related to what you asked, but a good article none the less]
Wow. There’s a lot to go on. I feel bad just writing a few words of thank you for your essay ;-). When I’m feeling better I will look these up and try to get back to the table.
ReplyDelete