REALLY OUT TO GET ME! -- DC:Barbarossa JasonPratt vs Bartheart (finished)

Started by JasonPratt, November 26, 2015, 10:51:42 AM

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JasonPratt

ACTUAL ROUND 2 (Part 2 of 2)

Next, the Riga / Koningsberg / Warsaw region. Here the Front shifts from North to Central, which you'll be able to tell by the red dashed lines -- in fact, down to the lower right, you can see a bit of the Southern sector. The actual front is shown by the dashed yellow squiggly.




I'll discuss things roughly north to south and west to east. I'll be anchoring discussion on the Army HQs, because those are usually easy to see, with their bright flags.

Up at the tippy top is the Baltic MD HQ (which I'll just call Baltic), parked in the port of Windau. (City names are a bit obscured with chits on the board, but it's the chit with the bright red flag at the top of the map.) You can see some grey shipping counters on the map now; those will be the shipping routes for supplies (not invasions or shore bombardments, fortunately), when/if the Huns take Windau, Riga, and/or another port or two farther north. Take a moment to follow that ship trail down to Koningsberg. It has a chit on it saying "Main", meaning that's the main supply hub for Army Group North (our North Front). That thing can't be moved, and would be a wonderful target if we could get to it. There's a Forward Supply Hub, too, but Bart probably hasn't moved it yet because there are trucks on the road out of Konin, and those only go forward from the FSB. Otherwise we'd see trains to the FSB and then trucks. (What we can't see is whether that trail is in supply or not, I think -- it ought to be, but it also ought to be green not grey which indicates disruption. That would be true if he had moved his FSB up to a city already, but he has no need to do that and the trucks-not-trains show he hasn't.) The trucks are using "sealed" (all-weather) roads running with the tracks. I won't go into the complex weirdities of Bart's supply and logistic game; suffice to say that our only chance of winning is to mess with it. That isn't possible yet.

Back northward and to the right you can see Riga, which has a red dot not a grey one. Red-dot cities are strategically important, and will shift more victory points around than grey dot cities; losing them will also give me a punch to the paranoia glands, and while it will wear off over time the next punch will hit harder for every red-dot city the Germs conquer. I'm not worried about Riga yet, but it's a super-important target because in effect it acts like cloning Koningsberg and moving it northward. (Some other cities northward beyond the screenshot do, too.) The North Sector is the only place where he can effectively clone-move his main Sector supply base like that.

To the right of Riga you can see the spread out divisions of the 27th Army. I'm going to be moving that and the Baltic Army group southward to the front to help slow down the German advance; I can't do strategic rail moves in this game (although some such things happen in the background for moving reinforcements and troop replacements in), but they still give me some movement bonuses. On the other hand, I'll be looking for places to sit on mountains and swamps and hills to make stands, as I get pushed and retreat backward; and I'm taking an important strategic gamble to move 27th Army south beyond its defensive river, which I may not be able to get them back behind very easily.

While I'm passing nearby, note how close the 27th Army is to the Sector border. We'll see in a minute if I ended up with any divisions across the border (I can't recall offhand), but for Russia that'll be much less of a problem than for Germany: despite the rigid Soviet command structure, the defense of the Motherland allowed more leeway for shifting units across onto other Fronts, meaning I can push Armies and Divisions a little way into those areas without political penalties. The Germans marching on Kanaus (where 11th Army is parked, as I've scribbled on the map), could have a lot more problem if Bart doesn't pay attention to where his divisions and HQs are going: he can be easily socked for political penalties crossing that line! (Though maybe not for attacking across it; I don't know.)

Okay down south to the northern part of the North Front: 4th PanzerGroup (the North's only PG) is leading a charge off the rails into the plains between those forests. The little shaded "10" rectangles on either side of the 8th Pz (and its stack) tell me he's got zones of control there which would hamper me moving into them if I cared to do so. He's also projecting a hex of front forward, although I don't know if that's a special ability or if he pulled back a division after fighting to keep from going too far. Since I'm on Offensive anyway, I took the opportunity to keep him honest by ganging up everyone around in condition to fight (some had used up movement points already fighting defense during Bart's turn), and plinking at the 3rd MtrInf by itself there in the middle of that salient. Didn't accomplish much, but it made me feel better. :D

This is as good a time as any to talk about movement issues. Movement points are needed to move and to fight, even defensively (though not to run away perhaps; not sure about that, I'll have to check). Every unit needs mpoints, but "fast" units (the armored and mech/motor divisions) need fuel, too. (Russian cavalry is an exception, being fast but not needing fuel. They still need movement points.)

Mps are assigned at the beginning of my turn through a Headquarter system, passed from Stavka to the Front HQs to the Army HQs to the divisions. At each stage from the Front HQs onward, though, if an activation roll fails or partially fails, based on various bonuses and penalties, then the divisions (including the HQs themselves) only get 40 or 75 movement points, not the full 100. All my armies failed to activate this turn, so a number of divisions who had already been fighting couldn't move at all, and all the others were hampered (although infantry moreso than motor/mech and cav, which were moreso than armored.) 40 mps are still enough for an infantry Division to move one hex across clear plains in good weather, but that's it. So I couldn't shuffle chits much, and I couldn't cross rivers at all except at a bridge. Ideally I'd liked to get those infantry divisions down in that developing pocket west of Kaunas back into the forest behind the river to the north, combining with the 179th and 90th infantries there; but that didn't happen. Still, they're in swamps and woods, which don't mean anything to infantries but help defend against local arty and tanks. (Unfortunately that pocket west of Kaunas has a lot of Nazi infantry surrounding it.)

