GMT's Next War: Poland

Started by Crossroads, March 30, 2018, 07:49:49 AM

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Crossroads

Here's the situation at the end of the Initiative Movement and Combat phase of Turn #1. All chits are the ones used in the operational map as well. How strategic map plays is all land terrain is judged to be Rough Woods, and a unit moving to an adjacent Land Area uses all its movement points to get there.

We erronously interpreted Helicopters are limited to their own Land Area as well, as Artillery is, but they could operate on an adjacent Land Area as well. That meant they for most part stayed out of all action taking place, as moving to a new base expands all their action for the remaining part of a full turn.

Some lessons learnt was Russian needed to play  really aggressive here. In first two turns, this means they have a chance to do combat three times, during Initiative Movement+Combat phase, Exploitation Movement+Combat phase (with a penalty of two column shift to left), and during the Basic Movement+Combat phase.

Seen here, all the Land Areas where Russians moved into, including Saaremaa island (but with a Land Area access from one side) with Airborne units, fell immediately. @Tinkershuffle had drawn but not yet looked at his Clearing markers though, they proved to be a PITA for him, with odds he ended up with. Clearing is done towards the end of the turn, in Reorganization phase, and it requires quite a strong presence to execute succesfully. In Next War, taking an objective, and then securing it, are two different actions and stories altogether  :knuppel2:

So, at this stage, it did not look too good for the Free World.

Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Barthheart

So when do you teach me and mirth?

Crossroads

#33
Quote from: Crossroads on April 25, 2018, 12:06:43 PM

Seen here, all the Land Areas where Russians moved into, including Saaremaa island (but with a Land Area access from one side) with Airborne units, fell immediately. @Tinkershuffle had drawn but not yet looked at his Clearing markers though, they proved to be a PITA for him, with odds he ended up with. Clearing is done towards the end of the turn, in Reorganization phase, and it requires quite a strong presence to execute succesfully. In Next War, taking an objective, and then securing it, are two different actions and stories altogether  :knuppel2:

So, at this stage, it did not look too good for the Free World.

Here's the Clearing chits he picked: One "3" at Saaremaa, one "5", and two "6" odd chits. Ouch!  :buck2:

Here's how Clearing works (I think, I am typing this as part of the learning process):

- Basically, you need to roll the Clearing value with the 0-9 die, so to Clear a "6" chit you need to roll 6 or more (6,7,8, or 9).

However, there are DRM modifiers:

- Compare the Clearing value to your best units Efficiency rating. Get a positive or negative DRM as a result. So a top unit with ER of 5, clearing a "6" chit, already is in trouble, with -1 DRM.
- There's a requirement for minimum stacking points. In this scenario, it was 5 in most cases, so that has an effect as well, if you're light on units.
- If there's an Installation, that gives a -1 DRM. We interpreted this in a manner that if there was a Port in the Land Area, that meant there was an installation.
- Airborne (or amphibious landing) units attempting a Clearing immediately in the same turn receive a -1 as well.
- Combined arms helps, so if there's either  a Leg + Armor unit or a Mech unit, that's a +1.

Not surprisingly, Russian player was only able to Clear Saaremaa where the "3" chit was, and not any others. A failed clearing operation means a step loss in your leading unit (where you derived your ER from), so this cost them.

And suddenly, there was hope  :D

Here's a screenshot from the second turn, where the clearing operations had yet not been tried for the second time, but the battle had moved to Estonian Tallinn Land Area too, where the first action saw the Brit Battalion annihilated on Basic Movement+Combat phase of Turn 1, but where I managed to airlift a reinforcing US Airborne unit.



Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

Quote from: Barthheart on April 25, 2018, 12:12:35 PM
So when do you teach me and mirth?

No worries, I'll just need to complete the training myself, given by Tinkershuffle. Who's paying the traveling? And the booze required?   O:-)
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

Quote from: Crossroads on April 25, 2018, 12:19:52 PM
And suddenly, there was hope  :D


Here's the situation at the end of Turn #2, where we called it the quits, as we found out Russia was done for. They managed to capture and clear the Tallinn Land Area in Estonia, meaning all Estonian Land Areas without NATO troops in them fell as well. Hint: Clearing, taken care of.

Meanwhile, there was a trickle of reinforcements, so I was able to secure all the Latvian and Lithuanian Land Areas with at least one unit each, and even launch a sneaky counter attack to the contested Latvian Land Area of Vidzeme, refusing Russian player any victory points from there.  Again, victory points were calculated and tracked cumulatively per turn, with a twist, as in second turn the value of friendly Land Areas doubled, and for turn 3, tripled. Looking at this at the end of second turn, it was 22 VPs for NATO, and 10 for Russia.

However, turn #3 would have been a contested turn, meaning no Initiative Movement+Combat phase (which includes the Exploitation Phase as well), so no way the Russian land forces could have advanced south to be a match for the NATO forces there.

Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

#36
Lessons learnt from our second scenario :

- Standard rules can still be quite a mouthful, but these scenarios do a nice job in introducing more complexity in steps. Suwalki Gap was a relatively small Operational map battle, this was a relatively small Tactical map battle.

- We'll move to scenario 3 next time we're playing: 17.1.3: Operation Arctic Storm: Retaking the Baltics. That will introduce the sea + amphibious operations, while still using Tactical map only. We are considering using the Air rules from Supplement 1 to add to the Standard rules, for the first time. But I expect that one to be enough of complexity so let us see how it goes.

- Particular to this scenario: The Russian OoB had errata, so they would have been stronger, and for a good reason. I quite like the mandatory Clearing before an area is secured (hex in Operational map, or Land Area in Tactical map). That said, Russian player probably should have spread more a bit, and maybe use his Airborne units to contest a Land Area or two more, to deny the NATO player victory points from there. That said, third turn would have tripled the victory point values, so the 22-10 advantage would swing quickly. Then again, NATO player could counter by moving his reinforcements to any Land Area Russia is still Clearing, playing for time.  :knuppel2:

Good fun, again. I am quite liking the system with Standard rules. Quite complex, first, but plays quite fast, actually. The Advanced rules are advanced, indeed, but we are planning to pick and choose one aspect from there perhaps at time, so that should make it easier.

Edit: Worth a shout is that contrary to what I thought first time, now that I have the box myself too, there's actually very good cheat sheets on battle odds, for Column shifts and DRM modifiers, in the game. They help a lot!
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Toadkillerdog

Regarding your summarization of Clearing Operations you were mostly correct. The Port in a Land Area does not affect Clearing Operations, though. See Game Specific Rules 6.6. That rule probably should've been in 6.1.1.

Crossroads

Quote from: Toadkillerdog on April 25, 2018, 03:16:05 PM
Regarding your summarization of Clearing Operations you were mostly correct. The Port in a Land Area does not affect Clearing Operations, though. See Game Specific Rules 6.6. That rule probably should've been in 6.1.1.

Thank you, we went a bit back and forth there before settling on the faulty assumption we ended up using  #:-)
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Tinkershuffle

Great write up once again Crossroads! One point I'd like to emphasize is the importance of the flagged territories, which I didn't pay enough attention when laying out the inital battle plan. If the flagged area is succesfully cleared and there are no Nato troops present anymore in that country, all the other clearing operations in that country are also automatically succesful. So the strategy should be to move the Russian main forces to the capital areas as quickly as possible and use airborne troops to occupy the rest.


Tinkershuffle

Quote from: Toadkillerdog on April 25, 2018, 03:16:05 PM
Regarding your summarization of Clearing Operations you were mostly correct. The Port in a Land Area does not affect Clearing Operations, though. See Game Specific Rules 6.6. That rule probably should've been in 6.1.1.

Well well, now that you're here could you confirm if we've understood the standard ADF rules on the strategic map correctly? :)

If using airborne movement the only negative modifiers are:
-installation/airfield/naval unit in target land area (-2, not cumulative)
-mechanized/armored troops in target are (-1, not cumulative)

And with airmobile movement in addition to those two:
-flying over enemy units (-1 not cumulative, no matter how many units or land areas were bypassed?)

Toadkillerdog

Quote from: Tinkershuffle on April 26, 2018, 01:02:01 PM
Quote from: Toadkillerdog on April 25, 2018, 03:16:05 PM
Regarding your summarization of Clearing Operations you were mostly correct. The Port in a Land Area does not affect Clearing Operations, though. See Game Specific Rules 6.6. That rule probably should've been in 6.1.1.

Well well, now that you're here could you confirm if we've understood the standard ADF rules on the strategic map correctly? :)

If using airborne movement the only negative modifiers are:
-installation/airfield/naval unit in target land area (-2, not cumulative)
-mechanized/armored troops in target are (-1, not cumulative)

And with airmobile movement in addition to those two:
-flying over enemy units (-1 not cumulative, no matter how many units or land areas were bypassed?)

Correct.

Tinkershuffle


Crossroads

Quote from: Toadkillerdog on April 26, 2018, 01:38:06 PM
Quote from: Tinkershuffle on April 26, 2018, 01:02:01 PM
Quote from: Toadkillerdog on April 25, 2018, 03:16:05 PM
Regarding your summarization of Clearing Operations you were mostly correct. The Port in a Land Area does not affect Clearing Operations, though. See Game Specific Rules 6.6. That rule probably should've been in 6.1.1.

Well well, now that you're here could you confirm if we've understood the standard ADF rules on the strategic map correctly? :)

If using airborne movement the only negative modifiers are:
-installation/airfield/naval unit in target land area (-2, not cumulative)
-mechanized/armored troops in target are (-1, not cumulative)

And with airmobile movement in addition to those two:
-flying over enemy units (-1 not cumulative, no matter how many units or land areas were bypassed?)

Correct.

And here (part in bold), Ports do count as an Installation, right?
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Tinkershuffle

 I'd say yes, it also seems that ports are the only installations on the strategic map.