What's on the Table

[ArizonaTank]

Soloed the Tannenberg game from Ted Raicer / GMT's Clash of Giants last night and it was a hoot.  I had never played the system despite having had in on my shelf for quite a while. 

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2638/clash-of-giants

The German has a handful of really powerful infantry divisions, and another handful of infantry units that break at the first sniff of combat.  The Russians have two armies of mediocre infantry units, but very liberal replacements.  In the end, it's the replacements that allow the Russian to trade blows with superior German units.

The map is pretty wide open, in terms of options for the Germans and the Russians.  The Germans have to face two Russian armies.  Do they spread out and try a fighting withdrawl, or concentrate and active defense on one army, and try to delay the other?  The area around Konigsberg is also pretty well fortified, so another option is to pull back and defend Konigsberg, and concentrate on the Russian 2nd Army in the south.  For the Russians, the 2nd Army in the south, can either thrust northwest towards Danzig and big victory points, or north to help the 1st Army take Konigsberg. 

Really love the combat system, while it is very simple (after a few combats you can pretty much do it from memory), IMHO it creates the feel of early WWI combat much better than many other games.  Units have a combat strength and a "tactical efficiency" rating that represents quality.  You first calculate traditional odds based on combat strength, and this will give a die roll modifier for the combat; 2-1 gives the attacker -1 and defender +1.  Then the defender and attacker roll for each unit involved in the fight.  Roll greater than your "tactical efficiency" and your unit loses a step, and if a defender, must retreat (unless in a fort or trenches).  Most units on the board have a tactical efficiency of 2 or 3, so are pretty brittle.  The German 1st Corps has a "tactical efficiency" of 5 making it a juggernaut on the field. 

Movement factors fluctuate, and are rolled for each turn by each army.  The tables used for movement points reflect the commander's ability.  Four example, after turn four, when Ludendorff and Von Hindenburg show up the Germans can almost always count on a high number of movement points.  One interestingly simple but effective rule reflects the German intercepts of Russian wireless traffic; it basically allows the German to know ahead of time one of the Russian armies' movement points.

In my game, the Germans tried to concentrate against the Russian 1st Army to keep them away from Konigsberg, while having a token force delay the Russian 2nd Army to the south.  But the Russian 1st Army's superior numbers meant that I could not hold them for long, and only at the last minute was I able to retreat to the trenches around Konigsberg.  The Russian 2nd Army however, never got real traction because of the German wire intercept rule.

Clash of Giants also comes with a 1914 Marne game (the defense of Paris) that I will try next weekend.