Generally in that area I also tried to pull forces back to defend Kaunas, where I also send Zukhov (and Krusch by accident) to bolster the local military power and maybe blow the bridge if I get a chance. (My troops will try to blow a bridge automatically I think before vacating a hex on the other side of it, but they aren't very good at it. Zukhov can do it manually with 100% success if I spend 2 Ppoints. Whether I can hold out long enough to get that done while trying to shift everyone to Defense Posture by turn 5, is another question. I can create one conscript garrison for any grey town once per turn (one minor town per game), and I send it to Kaunas. (I won't be able to do that again for Kaunas for the rest of the game regardless of what happens.)

Bart has already created one of his first true pockets, centered on my 10th Army, in... um... Bellystock, toward the bottom central of that screen. They are almost certainly screwed, but I get one free Breakthru command per turn which I can apply to any HQ cut off in a city; so I use it to tell them where to find hidden supplies so that their defense might possibly last a little longer, and I shuffled some armored divisions around out of bad terrain in there (no one else in the pocket could move). This perk won't go into effect until next turn, but I might be able to plink at a passing division with it.

Nearby, my 29th Motorized Infantry might as well be in a pocket by itself, but at least it's doomed by itself. Finally, I shuffled the large Western Army group forward, preparing to stiffen the line and, if possible, prepare for swamp fighting against the 2nd Panzergruppe which is moving into that area (the divisions with the light blue flag).

When I was done, the area looked like this:




(I didn't get quite the same scope of the screen as before, on any of the 'after' shots, unfortunately, but this'll be good enough.)

Moving south of Warsaw for the next screenie:




You can see my 10th Army pocket still visible at the top of the screen, so start there working down for commentary.

Bart's 2nd PG may be about to overrun my 4th Army -- I can't even get the HQ out of the way! Hopefully he'll have some trouble with the political costs of finagling near his sector border, but I really don't have any hope of saving most of that army, other than telling them to try an orderly withdrawal if they lose 25% casualties.

Over to the west, in the Fog shroud, you can see that Warsaw and, south of that, Krakau are the main supply depots for those Army Groups; and based on those truck chits Bart may not have moved his FSB up to, say, Lublin yet. You can see the main Luftwaffe bases for AGC and AGS at Warsaw and Lublin, though. Some of my towns have an airplane chit on them, too, but only as a way of showing that he could move his Luftwaffe support chit forward there when/if he takes them.

My line down here is doing sort of okay so far, except for that portion of the 6th Army trapped in a small pocket on the plains west of its HQ. I've told them to make a stand, but I disbanded the weakest division into partisans (a free action I can take once per turn). Ideally I'd like to get the 6th HQ out of a developing pocket at the rail crossroads there, but they were pushed back by the initial attacks and don't have enough mps to do it. I would have taken some shots at his 13th Panzers in that forest north of 6th if I could, but didn't have anyone capable. Mostly I spent the turn down here moving Armies up to shore the defense of Lvov (where 26th Army is parked), including spending my first 5 Ppoints on raising a main-city garrison there which will be nothing to sneeze at. I can create fortifications for free once per turn, too, and those I plopped with the 6th Army at the rail crossroads.

Here's what that area looked like at the end of Round 2. (Split into two screenshots because I wasn't thinking ahead enough at the end.)







Last, but not least ("least" at the moment is the Finnish War), we'll go down to the Black Sea / Romania border.




I either didn't have anyone near the Rums (and their Shotdown Flyboys) to fight yet, or I had people near but I'm on the other side of a river. My 9th Army and part of my 12th is spread out along that river rather thin, but I'm going to take a bit of a risk and start moving Army South across its defensive river (which will take some time unless they luck into an activation, since they can't cross without that or a bridge where Army S currently is) to shore up that defense.

Bart can't move the Romanian crew (and their Germy cronies) at all on Round 2, but I'll be looking for him to either try to find a weak point across the river, and/or to run up the rail and hit that one lone tank division which some chucklehead in the 12th Army thought ought to be guarding the city. I can't get an infantry in there to help in time -- partly because I didn't notice the stupidity before I had begun my Clever Plan of hiking most of 12th Army into the Romanian border mountains for a shot at an enfilade.
By the time I was done shuffling chits around down here, it looked like this:




My last action for Round 2 was to use my last 5 Ppoints to replace the South Front HQ marshal with a Tsarist from Lubyanka Prison. He'll help get things moving along the Southern Front, but I'll need to remember to send Krusch there next turn (or whenever he arrives in Kaunas after my botched order) so I can minimize paranoia danger -- which for the next 3 turns will be ramping up a lot.

So ends Round Two. I'm sure I'll find a way to keep up with things as I go that won't be so in detail, but I wanted to talk about various game things on the first move and my initial strategies (such as they are! -- and so far as circumstances now allow!)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

In case anyone is wondering, Bart is still taking his 3rd turn (or so says the Matrix site when I logged in to check a few minutes ago) -- presumably that means he hasn't started taking it yet, since he can't save during turns (in hindsight we shouldn't have agreed to that).

However, his thread has been super-active this morning. I don't know why -- on this site my guess would be puns  >:D -- but if anyone except me wants to go over there to check on how things are going, you can find it one level up in the Digital Gaming AARs, or use the handy link down in my sig.  O:-)

And, uh, if there's anything I need to know that's non-spoilery for his game, let me know, da?  :coolsmiley: (Russians say "Da", right?)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

W8taminute

"You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend."

Romulan Commander to Kirk

JasonPratt

It's time for my Turn 3, and may I just add here that I feel 1000% justified in calling it a turn rather than a round, because THE GAME ITSELF CALLS IT A TURN.

Anyway, just keeping readers up on which side of the court the ball currently is.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Annnd, poinged back to Bart. Time to eat lunch, and then work on the not-entirely-horrifying AAR.  :knuppel2:
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

ROUND 3




No kidding.

Currently, and for some time to come, I'm caught on the fell incensed points of the Dilemma bull.

On one horn, I have absolutely got to save as many troops as possible for the eventual counter-attack. That means they need to run the hell away as much as possible.

