What is up with The Last Attack?

[Khill]

The Last Attack is a fun and interesting scenario. Finns attacking Russians, end of the Continuation War

The Finns have to control two buildings on opposite corners of a four half board configuration. There are two hill overlays, a building overlay (one of the VC buildings), and orchards are light woods. I used the nifty BfP "Light Jungle" counters to remind me of the change. Ya, there are eight, fast playing, turns but there is a lot of ground to cover for the Finns to win. And, there is a 32 CVP Finn cap

The Russians have a stout force with some strict setup (enter) requirements for the different groups of defenders. The Finns have a powerful force. They have two on board groups. Turn two reinforcements of a platoon of infantry and AFV with a 10-0 (Mikko) bicycle riding ground guide. In one game I eventually gave him the FT. He did pretty good but he broke on me. He came right back but the fight for that VC building was over

Sven and I played this the other week. We diced for sides and I got the Russians. The Russians were able to stuff the initial Finn assault on the near VC building and significantly slow their progress through the wooded board for Russian win

The other day Fanatic TW agreed to play as the Russians. The Finns were able to capture the near VC building by turn four but the troops left to finish off the last Russian defenders were out of the rest of the fight. The Finns on the wooded board went hard charging down the path toward the far VC building. The Finns got to the last VC building but were in not position to take it after turn five Russian reinforcements turned up. The final turn Finn thrusts hit the CVP cap for another Russian win

So, what is up with The Last Attack? This is a fun and interesting scenario. Lot of fun toys for everyone. In spit of its length, it played fast. Interesting OB's. Both games I played were savage affairs of great ASL goodness: Finn hero, heaps of snipers, vicious CC's, ROF tears, CH's, Ted FTing one of my StuG's... . There are only fourteen ROAR playings with a 11:3 Russian win. Is that last building just too far? I would play it again but I think I would give the Finns the balance, reinforcements enter on Turn one (not two), and see how that goes for them

 

[bprobst]

There is only one single, indisputable fact that the ROAR record can tell you: the scenario has been played at least 14 times.

14 games is not even remotely close to a sufficiently large number to establish a meaningful trend. A large proportion of Russian wins tells you only that in those 14 games, there was a large proportion of Russian wins. If you flipped a coin 14 times and came up "heads" 11 times, you might think it a bit strange but you'd be silly to make any predictions based on that fact ... and that's a situation where the outcome is guaranteed to be balanced, and the result is not subject to variables beyond your control.

So, like every other ASL scenario ever designed, the only way to really know what's up with the scenario is to play it so that you can make a judgement based on actual experience.

You've played it a couple of times and think the Finns need something extra. That's fair, that's your experience talking and that's way more important than anything ROAR could ever tell you.

I've only played the scenario once (won as the Russians) and my thinking is that the scenario is tough on the Finns but not, I think, unfairly so. IMO the Russians are fragile, a couple of bad DR can leave them wide open. My opinion is only based on a single game, though, and I might change my opinion if I played it again (particularly if I played as the Finns).

 

[Spencer Armstrong]

There is only one single, indisputable fact that the ROAR record can tell you: the scenario has been played at least 14 times.

14 games is not even remotely close to a sufficiently large number to establish a meaningful trend. A large proportion of Russian wins tells you only that in those 14 games, there was a large proportion of Russian wins. If you flipped a coin 14 times and came up "heads" 11 times, you might think it a bit strange but you'd be silly to make any predictions based on that fact ... and that's a situation where the outcome is guaranteed to be balanced, and the result is not subject to variables beyond your control.

So, like every other ASL scenario ever designed, the only way to really know what's up with the scenario is to play it so that you can make a judgement based on actual experience.

You've played it a couple of times and think the Finns need something extra. That's fair, that's your experience talking and that's way more important than anything ROAR could ever tell you.

I've only played the scenario once (won as the Russians) and my thinking is that the scenario is tough on the Finns but not, I think, unfairly so. IMO the Russians are fragile, a couple of bad DR can leave them wide open. My opinion is only based on a single game, though, and I might change my opinion if I played it again (particularly if I played as the Finns).

Great post. I really feel for designers when this happens because 11-3 still means nearly nothing and yet a lot of players will pass such a scenario by and it'll stall there, not being played, with little chance to correct.

 

[asloser]

While I am not the designer I was heavily involved in the playtest of this one. We went through many versions and in the end we thought we got it right- however there is a learning curve for the Finn, it is easy to overcommit yourself with the first building and not have enough force to take the one in the back.

But it well might be we screwed it up as well....

 

[Khill]

Well, a big part of this AAR was how, "fun and interesting," we all found this scenario. There was plenty of, "great ASL goodness," in each playing. The scenario offers both sides, "interesting OB's [and] fun toys." And, "in spite of its length it played fast." I liked it. It was fun. Just seemed a bit tough on the Finns. I was really surprised to see so few playings of such an interesting scenario on ROAR and the few recorded games seemed to confirmed my own experience. This is a really fun scenario. I'm hoping more players will give it a try but I'm suggesting give the Finns the balance and see what happens

 

[Jacometti]

I think a good designer with a solid team of playtesters can still get balance "wrong" 20 - 25% of the time. I think you can also see that on ROAR for solidly playtested products.

If the scenario is fun and innovative, you can fix this with some ABS or SSR, and playing it will still be a good amount of fun.

The Last Attack to me seemed to be in that bracket. It happens. Still better than playing a dull scenario that is perfectly balanced.

 

[bprobst]

I'm hoping more players will give it a try but I'm suggesting give the Finns the balance and see what happens

No, more players need to give it a try without giving the Finns the balance. That will give everyone a much better idea as to whether the balance is really needed.