Has anyone played Critical Hit's Tarawa?

[nebel]

I do not.
I invite you to share your top five CH scenarios for me to check out.
Thanks in advance!

Played quite a few good ones but here are some faves you will note that these are all old scenarios which is nice because you can get the older versions of these packs pretty cheap. I've enjoyed Hell's Bridgehead and Stonne especially. The Hero Packs are also nice for the quick play tourney style scenarios:
ID Scenario Publication
STONNE4 Trial of Strength Stonne 1940
TTF4 Tigers on The Balcony Tigers To The Front!
Retro17 Prussian Panic Retro Pak 2
HB 7 High Tide Critical Hit # 6.4
HB 2 Battle at Arm's Length The Battle for Kursk I: Hell's Bridgehead
CH30 Kravchenko's 6th Guards Tank ArmyCritical Hit # 3
HP 3 Rimling Round Up Hero Pack 1
PBP 28 Peningkibaru Push Paddington Bears '98 Pack

 

[TopT]

Played quite a few good ones but here are some faves you will note that these are all old scenarios which is nice because you can get the older versions of these packs pretty cheap. I've enjoyed Hell's Bridgehead and Stonne especially. The Hero Packs are also nice for the quick play tourney style scenarios:
ID Scenario Publication
STONNE4 Trial of Strength Stonne 1940
TTF4 Tigers on The Balcony Tigers To The Front!
Retro17 Prussian Panic Retro Pak 2
HB 7 High Tide Critical Hit # 6.4
HB 2 Battle at Arm's Length The Battle for Kursk I: Hell's Bridgehead
CH30 Kravchenko's 6th Guards Tank ArmyCritical Hit # 3
HP 3 Rimling Round Up Hero Pack 1
PBP 28 Peningkibaru Push Paddington Bears '98 Pack

Add to that list CH167_ The Warlords Estate
CH30 is a blast

The Hero packs have quite a few nuggets.

 

[hongkongwargamer]

I do not.
I invite you to share your top five CH scenarios for me to check out.
Thanks in advance!

Mate, I am definitely no fan of CH, but some of the REALLY old stuff is good. I just played CH18 Raging Furnace, it's truly a riot, I will post an AAR soon.

 

[Honza]

Though I must admit my kinky meter pegged upwards at the notion of a Red v. Black Berlin playing with some B.O.C. in the background (2nd album of course) bouncing the counters (and my beer) on the gaming table

HeHe. Yeah it makes me wonder too. B.O.C. = Blue Oyster Cult?

 

[Sparky]

oh yeah... the one and only BOC. Though googling BOC might get some regulatory agency or bank haha it really doesn't even need to umlaut for most to know who I meant haha.

bringing it from counters back to Tarawa. The lack of a CG really wouldn't be much of a negative. In fact a CG isn't really the best medium for these kind of historical actions anyhow. The large programmed scenario really is. Very much like Omaha which wisely did not have a CG. Changing or even really even managing the historical force parameters sort of defeats the notion of what the game is trying to do here. You had what you had and not much say about it haha. These type of historical actions with ASL are more in the simulation/recreation realm of ASL.

 

[william.stoppel]

oh yeah... the one and only BOC. Though googling BOC might get some regulatory agency or bank haha it really doesn't even need to umlaut for most to know who I meant haha.

bringing it from counters back to Tarawa. The lack of a CG really wouldn't be much of a negative. In fact a CG isn't really the best medium for these kind of historical actions anyhow. The large programmed scenario really is. Very much like Omaha which wisely did not have a CG. Changing or even really even managing the historical force parameters sort of defeats the notion of what the game is trying to do here. You had what you had and not much say about it haha. These type of historical actions with ASL are more in the simulation/recreation realm of ASL.

I too like the big monster scenario (aka First Bid, Last Bid etc) than a CG. I find I don’t have the time to give to a CG but I can manage a large scenario

 

[Vinnie]

I find that large scenarios suffer from a snowball effect. One dude starts to get on top and the advantage grows exponentially. The stop start nature of CGs minimises this.

 

[von Marwitz]

I find that large scenarios suffer from a snowball effect. One dude starts to get on top and the advantage grows exponentially. The stop start nature of CGs minimises this.

Good observation IMHO.

I have not played many of the "big" ones for lack of time & opportunity. But in my play of "The Last Bid" this was exactly what happened. I had inflicted such serious losses on the Russians, that their back was broken and the game pre-decided after the first few (but very vicious) turns. We would not have had the time to finish the game but at the same time, it would not have made sense to do so either.

von Marwitz

 

[Sparky]

I too like the big monster scenario (aka First Bid, Last Bid etc) than a CG. I find I don’t have the time to give to a CG but I can manage a large scenario

I find that large scenarios suffer from a snowball effect. One dude starts to get on top and the advantage grows exponentially. The stop start nature of CGs minimises this.

Personally I like both William but the point I was sort of making in regards to Tarawa is some actions are better suited to be handled as large 'campaign' scenarios both from a gameplay and more importantly as a simulaton standpoint. Especially when using the official set of CG's whose single greatest weakness is the teleportation/sweep and clear refit mechanism. They may minimize snowball effects Vinnie but do so by playing fantasy HASL which works for some, but not all. Those who developed P.L thankfully and obviously saw that as well as a big weakness of official CG rules and play and took care of that particular weakness with limited redeployments of forces based on where they ended the last CG date. A much more realistic, fun and challenging aspect to CG play than the official model.

