Scenario Club - November

[Chris Milne]

Time, Peter! Another scenario will be up for selection around Christmas, with playing of that scheduled to begin in January.

It'd certainly be possible via pbem, but my experience with big vehicle games is that they take a long time indeed.

 

[Commissar Piotr]

Good Day Gentlemen

Is that to say that unless you have a FtF opponent or a broadband connection for Internet so that you can do live play there is no meaning in joining the Scenario Club as I will never be able to play a game ?
Is there no possibility to play the games just because they are fun and report back here as they are finished. Must they be finished in one month ?
If that is the case I am out of here, I barely manage 120 scenarios a year so I will most definitely not be able to play as much as you guys do.

 

[Commissar Piotr]

Hello Gents

I have a game of Cat's Lair going now, thank you. We will do our best to finish it as fast as possible and get back on here with a report.

 

[Chris Milne]

Barely 120 scenarios a year? Bloody hell, Peter, that's about 4 times as many as I manage!

I don't think it's necessary to go to completion. This is more about approaches to the scenario than actual outcomes, although the latter are desirable. In fact, I think it's viable to solo a scenario using different approaches. Due to work commitments, I can't manage a pbem game, and won't be able to get in a ftf game (not that my ftf opponent likes this sort of scenario). I have some ideas for a different attack approach which I might solo out using a defence that worked pretty well in the past.

Oh, and live play works perfectly well over dial-up! VASL is very low bandwidth...

 

[Roy]

Roy, did you get a game in last night?

Sorry Chris.

Boomer showed up, so I thought we were going to have 4 since Greg wasn't going to be there. But Bud had to do inventory at work, so we had 3. Boomer only gets to our club rarely. I had played him last time he made it down, so he and Mike got in a game of "The Five Pound Prize" from the new Schwerpunkt. Good game, decided on the last roll in the last CC. Can't get much squeakier than that!

Still gonna either get this in or set it up and take a look at it.

 

[Commissar Piotr]

Hello Gents and Chris

Live play works well as long as you do not poay for internet connection by the minute...

 

[Chris Milne]

Eewww. Paying by the minute? Even we don't have to do that anymore...

 

[alanp]

I've never played Cat's Lair before; will get a solo game going trying to set up a defense then the attack.

When we first discussed this 'scenario club' solo play was mentioned as an option. My question: are we going to discuss it as we go along on this thread? Maybe write AARs after play has progressed far enough to see how the various approached work? A combination of whatever we all feel like?

Alan

 

[Chris Milne]

I would like to see a combination. Ongoing discussion feeds interest, I hope. In fact, if anyone's read my AAR on the Arnhem tournament, I've already written some analysis on the Cat's Lair. Nothing deep.

When you set it up, and get out the German OB, I suspect most people's first thoughts will be - how the hell do I do this?

 

[Chas]

Gents,

There is no significant errata to Cats Lair

1) the [EXC: Mines] accidentally got in there. We had started a project to come up with standardized HSRs, and in the final version this carried over from other scenarios and we didnt catch it. No mines, and we are active on the HSR project again

2) the counterart and ID for the Russian trucks didnt match. It should be what is written above the counter, but Klaus may have fixed this for the scenario on the web.

I dont know if it is officially scenario of the month, but really look forward to hearing peoples' tactics and how the games go.

Chas

 

[Klaus Fischer]

Yes, it is the corrected truck counter (ZIS), but I missed the mines exception.
Klaus

Gents,

There is no significant errata to Cats Lair

1) the [EXC: Mines] accidentally got in there. We had started a project to come up with standardized HSRs, and in the final version this carried over from other scenarios and we didnt catch it. No mines, and we are active on the HSR project again

2) the counterart and ID for the Russian trucks didnt match. It should be what is written above the counter, but Klaus may have fixed this for the scenario on the web.

I dont know if it is officially scenario of the month, but really look forward to hearing peoples' tactics and how the games go.

Chas

 

[Chris Milne]

And it is officially Scenario of the Month! Gentlemen, sort your counters!

 

[Chris Milne]

OK, guys. It's been about 3 weeks, and ...

Anyone played it? Unfortunately, I've been cramped for time just keeping up on VASL, but here's a thought.

I think the Soviets are best off attacking from the railway line area, unless there's some obvious reason not to because of the German setup. The attack should try to stretch the German defense to the max, so a small force should strike up the main road from offboard (prob. best use of the trucks). The aim is to force the Germans to redeploy their town defence, and then hit any weak spot with the traditional Soviet sledgehammer.

 

[Roy]

RR's

Jason and I are getting ready to do this live VASL.

Question: Are the RR overlays not supposed to hook up? When I use the coordinates given, VASL puts them side by side for a couple of hexes, and they run in different rows.

Roy

 

[Chris Milne]

From memory of the ftf playing I had in September, they linked up. Didn't have an ounce of impact on the play, though...

I'm looking forward to hearing of the playing. Who has which side?

 

[jwert02]

Cat's Lair

I got the embattled Germans and have managed to get the RR overlays to work and line up (Roy can't get them to line up and I couldn't get them on the board, lucky we are both not rolling our mouses over the screen)

Anyways, once we're underway I'll kick out some thoughts on my setup

 

[Commissar Piotr]

Hi Guys

I hope you can use this, it is my setup file for Cat's Lair.

 

[Roy]

Tonight. Dec. 1

Unless I hear otherwise, Jason Wert and I will be beginning our playing of OB13 on live VASL tonight at 9 eastern, 8 central.

Stop by and say hey. Visitors are always welcome. :smoke:

 

[Roy]

Well, we had some real server stuff going on. It was wierd. So we had to bail. Trying again soon.

 

[Chris Milne]

I'd love to see you guys play live. Wrong time of night for me though
Any chance that you could write a logfile of it when it does happen?