German Vehicle Note K
- Thread starter Tuomo
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Sparafucil3
Forum Guru
Corollary: You will always wish your SAN was something else. You will always be punished for rolling his SAN even once. -- jim
Sparafucil3
Forum Guru
Very good scenario. I will look forward to your SSR. I have my opinions on the key terrain in this so I am looking forward to see what your take away is. -- jim
EDIT to add: comparing the Tigers depletion numbers to a Mk IV H's, for the same years the Tigers numbers seem to already be increased by 1 relative to the Mk IV. I would play it as printed on the counter and an additional 1 for being SS if SS are in play.
Tuomo
Keeper of the Funk
Um. Well....
I actually didn't like the scenario. Most of the verbiage in the VC's talks about territory that the German needs to take, but the Russian doesn't need to sweat that very much - just make sure you've got enough on board 3a to avoid the turn 4 VC and you'll be fine. Beyond that, the Germans will spend the whole game grinding forward inexorably, and quite unstoppably. They have the armor, manpower, and time to achieve all the VC conditions by game end. They don't even need to play all that aggressively to meet that timetable.
As the Russian, you have to accept this and not try to play good positional/territorial defense, because you simply can't win that way - the Germans have too much, and you can't trade enough space for time. Pay attention to the VC and stop trying to play "good" ASL, because that's not gonna help you here. What you CAN do is play to maximize CVP, particularly against the PzIVs and halftracks, and try to win that way. Which, to me, means the Germans don't have to be particularly aggressive on the attack, and the Russians shouldn't play good positional defense. Combine those two, and IMO you have a rather unsatisfying game.
Toss in the Hillock rules that come as part of the EmRR that runs through the map, and IMO it just didn't flow. I realize that the HD-behind-Hillock thing is particularly crucial to this scenario, but IMO it's more than outweighed by the fact that you'll find yourself looking up the Hillock LOS example quite a lot, particularly when trying to trace an East-West LOS down the long RR, since the LOS will go in and out of Hillock hexes several times. This is particularly crucial when deciding whether to shoot with a 57LL ATG from the 49E9 Factory area, because you will HATE to drop HIP only to discover the LOS isn't there due to some stupid Hillock rule.
In my game with Jeff Kouba, the Russians hit the CVP cap on German turn 6. Jeff diced himself horribly, malfing several tanks' MA, boxcarring a Tiger Start DR, and just generally making life no fun for himself. I contributed to it from the Russian side, taking something like 7-8 Intensive Fire shots before malfing anything, getting successful DI shots, and even scoring on an Underbelly Hit as a Tiger crossed a wall (my first, ever!). And even with all of that dice abuse, the Germans were going to have no trouble taking all the stone buildings on board 8 and 49. None at all. And if they hadn't Immobilized all three Tigers on board 3a, they'd have had no trouble rousting the defenders there too.
Jeff Toreki and Zeb Doyle have an AAR of this one for the Banzai Pipeline. I think their experience was similar to ours.
FWIW, Jeff was a consummate gentleman and a quality opponent, even in the midst of horrible dice abuse. I owe him another game where the dice are more fair.
owenedwards
Member
With 8 games under my belt, I've yet to hit a B#/X#. I assume I'll get dozens in my next few games.
Sparafucil3
Forum Guru
Sorry you didn't enjoy it. I have played it a couple of times and I enjoyed it immensely. Most of my games come down to who holds the Wd12 overlay. It seems like such a small thing to add the overlay, but control of that allows you to stall the German advance to capture the Turn 6 VC. I don't find the Hillock rules too onerous in this. You can see over a hillock as long as you're on or Adjacent to it. If you're not, you can't. For all practical purposes, if you are On/Adjacent to the EmRR, it's just a RR. If you could see it without Embankment, you can see it here [EXC: Entrenched Units]. If you're not On/Adjacent to the EmRR, it's a wall. It's the same situation in Hatten except the EmRR is not running through the center of town.
Fort's VC can be a little challenging to understand for sure. He has his own style. Have you played AP81 Lost Highway? Another to consider is AP57 Kleckerweis. -- jim
Tuomo
Keeper of the Funk
Yeah, I know what to expect from that series of scenarios, and I actually appreciate them. They offer a challenge to understanding and add a depth to play that other scenarios with straightforward VCs just lack. I feel funny dissing this one, but yeah, IMO the OBs and VCs allow the Germans to attack without seriously worrying about much at all except his weaker AFVs, and requiring the Russians to prioritize CVP instead of the usual time-vs-space tradeoff that one might expect, given how the German VCs are written. At some point in the game I realized it just doesn't matter what the infantry do, I had to kill the weaker German AFVs and dear-Lord-somehow deal with the Tigers. All six of them. So my infantry just tried to keep the game from ending too soon while my overmatched tanks went for DI shots and hoped the Tigers boxcarred their start rolls. Fun? Not so much, even when my opponent's dice obliged.