On the other horn, I need to slow him down as much as possible. Or, alternately, make him spread out beyond his support. Which are both important but somewhat mutually exclusive. Also, I need to minimize the number of major (red-dot) cities he's going to overrun. But I can't do that unless I don't run away.

In a backhanded way, Bart is helping me make some of those decisions by shattering my lines, so I'm not tempted to make stands.




Along the way, I came to realize that if the game has a report for how many divisions I've lost so far, I haven't found it yet. (The report I screenied last time talks about any divisions of his I've destroyed, not how many I lost.) I'm totally certain he wiped out at least ten divisions, maybe more. Mental note to poke around during my next turn and see if I can find a track for that.

Here's where things stand at the start of my turn:




He still only has 25 VPs. How does that translate into score? Not as bad yet as you might think.




His points will be multiplied slightly (rounded down) because at the moment his difficulty is actually 8% more than mine. But I'm still winning 124 to 1. That will surely change in his favor, but he has a lonnnng way to go.

Zuk arrived at Kaunas, but not in time to help blow the bridges and save the town; so I'm flying him up to Leningrad next turn to the North Front HQ (with currently the weakest front commander) to see if he can get me some better activation points: I really don't care if the Finns retake their land, I just want to keep them from taking Leningrad and otherwise free up an army or two for sending south to make a better defensive stand in trading land for time. For that, I need more movement.

Krusch also arrived at Kaunas (or rather at the retreating Army HQ there); as per my previous intention, I promptly put him back on a plane to find my new Tsarist general at the Southern Front HQ.

I still feel pretty good about my decision last turn to spend my Ppoint budget elsewhere and delay my SovDefHero plan a turn: that major garrison at Lvov has already helped me buy one extra turn against the southern advance, and spending the other 5 points on a guaranteed competent general for the southern front paid immediate dividends with several partial and a few full army activations. (I even got a few at the Central front, partly due to Zuk's presence in or around Kaunas no doubt.) I'll show what I did with that mobility in a minute.

Between one thing and another, Stal's paranoia was still at zero this turn (maybe technically lower on the balance but for practical purposes he can never have negative paranoia), which gave me a good head start for the SovDefHero plan: I publicly admitted we're in trouble, which lowered the Army Defense Posture cost to 10. What bothers me is that I confirmed my political cost for trying this again next turn will go up to 15. In which case I won't be able to finish this plan until turn 8 at the earliest (and won't fully benefit from it until turn 9). Still, I think that's my best plan. His paranoia blipped up 15 points, but maybe not so high practically (if I have an essentially negative paranoia factor); and depending on what happens on Bart's turn it may go down ten points next turn.

Two new Army HQs arrived on the Central Front today, and another will be ready to place next turn. Their actual forces haven't started arriving yet -- all their associated divisions failed to arrive for assignment -- but by placing the HQs on the map, and specifically in some towns (well behind the front), I'll greatly increase the chances of any of their divs showing up on any subsequent turn. I'll show my ideas on that soon.




Yick, I can't tell how blurry that is, so I'll repeat notes here.

Something worth keeping in mind, is that all three or four of my Armies up here on the Fin border, are set to neutral stance, not offensive, which means I have no defensive penalties.

I couldn't retreat the 191st at all, so the Finns will most likely surround and finish them soon. (Pun not originally intended.) That northernmost infantry is on the way to Petrozadovsk, and will probably make it in a turn or two; after which I mean to run it down the road to meet with the 7th Army. In theory. In practice, the Finns are keeping the 7th Army stack from retreating very well by using up their maneuvering on defending attacks; I could have pulled back part of the stack, but that would mean two weaker stacks. This is one main reason why I'm sending Zukhov to the North Front HQ, and maybe afterward to 7th Army HQ itself: to get some better chances of activation points so I can move most of the 7th back down to Leningrad eventually. True, technically the Finns could go beyond their borders and do serious damage in my backfield, but politically that would strongly hamper Bart elsewhere, so I actually hope he tries it! Until then, the 7th Army stack has some forts to protect it (although due to the R.A.T.S.O.B fort debuff those forts are practically worthless for now.)

Down near Leningrad, I've set up what I hope is a safe retreat corridor (although again the stack at the front couldn't fully retreat this turn and I didn't want to break them up much). My mid-range plan is to get everyone back to L'grad, except the Len HQ itself which happens to have some tank divisions. That thing I want moving south asap, if not next turn then the turn afterward. I might even send another Army south with it, if I can get the 7th back to L'grad. My best chance at keeping the Finns from politically activating beyond their borders, will be to stop the Nazis from getting so far north. Remember, right now these are the only armies which are set to neutral and so get no defensive penalties (beyond the global RATSOB debuffs).

Down to the northern Nazi front at the end of my turn.

Here's what the lay of that land looked like, at the start of my turn, without chits and comments.






One thing that needs to be patched, is that HQs should ALWAYS be set on top of their stacks. Maybe that's something I can fix in my prefs...? Mental note to check on that.

Anyway, I was originally thinking of bringing Baltic HQ south to set up a line around Liepaja and the small mountains west of it; but since part of its divisions are surely doomed in closing pocket to the south, I've angulated my strategy to abandoning this corner of the Baltics and pulling as much of the Baltic Army as I can save (still several divisions) over to Riga to help bulk up what I'm hoping will be my first truly major defensive line for the Northern Front behind the Dvina River.

In support of that strategy, I'll be dropping my free fortifications each turn on plains behind that river; they're useless to me right now, with the RATSOB fort debuff, but might be of some use by the time the Nasties get there. I'll be putting my free minor-city garrisons in small towns along this line for the next few turns, too. (This garrison went to Jakobstadt; the forts were plopped down outside Dunaberg on the way to J'stadt, at a vulnerable curve in the river where three German forces could attack.)

