DC: Case Blue Is In My Head And May Never Let Go

[Cyrano]

I have no words...

[GDS_Starfury]

just remember, baby steppes.

[Bison]

DC:BtP's Fall Weiss is ultimately a scenario design decision, and I think it's a good one, viz.:  it's not so much that the German's can win, but can they win quickly enough to equal the historic victory?

I think it also points up the ugly significance of the stab in the back...

Another great game.

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

P.S.: I've now taken to reading my reinforcement schedule in Case Blue like a big-haired, lunatic History Channel host of a show on Nostradamus scrying it for an omen of hope...

A Polish player would really need to focus on capitalizing on fighting a smart delaying tactic and I'd think pull forces back to consolidate around Warsaw for the enviable final push by the German player to capture that VP.  I know that the AI currently has my northern forces stymied going into turn 3 slowing me down on that front, but eventually they'll break and retreat. 

[panzerde]

A Polish player would really need to focus on capitalizing on fighting a smart delaying tactic and I'd think pull forces back to consolidate around Warsaw for the enviable final push by the German player to capture that VP.  I know that the AI currently has my northern forces stymied going into turn 3 slowing me down on that front, but eventually they'll break and retreat.

From everything I've read this is exactly what the Poles should have done. Doing so would quite possibly caused the Germans enough casualties to have made the invasion very unpopular in Germany - though given Stalin's treachery they would probably still have lost.

However the Polish high command was trapped into the classic "we will not yield on foot of Polish soil without a fight thinking" and deployed their army too far forward and were too dispersed. Of course, it may have been politically infeasible to do otherwise. IIRC, the Polish thinking was also that this was only going to be a border war; there was a lot of sabre-rattling leading up to it and the Poles really believed they were going to bloody the Germans.

I think the gamer does a nice job of presenting the situation while providing some opportunity to retrieve it as the Poles. Historically only Guderian's troops really used Blitzkrieg tactics in Poland; the other German Corps fought a more conventional war. If the German side is played anything close to history, even unintentionally, I think the Poles have a shot.

[spelk]

+1 to that, DC: From Warsaw to Paris is also a great game. No PBEM++ though, at least last time I checked. The basic game mechanics are the same (or pretty close) as DC:CB

WtP does allow for normal PBEM, the old fashioned way. Attaching turns to emails, swapsies etc. Chip (from fogofwargames) and myself run a couple of fairly successful PBEM AAR's for WtP back in the day, under the Battle of the Blogs banner

We did the Bzura short scenario and the Operation Sealion scenario head to head (my links are somewhat shot to hell, since I did a site cleanup revamp - need to go through them) - the AAR table of shame, should give you access to most of the posts.

http://sugarfreegamer.com/aar/
http://sugarfreegamer.com/aar/decisive-campaigns-the-blitzkrieg-from-warsaw-to-paris/
http://sugarfreegamer.com/aar/battle-of-the-blogs/

[panzerde]

Completely forgot about those, Spelk. I actually bought the game based on those AARs!

[JasonPratt]

I lol'd so hard at that!

I was going to ask for an AAR thread between you two, but my mind instantly patched the meme up there accordingly.

[spelk]

Completely forgot about those, Spelk. I actually bought the game based on those AARs!

Excellent! I liked Advanced Tactics but when Decisive Campaigns come out, and some of the wargaming folks taught me how to play operational wargames, I fell in love with it. :)

I've just re-read my Bzura one, and I'd forgotten just quite how tense it all became. The game plays out with a narrative, and these AAR's area way for me to re-familiarise myself with the rules and with the excitement I got the first time through. I'm now toying with playing WtP again..

Not sure what happened to Chip, we had a Combat Command AAR go off the rails and then he sort of disappeared from the scene.

I really need to dig in to Case Blue a lot more. I initially began a preview of it before it was released, but I had a major pc disaster and lost some of the files so had to call it to a halt. A couple of my AAR's went south during that.

Nowadays everyone seems to be AAR'ing through the art of video and fluent conversation. I can't see myself dabbling in that, I don't think I'd be able to give the gift of the gab in real time. :)

[panzerde]

I was going to ask for an AAR thread between you two, but my mind instantly patched the meme up there accordingly.

We really should have done an AAR thread; this is turning out to be epic.

Of course, I'm only saying that because this is the short scenario and I'm the Germans, and we're still in the top half of July.  ;D

[Philippe]

I really don't know how to use this hosting site so my apologies in advance if I make a mess of things.