In terms of the Hillock rules, I know I don't use them enough to be comfortable with them, but that doesn't help. Hillock rules were made for .... Hillocks... big blobby things, of which there may be 2-3 on the board... and IMO it's klunky to say the least that the EmRR presents these long thin hillocks that are broken up into hexagons. When a LOS goes down the length of one of these, it can easily go in and out of several Hillock hexes, and you just don't know whether LOS is good or not, which makes it really hard to think about tactics on the fly. You're thinking of dropping HIP on an ATG or you're moving a tank somewhere, and I'd rather not stop the game to say "If I theoretically moved here (or theoretically dropped HIP here), would I have LOS to THERE?".
Case in point - with respect to the LOS from the ATG to the Tiger, the ATG is actually not behind-and-adjacent-to the hillock because the LOS dips just below the F7-F8 hexside. What does this mean for LOS? Time to flip through Chapter F.
Next case. I drew the red LOS line myself; let's assume it's not blocked by L7 or O9. Is LOS clear? Time to pause the game and flip through Chapter F. Just doesn't flow.
Sparafucil3
Forum Guru
The AFV is on the hillock. Referring to the Hillock example in F6, I believe this is equivalent to Squad C looking at Squad E. The AFV is ON the Hillock so not Hulldown.
Assuming no buildings are in play, this Squad A to Squad K (both units are Adjacent to the Hillock. In this case, the AFV is "behind" the Hillock so HD. I went through all of this in playtesting so it is a little more natural for me. -- jim
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boylermaker
Senior Member
I cannot understand designers' obsessions with EmRR. There is a ton of rules overhead (that sends you to the longest-out-of-print module, to boot), you have to affirmatively choose to add them to your scenario, and to what end? Could somebody who loves to add EmRR to their scenarios please chime in? What am I getting in return for my struggles to understand this terrain type that I wouldn't be getting if you just made it a damn ElRR?
Is it just a "notice me" thing, like dying your hair purple, where everyone agrees it looks bad but maybe the right people will think you are cool if you do it?
Tuomo
Keeper of the Funk
In Nishne Nyet, the hillock produces a lot of Hull Down drama/frustration. Whether that's worth it or not, I can't say. It was interesting, but as the Russian, I already felt behind the curve, so the HD didn't help. Shrug. I'm with you - I don't see the bang-per-buck.
bprobst
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I've not designed a scenario using EmRR, but if I did, it would be because the historical situation dictated that an EmRR was appropriate. The hillock rules guarantee that an EmRR is very different to an ElRR, so calling for ElRR to be always used instead of EmRR is silly, IMO. As a designer, I would assume that ASL players know how to read rules when required. The hillock rules are not ASL rules writing at their finest, but they really are not difficult once you take the time to grok them. You're either on the hillock, next to the hillock, or not next to the hillock -- three possibilities that create three different LOS situations. That's it. Work out which situation applies to you and everything else is straight-forward.
I'd rather spend 15 minutes with the hillock rules and be comfortable for the rest of the scenario then have a 30-minute discussion with my opponent about the AT-Ditch rules and their effect on Infantry movement (and still not be sure if we've reached the correct conclusion). And yet some scenario designers have an obsession with putting AT-Ditches in their designs, just because the historical situation dictates that they be there -- like we care, right?!
I'd rather spend 15 minutes with the hillock rules and be comfortable for the rest of the scenario then have a 30-minute discussion with my opponent about the AT-Ditch rules and their effect on Infantry movement (and still not be sure if we've reached the correct conclusion). And yet some scenario designers have an obsession with putting AT-Ditches in their designs, just because the historical situation dictates that they be there -- like we care, right?!
Sparafucil3
Forum Guru
Another pet peeve of mine: why don't AT-Ditches tie into the Adjacent Terrain but default? Ever play a game and watch a person bypass your AT-Ditch along a woods hexside? I have. I won't play a game with AT-Ditches anymore. -- jim
Sparafucil3
Forum Guru
One thing Fort's VC do is put both sides under some tension and keep it there the whole game. Nishne is a good example of this. Coriano is another. Neither side should ever feel completely comfortable. In this one, the Russians are under pressure to keep in the game. The are out gunned. Focusing on German tanks will see the German Infantry roll you. The Germans are confronted with a need to get forward. Their task get's harder as time goes on. If you can't win this by Turn 6 as the Germans, you are probably not going to get it done by Turn 8 either. And add to that, your fastest units for a deep movement are your most vulnerable units and there is that CVP cap. And that's the rub with this IMO. The tension for the Germans is how to balance speed with loss. For the Russians, how to trade time and depth. Once you get past turn 4, there no need to defend all three. How do you pull back to this? Once you get past turn 6, how do you keep yourself alive for the turn 8 VC. This is why the overlay becomes so important in the middle stages of the game.
