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Absolutely fantastic game and LP, thank you Tevery. Also, thanks for making me one of the only surviving Germans! 
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Oct 19, 2014 12:02
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 04:56 |
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:Absolutely fantastic game and LP, thank you Tevery. Also, thanks for making me one of the only surviving Germans! Hey, I survived until the Red Brigades  Thanks for the LP, Tevery.
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Oct 19, 2014 13:41
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Fast forward Some of you may ask: why call the game right now? After all, the German situation is dire, but not totally unsalvageable. The Soviets are still in the USSR, and there is a large Axis force still fighting. Surely there is still something to play for? The answer, however, is that there is no realistic way for the Germans to win. The only win condition they may still theoretically have a shot at is that if the Soviets do not win by the end of Turn 28, the Germans do instead. And that's all well and fine, you might think, don't they have the entirety of Greater Germany to defend in? That's almost two countries between the Soviets and Berlin! But if you look at the map below...  ...you'll see that while the Soviet Union is huge, Germany is not. The Soviets are 8 hexes away from Berlin right now, and that means that the Germans can't, on average, give up even a single hex of land a turn. Still, maybe they can just defend in depth, occasionally counter-attack and try to figure something out? Here's another problem:   Right now they're 4 units down, and even though they're getting one this turn (and a decent one to boot), they'll continue to be weakened. Why?  This turn marks the invasion of Italy, which costs them a VP and a card. And this is only the beginning of their troubles. Their units are mostly reduced-strength right now, and having two steps is what allows the Germans to put up a very resilient defence. They won't have the resources to bring those forces back up. Let's take a look at the turn track and see just why.  On Turn 15, the Axis start to lose card draws because of No Surrender. In fact, we can safely assume that until the end of the game, pretty much every skull icon means that the Germans lose three cards (maybe save for 1945, if they're lucky). And that turn they also have to remove the 8th Italian... which is dead right now, causing them to lose another card because of that. On Turn 16 they have another blow to take: the 2nd Panzer also leaves the game. 1944 opens with a serious change to the Soviet fighting capabilities: from that point on, their units have two steps. This means, on the one hand, that they have to be re-upgraded if they lose a step (but this can be done with their free upgrades or at a cost of one card discard), on the other - they have a lot more staying power. A curious little rules catch is that this means that any upgraded Soviet units that die on Turn 16 only come back on their weaker side (because destroyed units come back on their reduced-strength side, which they had only just acquired). Turn 18 gives the Axis a tiny little bit of help - the Soviets lose one of their two free upgrades. Of course, this is followed by a kick to the nuts - No Surrender and the loss of SS Panzer. Instead, the Axis get these guys:  A lot wimpier than their Panzer colleagues, but with an interesting gimmick: when they defend, they cause the attack to shift one column to the left. Definitely useful, but not as much as SS Panzer... On Turn 20, the Germans are fighting a full-blown two-front war and suffer for it. They can only make three voluntary attacks per turn from that point on. Given the sad state of their force, however, that probably wouldn't be as much of a hit. Regardless of the strategy adopted by the Soviets, I'd estimate that even if they wanted to clean house first, this is the absolute latest that they would get an upgraded unit into Greater Germany. This triggers a bunch of reinforcements:  None of these units is particularly strong, though. The German fortresses may seem handy, but they are not the sturdy Soviet forts that prevented the loss of Sevastopol and Leningrad - they only have one step, have to take the first EX result in a battle, and once destroyed, are permanently removed from the game. Another bunch of interesting effects trigger when the Soviets secure the Ploesti oil fields hex.   For the Germans, this has some pretty horrible consequences. Their tanks (other than SS Panzer) permanently lose their Armour and Advance bonuses, and even if they manage to reconquer the oil fields, they can only regain the Armour bonus. They also lose all Rumanian units, as the country surrenders to the Soviets. Finally, the two Yugoslav units spawn in the West/South Balkans areas, with the two new German armies pretty much instantly tied up fighting them. The Yugoslavs arrive as fortresses, but if left unchecked, they can flip back to infantry and harass the Germans, as they can draw supply from the two Balkans areas (and nowhere else, so they can't guerilla their way into Berlin). The Soviet Rumanians, by the way, have two steps - but the one displayed is their stronger one.  