My first two Army reinforcements began to arrive this turn, both for the Central Front. (Once per turn I can redirect one coming Army to another front for free, but this time I wanted both in Central anyway.) I can place the HQs immediately (which I do), but their divisions have only a random chance of arriving ready for battle each turn, and they all happened to fail. However, those chances go up once the HQs are on the map, and go up more if the HQs are in a town. So I've plopped the 21st Army in a small town along the Dvina River Defense Hero Motherland Whatever, so I can use its divisions to help hold that line; and the 22nd Army will help stiffen the road out of Minsk later -- or possibly go south to help hold the line there, depending on how things go.

Talking about Minsk: I have managed to consolidate the massive surviving Western Army into three stacks: one, with the HQ, is now in the swamps south of the road to Minsk, ready to screw with attempts to charge up that road (and maybe to mess with any panzers stupid enough to drive up the road through the swamp, too. I'll still be pulling it back as often as I can, but it's safer from armor and APCs here. The surviving Western Army tank divisions, I pulled back much closer to Minsk, but still close enough that I might help trap some panzers trying to pocket the WestHQ stack. Again, I'll be pulling them back behind the river at Minsk asap. The third and currently smallest stack (3 infantry divisions) are at Minsk itself. I'm slightly nervous about this: there's a lot of Nastie armor and guns on the way, but probably not by next turn, and I should be able to send them some reinforcements from north of the city soon.

Bart handily ate all the pockets he had surrounded last turn, including the big 10th Army pocket which I had hoped would hold out at least one more turn. He managed to surround most of the 3rd Army east of that; and although I could have run my 3rd HQ away with one infantry division, they'd be fairly useless afterward; so I marched them WESTWARD instead, into the developing small pocket there, to join most of its divisions in one large stack. Its 85th infantry is trapped westward over the river, and couldn't get out, and is quite surrounded, so I expect it to fold next turn, but 3rd Army itself might possibly hold out another turn. If Bart moves his Forward Supply Base for the area on his turn, that'll screw with the supply for his troops for a turn, and I might be able to not only survive but get a lick in at an isolated division.

Speaking of getting licks in, I wish I could show a video replay of the 11th Army fighting open a pocket and creating a corridor out to its HQ!

The best I can do is show what the area looked like beforehand:




Compare that misery with the glint of hope provided by the end of turn map above!

It could, and probably will, all fall apart next turn, but giving the Huns a bloody surprise this early in the game was excessively cheerworthy. With support from the 27th Army, much of which has moved forward to help, I might be able to rescue some 11th divisions from disaster there and bring them back beyond the Dvina.

South again to the Brest / Lvov line.





Brest-Litovsk, not surprisingly is doomed to die. The game gives me one major garrison to start the game with, and it's here, along with most of the surviving 4th Army. In a backhanded notion of "unfortune", unfortunately the 4th HQ escaped the pocket and has been forced east along with a nearly destroyed 42nd Infantry. There is no way I can keep it close enough to give any bonuses to its divisions in Brest; so for now it's running away along the swamp road to Gomel. I have every expectation it will die in a turn or two. Whether it survives Brest is another question: totally cut off from supply, and without an HQ in the city I can't give that stack emergency supplies. The only good news, such as it is, is that half the surrounding hexes currently have only one division on them, and the other three hexes have only two. If I manage to hang on another turn, his supply weirdities might give me an opportunity for a surprise punch at a weak stack before Brest falls. Not surprisingly, Brest was where I spent my free Partisan card this turn, disbanding an armored division whose morale was about to break.

My line between Brest and Lvov (near Romania) collapsed pretty much completely; but I was able to pull back all of the 5th Army to a nice three-hex revanchment with plains for my armor and forest and swamps for my infantry. Now I have to decide if I want to abandon a few 5th Army divisions currently stiffening the defense near Lvov, and beat a slow retreat toward Kiev; or shift the triple-hex south a bit into and around the forests south of Grovno to let the HQ support them as long as possible. If so, they'll end up surrounded by that giant purple-flag army for sure, but I might be able to turn them into bait that way... I dunno, I have to keep reminding myself I HAVE PRACTICALLY NO DEFENSE POWER! And won't until Round 9 at best. It may be better to abandon the few 5thArm divisions near Lvov. They have lots of help.

I completely wasted those forts at the three-way rail hex northwest of Lvov (forgetting that I have a debuff on forts for a while), but I managed to stack up nicely in Lvov itself, and to move forward plenty of support on a line behind the city. Sure, they'll be able to hit the city with four hexes, as they set up to do last time; but I can hit them back, as I managed to do this time, clearing the hexes north and south of the city! Plus I've got a backup army HQ camping in the mountains southeast of Lvov, with an increasing number of troops.

I might possibly be able to hold this defense long enough, despite my crappy inherent defense debuffs, to make it worth hte effort to try. At worst, I'll lose Lvov and retreat backward in a strong set of stacks. Along the way, I'll be watching his southern flank, to see if I can sneak a few divisions around it and into his backfield.

In considering that possibility, I learned that troops can't cross into high mountains. I do have some Mountain Infantry divisions, but searching their stats I can't tell if that's just a name or whether they have any mountaineer abilities. I'm not in a position to test out yet whether they can go high-mountain, but maybe next turn.

The Mtn divs which might be able to try that, unfortunately, are all south at the Romanian border where we'll fetch up for the finale of this round's report.





Much to my annoyance, the Romanians and their downed flyboy comrades forded that river and pushed back my troops pretty easily. Christ, 6th Army, are you only made of wet paper??? You literally outran my Cav divisions on the south side of that line!! -- whom I've probably lost now, but we'll see.

Whether the second river line can do any better, will depend a lot on how the fight goes at the Romanian Roadblock. (I can't and won't try to spell the town's name.) I got the tanks out, and some infantry in, including the nearby HQ; and I still need to bulk up the south side of that area, but with a city, river, and low mountains to work with, I could be there a while; and depending on how Bart decides to deploy for various assaults, I could have some interesting supply-cutoff opportunities a few turns from now. (I keep dreaming about putting some troops in his backfield farther north near Lvov, too, but probably not anytime soon, though I'll watch for opportunities.)