In the end--and I admit bias in this as one of Fort's principal play testers and the guy who usually was the first to see much of his work--that's what I like about his scenarios. The tension. The tradeoffs. The friction he creates through VC and SSR's. The pressure he puts on both sides to do more than one thing at a time to have any chance at victory. See AP81 Lost Highway for (at least in my opinion) the best example of this "do many things at once" concept in Fort's designs. -- jim (just a fanboi I guess)
PS: SSR 4 in Nishne is an example of my hatred for bypassing AT-Ditches
In the end--and I admit bias in this as one of Fort's principal play testers and the guy who usually was the first to see much of his work--that's what I like about his scenarios. The tension. The tradeoffs. The friction he creates through VC and SSR's. The pressure he puts on both sides to do more than one thing at a time to have any chance at victory. See AP81 Lost Highway for (at least in my opinion) the best example of this "do many things at once" concept in Fort's designs. -- jim (just a fanboi I guess)
PS: SSR 4 in Nishne is an example of my hatred for bypassing AT-Ditches
boylermaker
Senior Member
Hmmm ... maybe? The problem with appeals to the historical situation, whether it be in favor of EmRR or AT ditches or whatever, is that any designer has already made 1000s of concessions of historicity in favor of playability. Even if you did the right thing, historically speaking, and made a custom terrain type for every hex, just putting down a hex grid at all does a great deal of violence to the historical situation. And that is before we get into the fact that not all vegetation falls neatly into one of six categories, that not all buildings have a neat every-10-feet-story design, that non-EmRR terrain typically does not exhibit saltatory changes of elevation in 10-foot increments, etc. So any terrain that is there is not there just because the historical terrain demands it, but because the historical terrain demands it and the designer has decided that the benefits-minus-costs of portraying it with Approximation 1 were greater than the benefits-minus-costs of portraying it with Approximation 2, or 3, or 4. It's that second part that I'm interested it--when the costs of EmRR are so high (less so for you, clearly, Bruce, if you are able to grock them in 15 minutes), what are the corresponding benefits?
Sparafucil3
Forum Guru
Well, as I said up-thread, I was Fort's primary opponent and play tester during the development of this pack. We used to live about 2 miles apart and could play weekly. The cost of understanding the EmRR weren't that steep for he and I. We discussed not adding it, but he decided to leave it in the final product. It gives the battle some flavor and is in keeping with his (as I understand it) philosophy for making scenarios you have to think about. I defer to him, all I can offer is my insights based on our discussions. Who knows what goes on in the head of a designer
I am not one. -- jim
Tuomo
Keeper of the Funk
I accept your apology
Next time, when you and Fort are sitting in your Georgetown brownstone sipping sherry and pushing cardboard, please think about The Common Man
Sparafucil3
Forum Guru
Fort lived in Burke, VA. I lived in Chantilly, VA. Georgetown is too rich for my blood. So rich, they didn't let public transportation into the area to keep out the riff-raff (like me). -- jimI accept your apology
Next time, when you and Fort are sitting in your Georgetown brownstone sipping sherry and pushing cardboard, please think about The Common Man
At the risk of coming off as elitist and ruffling a few feathers (something I never do). ASL is an extremely challenging game system. Newer, and casual, players will have different opinions than gronards or Grofazen...and, to be blunt, there are many players whose skill is not what they think it is.I accept your apology
Next time, when you and Fort are sitting in your Georgetown brownstone sipping sherry and pushing cardboard, please think about The Common Man
My motivations in scenario design are to produce a product that is balanced for the very best play that I can muster. This sometimes means that a scenario might be horribly unbalanced for the less skilled/knowledgeable player. I don’t want a scenario that as a person gets more experience, thus hopefully becoming a better player, the scenario that was balanced when they had it in their newbie hands becomes no longer balanced or challenging.
Regarding the scenario in question, the RR was described as banked high enough to allow the infantry to advance shielded from enemy fire and low enough to allow the Tigers and halftracks to fire from enfiladed positions, partially protected from enemy return fire. ElRR would not accomplish this. EmRR as hillocks does it without SSR to simulate this. I highly recommend a player read and understand the hillock rules before trying this scenario.
Jim gives some good advice. This is not a scenario where the standard blunt force meets an equally blunt force. The OoB are not equally matched. There are other things that must be considered and used to mitigate the disparity.
P.S. Sherry is for cooking. When I sip, I sip scotch or tequila.
Tuomo
Keeper of the Funk
Yep. No offense taken; I don't want to complain about a scenario without keeping this in mind. I may just have failed to grok it. Still, having thought about what the scenario seems set up to reward, I was disappointed. YMMV, and again, I'm just kidding about sherry-sippin' elitists. I really like and appreciate Thinking Man's Scenarios. And if I play one and don't have a good reaction, it may just be that I'm missing something. Or not