Once the Soviets take Warsaw, they get the Polish unit. These guys are Soviet Rumanians, though - they only have one step and go to the Turn Track once whacked. Turn 23 changes the rules of the game a lot. First of all, from that point on, only hexes in Greater Germany count for VP purposes. Second, all cards with the crossed-out "45" icon (e.g.) are removed from the game and replaced with a bunch of new 1945-only cards - of which most provide VPs for holding specific areas, but some are actually useful. Third, it allows the Soviets to stack. Fourth, it generates the last Axis reinforcements wave:  All these units are immediately placed in the respective Cities. The black hexes represent Volkssturm units, a last-ditch force of poorly trained conscripts. They are weak, but they have a unique feature: when a DR is rolled against their hex, it gets converted to no effect, but the VS unit is removed from the game. Berlin Garrison, in turn, is also very important: if the Soviets manage to destroy that unit, they win the game by Killing Hitler. All this unit spawning has the adverse effect of causing the Germans to only draw one card that turn. This is bad. Also, from this turn on, the Axis can pay some VPs in their Org Phase to bring back the SS Panzer, which is the one thing they really have going for them at that point. On Turn 24, the Germans are barred from upgrading their units. They probably won't be able to afford it, anyway. On Turn 26, they are down to one target. The Reich is so weakened that it can only afford small-scale local offensives. On Turn 28, the Berlin Garrison is removed from the game and the Soviets may no longer win by Killing Hitler. That seems to be it! The LP is officially over! Thanks for all your kind words and support, and I'll try to think of something to do next. Stay tuned!
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Oct 19, 2014 15:04
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Are there any game effects on the D-Day, Battle of the Bulge, Rhine Crossed, and Economic Collapse turns?
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Oct 19, 2014 17:25
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Thank you for that fantastic send-off, Tevery!
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Oct 19, 2014 17:53
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vyelkin posted:Are there any game effects on the D-Day, Battle of the Bulge, Rhine Crossed, and Economic Collapse turns? They cost the Germans a victory point and a card discard. Nothing specific, though.
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Oct 19, 2014 18:16
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Heh, it's fitting that the northern defence is the main issue with our continued survival. I wonder if victory at Leningrad would've changed that, but that was purely down to the dice. drat Leningrad Fortress, you were the
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Oct 19, 2014 19:20
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HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:Heh, it's fitting that the northern defence is the main issue with our continued survival. I wonder if victory at Leningrad would've changed that, but that was purely down to the dice. drat Leningrad Fortress, you were the I think we all know who is primarily to blame for the utter failure of the Axis forces 
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Oct 19, 2014 19:31
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Good game. Look at it this way, Finland: once the Cold War ends, you still have Karelia and Petsamo! Now to see how the Herp-Fangz rematch in Grey Hunter's AAR develops.
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Oct 19, 2014 19:43
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Ha oh wow that ending. For the record I enjoyed working with everyone on my team and hope we can work together on things in the future. As for our enemies well even if you had a ruff time of it I enjoyed your sides commentary at least (Especially Devin and Herp).
cokerpilot fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Oct 20, 2014 |
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Oct 20, 2014 04:29
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Carl Paradis in my BGG inbox posted:------------ Forwarded Message ----------- Pat yourselves on the back, lads. (I know it's a month late, but I don't check my BGG mail all that often, and also I forgot you might want to see this.) I'll put something up sometime next week, I hope. Turns out one of my friends actually did buy 1989, so we might do that, ooooor we might set sail. We'll see.
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Nov 30, 2014 16:44
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Oooh, boats, shiny counters and an "On Fire" counter! Colour me intrigued for whatever comes next.
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Nov 30, 2014 18:06
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Can't wait to see his reaction to the Axis total clusterfuck. For which I still blame Herp, by the way.
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Nov 30, 2014 19:48
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If we are to be totally fair, the Axis Clusterfuck would have been averted if Leningrad was taken. If
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Nov 30, 2014 19:54
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Leningrad indeed. I await you next project Tevery.
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Dec 1, 2014 08:59
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 04:56 |
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So, uh. That was a bit more than a week. I made a post in the Sandcastle on what I'm planning to do next, feel free to look at it and give me any hints and ideas you might have!
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Dec 22, 2014 18:05
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