About half the line below the Roadblock will be able to retreat behind the next river (though I'm leaving a bleeding division behind as a sacrifice to speedbump the Romanian steamroller); the other half, I may be able to get into some mountains behind that second river, south of Proskurow -- where I expect a retreat from Lvov to largely arrive at eventually, too.

And so ends Round Three.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Woke up this morning to find Turn 4 in the mail; so the ball's back in my court.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

And poinged back to Bart. The somewhat more horrifying AAR will follow soon...  :crazy2:
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

ROUND FOUR




Honestly, I suspect he'll be able to push us out of Lvov next time, if he bothers to try. But it survived this turn, so yay.

Brest as expected was the first major city to fall. Currently Minsk and Lvov are vying for the next honor -- maybe both will go down next turn! Wooot!

Well, no one said being RATSOB would be easy. Or even survivable. Or even honorably fatal. ;) I knew what I was signing up for when I started, so let's get to it.

First, the overview of where things are, at the end of Bart's turn.




Not surprisingly, that's almost exactly where things are at the end of my turn, too.

I still haven't found a report showing which divisions got murdered between turns, but here's the OOB again.




By the time my turn was over, here was the overall manpower.




And that's with 16 new divisions arriving for those two new HQs I plopped down last turn.

It didn't help that almost no armies activated this turn. I mean exactly one activated (on the South Front). It was a full activation, but none of the others even partially activated. On the other hand, despite Stalin's (entirely expected) paranoia jump to +23, we didn't have an incident.

As you saw from the OOB, we have 19 fighting Armies remaining, although calling some of them "Armies" is a sad charity. Specifically we have 6 remaining in the North, 6 in the South, and 4 in the Center, including the two new Armies whose divisions arrived this turn (but who couldn't move yet) and one HQ which is trolling around the swamp road with about 10 percent of an infantry division in tow.

That doesn't add up to 19, but three more HQs arrived on the map this turn for the Central Front. They won't get troops until next turn, and won't be able to move until Round 7.

Let's do the North-to-South disaster run!




First off, and most importantly, Zukhov rolled a delay so he won't get to North Front HQ until next turn (maybe). This, and some bad dice rolls generally, and general incompetence generally, led to exactly no activations for the North Front.

This wouldn't have helped 7th Army anyway, which has allowed its main stack (now at around half strength) to be surrounded by the Finns. They aren't dead yet (nor the isolated 191st and 71st Inf Divs, which are somehow doing rather better), but neither do they have any hope of escape. At best, the 237th (and 108th) will be able to reach Petro, and make a run south back to L'grad; which admittedly looks like it'll happen, since they were able to retreat beyond the Finnish border. But then what? They can't feasibly get in position to help the main 7th Army stack, and without the 7th HQ they're fated to wither and die if exposed to any action at all.

Send the Leningrad Army up to rescue the 7th? That would require a lot of consistent activations, which even with Zukhov around I doubt we're going to get, and besides nine divisions of the 27th Army are getting their butts kicked nearby by 5 divisions of Finns. (I was wrong on the map comment, the stacks are 3 and 2 left to right.) At this rate I'll have to keep the Len Army around just to pull their hash out of the fire, if even that's possible! -- the Len Army couldn't even move up to support the 27th on a defensive line.

I'm going to have to write a "Finnished them off" pun. Sigh.

Get out there and push that plane, Zuk. The weather's good, there can't be any Luftwaffe nearby. FLAP HARDER!!

The other reason I want him lending broad activation help to North Front HQ, can be seen on the next screenie.




That screen shows all the remaining North Front, and all the remaining Central Front. Yeesh.

I get one free reinforcement HQ reassignment (after that the cost to choose where the first of the next HQ reinforcements arrives goes up by 5Pp every time), and I dang well played it this round because I'm going to need more help on the Northern Front sooner than later. The way that works, is that I won't be restricted to only one Front for deployment when the HQ arrives next turn, but can choose any town or railway on the map. Given the opportunity, I'll probably choose Riga. Or maybe not, since even if my gamble against the panzers running to Riga next turn pays off (for various values of 'paying off'), I doubt enough (or any) of the Baltic Army will make it next turn to protect the lone HQ until the turn AFTER that when (maybe, hopefully) its divisions begin to arrive. I may end up putting that Army farther north.

So, yeah, I gambled pulling my infantry reserves out of Riga to try to help protect Jakobstadt next turn. I feel at least 70% confident that Bart will focus on mooshing that hard 11th Army pocket, or trying to beat the 27th Army into Dunaberg; and that the Army elements south of Baltic will go for the ports I left behind. My only worry is that part of that army threatening Baltic will dare to outrun its supply to scout Riga, and find it empty. This would be a disaster; among other things, it would increase the chance that the Finns will politically activate beyond their borders!

Since no one on the North Front activated this turn, the 11th Army couldn't try punching its way free, even at the Panzer Division foolishly parked in the forest northeast of the 11th HQ stack, much less consolidating further. I fully expect at least one of those stacks, maybe two, maybe all three, to be gone next turn. But we made a legitimate stab at it. 27th Army's stack, unable to help 11th further, and failing to activate, crawled desperately toward the river and the Dunaberg bridge. My free garrison for the turn went to Dunaberg. I thought hard about dropping my free forts for the turn in the middle stack of that pocket, but decided some armor on defense further south could use it more. We'll get to that later. My Partisan card was played on a nearly disintegrated motorized infantry division in the 11th Army stack of that pocket, however. Mental note to look around next turn to see if there's a partisan report -- there ought to be, but so far I only recall seeing a partisan level for a front when I play the Partisan card there. So, other things being equal (which they aren't), I ought to have 2% partisans on all three Fronts now.

