Mike Stubits and I played ON-10 Chateau of Death last week. This is a rather small scenario with Germans coming out of the woods to take a trio of buildings from some Brits in the middle of board 7a. They set up plenty close, so the pressure is on almost immediately.
What makes it look interesting is the rather unusual vehicular OB for both sides. Both very vulnerable to the other side and thus challenging to use. Unfortunately, this one seems better in concept than play. The Brits got rolled pretty hard in our playing and neither of us could really see what they could do to prevent it. British vehicles come on too little too late and it were pretty easy to hold off with German AT potential while the infantry rocked the British. I will be curious to see if anyone can win as the Brits. Seems unlikely.
I played ON 10 as the Germans, and my opponent conceded at the start of British Turn 2. In my German Turn 3, I would have broken or killed (for FTR) nearly all the British infantry defenders around that trio of VC buildings. With only 2 carriers coming in on Turn 2 and no other reinforcements until three British armored cars arrive on Turn 4, the Brits threw in the towel.
I am also curious about other people's experience with this scenario. Maybe there is a defensive strategy for the British that would protect the VC buildings from an early German blitz, but I don't see it (yet).
I lost badly in ON-10 as the Brits also.
My only real chance was a 1-2, later 1-4 CC in the further forward VC building. Snakes or a three initially, would have kept me in the game, only snakes in the 1-4.
When the carriers arrived, all they saw was a Brit -1 leader, squad and MMG in the back VC building They were opposed by an overwhelming firegroup.
Bring out the milk bones for this one!
This is the kind of thing that really makes me wonder. We all know that the BFP playtesting process is as solid and methodical as other industry frontrunners. It's not like this particular playtest was just farmed out to a couple of new SK players, one recovering from recent head trauma. I'm sure it went through several playtests with several different opponents. So, why such a horribly skewed result?
Even had it been initially PT'd by an unevenly matched pairing of oppos, someone would have eventually seen the imbalance, right? For every player that reads your comments and immediately passes on it, there is another like myself that cannot wait to give it a try and see if you were missing something. Neither of you three commenters are ASL rookies, so IF there is something to find, it would not be easy; yet the intrigue for someone like myself is piqued.
I am not saying such is necessarily the case, but this sort of thing always reminds me of an LFT scenario whose name I do not remember. ROAR had it as a major dog, forum comments mirrored that as well. The designer chimed in eventually that in PT it was found that
extensive use of Opportunity Fire, especially in the opening Turn(s) was the key to unlocking it, and providing even results during PT. There were a couple of "Aha!" comments that followed. I pulled the map and pieces just to get a better picture of it, and will admit that heavy use of OppF would not have been my immediate instinct either.
You three may well prove correct, occasionally a dog does wander out of the yard. In the old days of ASL that was more common, though still far from the norm; these days I see it as being exceedingly rare (among the
reputable publishers anyway). That being said, my personal challenge this week is taking the Polish against the SS in PiF's "Asphalt Soldiers", 8-SS/1-Pol on ROAR. Martuzas is a great designer, BFP is a top-shelf publisher with second-to-none PT protocols, yet ROAR (less than 10 playings FWIW) has it 8:1.
The sad thing is that you never hear from playtesters for a perceived dog scenario explaining how they won with the underdog or the tactics/rules one needs to use to achieve it. Any ON-10 playtesters out there?