(Click on the link for a full-sized view)

http://i.minus.com/iCUyHOux10qkq.jpg









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http://i.minus.com/iDtyoKckUYZt9.jpg









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http://i.minus.com/iu9hM8bm6o0Jy.jpg









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http://i.minus.com/iuRE9FYAdzKDj.jpg









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http://i.minus.com/ibxeJP99HliDLP.jpg









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http://i.minus.com/inkmP5KRuX445.jpg










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http://i.minus.com/i8wBGpcXpzmPL.jpg




Go here to see the whole series without going through contortions and twisting your neck:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3768892



Or go here to download it:

https://app.box.com/s/dcobsy119z53sjrb7mwr




This is a mod for Decisive Campaigns Warsaw to Paris that I more or less finished a couple of hours ago.  There's a full write-up inside the notes and in theory the mod is compatible with all other mods for this game. 

[panzerde]

^ Very nice! I've been using your Case Blue mod in my current game and quite like it. Thanks!

[Cyrano]

!!

[Philippe]

I really don't know how to use this hosting site so my apologies in advance if I make a mess of things.






(Click on the link for a full-sized view)

http://i.minus.com/iCUyHOux10qkq.jpg









(Click on the link for a full-sized view)

http://i.minus.com/iDtyoKckUYZt9.jpg









(Click on the link for a full-sized view)

http://i.minus.com/iu9hM8bm6o0Jy.jpg









(Click on the link for a full-sized view)

http://i.minus.com/iuRE9FYAdzKDj.jpg









(Click on the link for a full-sized view)

http://i.minus.com/ibxeJP99HliDLP.jpg









(Click on the link for a full-sized view)

http://i.minus.com/iby2OWm1yE2ylY.jpg










(Click on the link for a full-sized view)


http://i.minus.com/inkmP5KRuX445.jpg










(Click on the link for a full-sized view)

http://i.minus.com/i8wBGpcXpzmPL.jpg




Go here to see the whole series without going through contortions and twisting your neck:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3768892



Or go here to download it:

https://app.box.com/s/dcobsy119z53sjrb7mwr




This is a mod for Decisive Campaigns Warsaw to Paris that I more or less finished a couple of hours ago.  There's a full write-up inside the notes and in theory the mod is compatible with all other mods for this game.

I should probably have set up a separate thread for this, but it seems a bit redundant now.

I've made a small change to one of the unit icons in the Unternehmen Seeloewe scenario (the graphics-modded version of the Operation Sealion scenario).  The French Foreign Legion 13th demi-brigade (it isn't called that in the game) now uses a croix de Lorraine as its unit icon.

Once I'd decided that it was appropriate to use it that early on in the war, the big surprise was the color.  As far as I can tell the French were pretty indifferent to the absolute color of the thing: they knew what it was by the shape.  And there were even two versions of the shape, one with trefoils on the ends of crossbars and one without.  The main point, since they were French, after all, was that it had to look good in context.  So sometimes it was red, sometimes it was black, sometimes it was dark blue, sometimes it was enameled and light blue with a white edge, and sometimes it was red, white, and blue.  But whatever the color, a croix de Lorraine is a croix de Lorraine, and everybody knows what it means.

[panzerde]

People of the Ukraine! People of the Caucus! Cast off your Soviet chains!





You have nothing to lose and intact jeeps to gain!

[Cyrano]

I figured I'd put the period on this one here, since so many joined us on what proved a more brief journey than I imagined.

While Rostov never fell -- I surrendered before I let that happen given how many men I threw into the maw of that City's defense -- everywhere else the forces of Mother Russia were in headlong retreat to the Volga and points eastward.

It's interesting to me that the "short" scenario was chosen as the stock scenario.  I understand it's more manageable -- although no small undertaking...Doug and I, I'm certain, logged a couple man-days between us...but, despite my own inabilities, it really did seem hopeless for the Soviets.  Ending as it does in August, the Soviets never get the chance to let Winter and late reinforcements make a difference.

That said, Doug played very, very well indeed...never letting me reestablish lines of defense.  One of the creepiest aspects of the game was that the FoW caused his troops making their way to Stalingrad to form a shadowy "finger" like the Shadow of Mordor (except heading east rather than west) that divided the map into two pieces.  I never had anything approaching the resources to pierce the "finger" and, once my counter-offensive around Rostov was repulsed by forces reallocated from the Crimea, the jig was up.

We're taking a break from DC, but I suspect we're going to give the whole magilla a go one of these days.

Great game...and made much better by a canny human opponent...

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)