I said last time I was a little worried about Minsk, the next major (red dot) city on the Central Front road to Moscow. Turns out I should have been more worried: the three infantry divs there have now been almost completely surrounded by panzer and motorized divs. On the theory that if my troops are going to die they're better off attacking than defending, and attacking as few Nazi divs as possible, as far forward of Nazi supply as possible, I had the Minsk infantry go out and shoot at the 18th panzers nearby. I think under the circumstances I did reasonably well, but all too soon I was out of mpoints and had to get back into the city.

The Western Army HQ superstack is busy being surrounded in its swamp, and couldn't move further in (having failed to activate), but did have enough movement points to punch back the 20th Motorized. Unfortunately, a wave of grey and black, led by the Reich Mech Div, pushed my ailing Western Armor stack into the swamps, where they'll most likely die next turn. The zombie corpses of the 3rd Army continued crawling east on the swamp road, chased by the 31st infantry; odds are good it won't get out of the swamp, but being a moving roadblock for a turn or two is better than nothing.

The only good news, such as it is, is that 21st and 22nd Armies got most or all of their divisions, and next turn I may be able to try marching to help Dunaberg and Minsk. Also, three more HQs arrived on the Central Front (only two shown on the map), but it'll be another two turns at least before I can do anything with them.

I'll zoom in for Lvov's area this time.




So, Lvov held out one more turn, but I doubt it can stand any more punching. I've told everyone nearby to retreat if they take 25% more casualties in fighting; I fully expect my armor stack outside Lvov, at least, to be murdered next turn. Bart is sending some light infantry divs around my southern flank on the railroad to the Romanian Roadblock, which will somewhat affect my supply for that area.

The 5th Army 3hex revanchment is taking a heavy pounding, and is unable to even retreat (except hopefully under fire next turn). One little broken infantry div at the top of the screenshot, though, might end up causing a bit of havoc in the backfield -- I think there's a good chance Bart has misplaced it. That completely depends on whether I can even activate it later, but we'll see.

Last but, technically, not least:




The Romanian Roadblock at Czersneezl is keeping the Romanians busy as they try to figure out a flank around it. But because only one Army activated down South this turn (not anyone useful), I couldn't get any of my troops into the mountains across that river; and even with activations I'm dubious about whether I'll be able to plug that little hole near Odessa. The Romanians down there can't exactly cross at will, but that day's coming soon. I just don't have enough to prevent them from crossing the river somewhere. That being the case, if I'm given a chance I'll shuffle chits southward and force them to cross it near the mountains. Ideally I'd like to have some reserves back there to hunt over-extended divisions if that happens, but ideally I'd rather not be curb-stomped by the Finns either, so... :P

Here's the score at the end of the turn.




And, since this is becoming ever-more-important, here's what my reinforcement schedule looks like.




Note that my schedule for the north and south theaters will feature only conscripts; and worse, for the North Front we can see all the reinforcements I'm ever going to get! -- most of which won't be arriving for another 8 to 11 turns! It'll be another 3 to 4 turns before the South gets any reinforcements, although 6 turns from now I'll have four conscript armies able to move and do things. And 9 turns from now, I'll get a fresh if terrible Army able to move every turn for a while.

The best and most reinforcements are heading for the Center Front, which is good because they're in dire need. But once I shift everyone to defensive mode I'll be looking at... well, actually I'll be looking at saving up capital to get more political points per turn (at the cost of paranoia). That's an investment which, like getting everyone to defensive asap, will pay back a long time if done early-ish.

Note however that arriving HQs are set to neutral, so while they won't get offensive bonuses neither will they be so crippled on defense compared to the troops currently in the field. Whether that'll make much of a difference anytime soon, I guess we'll see starting next turn.

So ends Round Four.

Readers, please be sure to opine on whether I should use larger screenshots you'll have to scroll, or keep these smaller but blurrier ones (which for all I know you may still be having to scroll.)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Crossroads

Quote from: JasonPratt on December 06, 2015, 02:00:22 PM
ROUND FOUR

[snip]

I'm going to have to write a "Finnished them off" pun. Sigh.

[snip]

That, to follow your lead, would be Swede. And we're off!  :coolsmiley:
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

JasonPratt

ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

My turn came in last night or this morning, but it'll be sometime after noon when I can poing it back (much less write up an entry).

But it's coming.   O0
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Note: the game only alerted me to a new version after I had loaded the current turn, which meant that to be safe I had to quit the turn, and the game, update, and then reload. This will almost surely trigger the reload warning for Bart when he gets my turn, but I've sent him an in-game message explaining why I hope. Up until now I've always remembered to try updating before loading the game. Argh.

ROUND FIVE -- July 4, 1941




That's the good news. Such as it is.

That, and I'm still winning by a crushing amount.




I'll be sure to mention this in my propaganda. God Lenin knows I'll need it.

I forgot to get a screenshot for comparing my divisions and HQs to where I was last turn. The new update still doesn't seem to have included an easy way to track my own unit losses, although I know it can't be that hard because the game has always included a way to summary-track any German units I've managed to kill.

Which of course is still currently zero.

As far as raw casualties, well:



I think the Germans must be using each other for target practice. Still, 60 thousand casualties in half a month is nothing to be ungrateful for. And as for our, cough, 700+ thousand casualties, well...




I barely went down any tic. I'll be curious to see what Barth's reaction to that was, eventually.

That's because a ton of my main reinforcement divisions arrived this round. And more are on the way for the next few rounds. I wasn't able to do much with them this turn, but he won't be able to just steamroll his way into Moscow by the end of July.

August maybe, but not July.




The reinforcement schedule shows a new grim limit: 9 turns from now, I'll have to make do for a lonnng time with whatever I've got on the Central Front by then -- which admittedly will be a lot of more-or-less fresh troops, only two armies of which will be conscripts. By then, however, I'll have gotten all but one of the reinforcement armies I'm ever going to naturally get up north (all of them trash).