As I noted in Honza's recent thread however though, there is a 3rd way to approach this and I'd like to see it catch on. It combines the best of both, and gets rid of the weaknesses of both. Whether CH will continue it? Likely not as Tapio and CH are as Nuke Lalaloosh pitches and fucks.. all over the place. Many a great idea has been long forgotten and never fully developed over there.

However it would be nice to see a bit of innovation in ASL. The combination of elements of CG's into campaign scenarios really did work and work fabulously well once a few minor bugs were worked out in their first incarnation as seen in Maxim Gorki. It is something I'm playing with with an eye to my own designs.

 

[Vinnie]

Personally I like both William but the point I was sort of making in regards to Tarawa is some actions are better suited to be handled as large 'campaign' scenarios both from a gameplay and more importantly as a simulaton standpoint. Especially when using the official set of CG's whose single greatest weakness is the teleportation/sweep and clear refit mechanism. They may minimize snowball effects Vinnie but do so by playing fantasy HASL which works for some, but not all. Those who developed P.L thankfully and obviously saw that as well as a big weakness of official CG rules and play and took care of that particular weakness with limited redeployments of forces based on where they ended the last CG date. A much more realistic, fun and challenging aspect to CG play than the official model.

As I noted in Honza's recent thread however though, there is a 3rd way to approach this and I'd like to see it catch on. It combines the best of both, and gets rid of the weaknesses of both. Whether CH will continue it? Likely not as Tapio and CH are as Nuke Lalaloosh pitches and fucks.. all over the place. Many a great idea has been long forgotten and never fully developed over there.

However it would be nice to see a bit of innovation in ASL. The combination of elements of CG's into campaign scenarios really did work and work fabulously well once a few minor bugs were worked out in their first incarnation as seen in Maxim Gorki. It is something I'm playing with with an eye to my own designs.

Many of the recent HASL designs, which are based around shorter actions, severely limit the repositioning of units.

 

[Sparky]

well then there is hope for CG's yet. Now if someone could figure out a better way than drawing perimeters. Oh wait. The 3rd way.


Thanks for the correction Vinnie. Which one's have done that? I've been out of the game for some years and am still playing catchup. I'd like to see what they did with the rules.

 

[Vinnie]

The Lone Canuck ones are generally "units in place" CGs

 

[Sparky]

ahh. Yes they've come onto my radar thanks to the Juno Beach stuff which Brian recently sent me.

I've only played CG by AH/MMP, CH, LFT, and HoB. None by Lane Canuck.

Recommend a good one to start with Vinnie?

 

[Vinnie]

I like Ozerekya Bay. Soviet marines versus Romanians. Human waves, aircraft, M5 Stuart's ruling the battlefield....

 

[MAS01]

ahh. Yes they've come onto my radar thanks to the Juno Beach stuff which Brian recently sent me.

I've only played CG by AH/MMP, CH, LFT, and HoB. None by Lane Canuck.

Recommend a good one to start with Vinnie?

IIRC, the upcoming Dinant HASL allows only very limited repositioning. I think that the CG Dates are only two hours long (may not be remembering that number correctly though). I'm sure one of the playtesters can chime in.

 

[Sparky]

I like Ozerekya Bay. Soviet marines versus Romanians. Human waves, aircraft, M5 Stuart's ruling the battlefield....

Thanks again Vinnie. I had hoped you might say that one. I'm taking it you have actually played it and plays as good as it looks. That was the one that looked most interesting and was leaning most to getting.

 

[Vinnie]

Not played to completion but started three times and got half way through. Good fun. One problem it has is if you set fire to the hill mass, you have a lot of fire...

 

[Delirium]

I’ve played Ozerekya Bay to completion. I found it to be very enjoyable - unusual OOB for both sides, interesting terrain in that the Soviets are fighting up a river valley with forested hillsides, so quite contained. Opportunities for dogfights, NOBA, Romanian fortified strongpoints, marine engineers vs Germans, interesting armour confrontations...

Lots of appeal for a player like me.

The fires are tiresome, though. Players might want to adopt a house rule rather than spending 10 minutes every AFPh rolling to advance the forest inferno which is bound to occur.

I can’t speak to balance with confidence but I suspect it favours the Soviets.

 

[Eagle4ty]

If you'd like to look at a LC CG that offers only limited re-positioning in the RePh (forget what it's actually called in the LC vernacular without looking it up), one can down-load the updated rules for Purple Heart Draw from the Lone Canuk site (Also a fun CG BTW-even if you're not a fan of Bocage). There are several other approaches to perimeter determination such as those from KGP or the DaE ASLSK HASL. Of course one factor that should be taken into account is the time period taken into account between engagements (CG scenario periods) and the force representation. In RB & probably VotG the forces given are actually about a third of what was employed. That is to say a company probably represents a battalion, and the time period (5-8 turns) represents an entire day's activities rather than about 20 minutes of action. In other CGs the scenario time periods may represent an AM-PM-etc. flex of time that would allow less redeployment of forces an/or effort by the forces involved.

 

[Sparky]

thanks guys for the feedback. Oz Bay it is then.