Okay, enough of the abstract things. Here's where I started the turn.




I haven't checked historical records to see if Barth is booking along ahead of schedule anywhere; and I'll be curious to see what he thinks of his advances so far. I know he has to be disappointed about going around Lvov, but we'll get to that later.

God knows I'm disappointed in a couple of areas, which even remembering I'm RATSOB seems corrosive to morale. Certainly Stalin's morale corroded, as his paranoia shot through the roof for reasons you've already probably noticed on the strat map; and he's practically certain to keep shooting generals for another few turns. I was hoping to space some of those problems out longer, but... well, I'm RATSOB. :P

At least he didn't shoot my recently arrived Tsarist General at Kiev; he only shot a front Army HQ general who was a War Buddy but who had 0 paranoia score and yet was one of the more competent fellows with a +19 administration. The toady replacing him won't be good. This also means all my Ppoints were lost, although I still got 10 more this turn (for a new total of 10), so my plan to get all armies onto defensive for free will be delayed who knows how long: I can expect those 10 points to be lost next turn, too. Worse, I can't even spend what 10 I have on strategies! -- all I can do is deploy reinforcement HQs this turn. Although fortunately, Stalin's freakout doesn't stop divisions from arriving to previously deployed new HQs.

Despite everything, two armies activated (one only partially) in the north (perhaps thanks to Zukhov's arrival at North HQ), and one army fully activated central. No armies activated in the south, again; and I may have to blame Kruschev's arrival at South HQ: his presence erodes administration skills because people are afraid to try anything while he's around. I had meant for him to keep Stalin from being afraid of the Tsarist, but one way or another that won't be a problem anymore (everyone's threat level decreases with every general shot -- it might be the Tsarist next turn). So now Krush is only getting in the way.

Okay, let's roll north to south for the particulars.






The 7th Army HQ commits suicide, or something, up in its forts, even though it still has two perfectly good Rifle Divisions holding ground surrounded by the Finns. As far as I can tell, they've not even lost a single soldier. We shall remember you, 7th HQ! -- you bunch of cowardly traitors.

The retreating north-most stack could have gotten to Petro, except one of the divs didn't feel up to it after being pushed by one division of Finns. Guys, no kidding, next turn I'm taking whoever I can get to Petro and if the rest of you want to stick around waiting for that Finnish Rambo guy to snipe you from the trees, you can do that alone.

With Zuk lending some passive activation aid (so to speak), parts of the trapped 23rd Army stack managed to get away from those few pesky Finns, almost. I should be able to retreat everyone back beyond the Finnish border next turn -- or if he tries to stop that by spreading his forces out farther, maybe I can concentrate fire to start snapping those divisions. Eventually I want to get the Leningrad HQ (or whichever one has the most armor for quick traveling) to chugging south. But I figure that's going to take a few more turns.

Down to my southern Northern Front:




Look, no matter how thin I slice it, it's still going to be baloney to say that my gamble with Riga didn't fail. At best it contributed to about 60 points of paranoia (if it hadn't fallen the other Big Red Losses wouldn't have scaled so far up), crippling my political actions for the foreseeable future, and for what? The capture and destruction of one motorized division at best. Which I'll now have to fight crossing rivers, with a whole German army or two at my back. Not only that, but Riga falling might help trigger a Finn political release, which would mean they can mess around in my own backfield and lock down defenders at Leningrad, until I find some way to cut them off and reflank around them.

This is a disaster I could have prevented just by leaving those two divisions in Riga. I couldn't have stopped the other disasters this turn (as far as I know), but I made everything exponentially worse by taking that gamble. If I eventually lose, that one failed gamble will be a big reason why.

That being said, I'd be stupid not to try to pull the Baltic Army together to retake Riga. And Baltic managed to fully or at least partially activate (thanks to Zukh's help). So there I am.

I feel like that heroic extended pocket of the 11th Army (the one several hexes south of Riga) should have been able to hold on one more turn. But alas, it got smoked. I don't know how much damage I was able to do while taking them out, but based on the casualty numbers I'm going to guess "not a lot".

Was there any good news down here at all??

Well, Jacobstadt is still holding (for now), and the remnants of the 27th HQ stack fought a retreat back across the river into Dunaberg. Insultingly, the German 36th Motorized crossed the river and into the fortifications I had hoped I might park some survivors in to hold that salient, but fine whatever. Dunaberg is harshly surrounded on four of six sides, but most of those will be attacking over the river, and the zones of control between Jac and Dun will slow down anyone trying to zip between them to flank around me, at least for another turn.

The new 24th Army HQ arrived up the road, but it'll be another two turns before I can do anything with it. By next turn I should be able to roadblock with it if necessary, at least.

And while it's technically in the Central Front, the 21st Army (invisible in its stack due to the stupid stack-top rules; it's in the stack with the 151st MotorInf) got finally ready to roll this turn -- and even though it didn't activate enough to do much, I've tried to position its leading elements so that I can either support Dunaberg directly against anyone having crossed that river (presumably the Totenkopf SS division over there), or if I really luck up on the activations perhaps I can surge them across the river in a group and make a run for the German backfield, crossing over into the Northern Front a little where appropriate. (My rules for that are looser than for the Germs.) I dropped the new 28th HQ in the town they left, so that a couple of turns from now there'll be some more defensive or counter-offensive punch behind the 21st.

Speaking of the Central Front...




Sigh. I should have expected Minsk to be rolled over, but in my heart I was hoping for a single turn's delay. I would have been in position to take advantage of their blitz up the road to Smokensk (or rather to whatever town that is between them). But now, they'll be able to consolidate next turn. In hindsight, I should have pulled all of my 22nd Army out of whatever town that is and parked it behind the river next to the 19th Army. Dumb, dumb, dumb!! Instead I'll be lucky if the HQ itself and its remaining infantry divisions can fight a retreat under attack. But I wanted to see if I could smack that 10th Panzerdiv on his spearhead, and, well, I couldn't: I just didn't have the activation left by the time I moved into position. AARRGGH! So dumb. So very dumb.

Well, next turn the 20th Army should be ready to try causing some havoc, along with the 21st if I'm very lucky (a happy state of affairs found only in fiction); and who knows maybe the 28th on the north side of the front, arriving next turn, will be lending a hammer of a hand somewhere two turns from now. Eventually I should be able to start whacking at his logistical tail.

Pursuant to that plan, the 16th at the southern end of the Central Front is ready to take the Swamp Road westward next time to start making Bart question the wisdom of running ahead so fast; and I dropped my two other new HQs along the same road to act as defensive bumps next turn and maybe even to chug back westward, too, a few turns from now. These new armies won't have the horrible defensive maluses of my starting armies, since they're arriving on neutral stance, and they aren't crappy conscripts yet (and won't be for several more turns), so if I can keep popping up competent new armies on rail lines behind him, I may be able to turn this mess around early.

Relatedly, the 4th Army zombie corpses are still alive and crawling east through the swamp, serving as a distraction for anyone trying to come up that route. And by a miracle, the Western HQ Superstack punches the 263rd Infantry out of the way to retreat another step deeper into the swamp. Those true Soviet heroes have performed admirably under the worst imaginable conditions -- but I'll be surprised if they even exist next turn, much moreso if they can actually do something again.

Down to the Southern Front, where General Mud has arrived!




Hey, what happened to that broken infantry that was part of the 5th Army (except north of the 5th Army block) last turn?? I guess I lost radio contact; did it die? Pack up and go home? Will it be there next time? Who knows?

Anyway. Let's talk about weather a little. This time of year there's a small but increasing chance of rain causing mud, in the Southern and Northern fronts; but to be fair to the German player the game is programmed to ignore weather the first couple of turns. Barth got away with it until turn 5, and man that helped him a lot! -- but the mud has started to rear its ugly head. Fortunately for him, it'll only last a turn, this early in the year. But it has slowed down his attempt at encircling my big block of armies outside Lvov.

It didn't slow him down in punching me out of Lvov, but I had set things to retreat. I'm actually surprised my tanks in the new forts survived; but I'm not entirely sure they even got hit last turn. (I've stopped watching the turn replay, because I think they operate without the fog of war, and that wouldn't be fair to Bart.) Ideally I'd step back my main core of armies there, but instead I had to face a cruel choice: retreat who I could, or keep the stacks as strong as possible and hope they can all retreat together. I chose the latter, since at this moment only superstacks have any hope of surviving. But if he hangs back, he can send that expeditionary force around my rear to cut us off from supply, and then we'll have to risk weakening the line to open a route again.

I did notice that his crew at the northern end of my biggest block was temporarily vulnerable while he reorganized; and I had a choice between trying a spoiling attack on a three stack in the forest (mostly comprised of cavalry and tanks), or a two stack on the plains (mostly comprised of tanks and truck infantry in mud). I chose the forest, but it doesn't seem to have done much good. Better no doubt than waiting for my horrible defense numbers against a total surrounding attack, but still... sigh.

The smaller 5th Army block took a punched step backward this turn, and that's really all I can expect from them right now.

Down lastly to my Romanian Roadblock...




Look. I'll accept that there was nothing I could have done to stop them from taking Odessa this turn. But I'm not willing to accept that they somehow rolled across a river AND through mud AND through a zone of control, to get there. I know they don't have tanks down there, or even cavalry (I think). I can only guess that the German High Command haxored things with a political point superpower somehow. (But not one of those special powers, or my game would have gotten harder which it didn't.)

In case you're wondering, that little airplane symbol doesn't mean they airdropped troops. (Although for all I know he did just that.) It only means Odessa is somewhere that he can feasibly move his South Front Air HQ.

Anyway, between the mud and the Creature of Evil who flopped into Kiev this turn -- and whom I can't move out thanks to Stalin's paranoia, so he'll be there next turn gumming up the works, too -- I didn't get any activations at all, and so I had no hope of pulling back my 9th and Southern Armies to try to surround and (now) start retaking Odessa. But I made as much of a start on that as I could this turn, without overly weakening my remaining river line.

I wish those undead Cav divisions down south (off the map) would get their whatevers out of their horses' hind ends, because they are ripely positioned to do some classic cavalry rumbling. But I just have to accept that that isn't going to happen, I guess. sigh.

Otherwise the roadblock at Csneezy seems to be nicely settled down for now, although I should be able to consolidate a little more next turn. I wish I could feasibly attack across the river at some small Romanian stacks, but that seems like a recipe for disaster -- although maybe better than waiting for him to attack into my horrible defensive maluses. (Though again by turn 5, my special nasty debuffs for being RATSOB should have largely disappeared. Just my usual nasty debuffs for being positioned to attack instead of defend remain.)

My loose strategy from last turn remains the same: pull back from the river to Odessa, see if he takes the bait to cross the river and try to go somewhere, then strike to cut off his supply.

We're only at July 4th; things can only get worse, and they probably will, especially with all that paranoia socked onto Stalin all at once. But on that topic there's one thin silver lining, sort of: these are the last red-dot cities he can take easily or anytime soon. From this point on, things will start to get a little harder for Bart each turn.

Will it add up fast enough to matter? Only God knows. ... .... LET'S GET THOSE ORTHODOX CHURCHES BACK IN ACTION YOU GUYS!!

(Sadly, not an action I can take in this game, for some reason. Historically it helped morale a lot.)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Finally, my turn!

I won't be able to send it back until much later today, though, since I'm camping at Dad's hospital room at the moment (to see if he gets to come home today). But I wanted to keep readers up to date on where the ball is.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Poing, the ball goes back to Barth; but I won't be able to do an AAR until tomorrow morning.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!