I played "at the breaking point" today, and I thought I had finally figured out how to win this one as the Germans. I did the best I ever had and made the Americans sweat a little bit, but I still lost and it wasn't terribly super close. Is it possible to defeat a moderate to experienced American player in this scenario? If so what worked for you guys on this scenario as the Germans.

I do not think I have ever seen an american loss i this scenario. The sheer mass of machineguns PLUS reinforcements, makes this less likely of a German win than me winning the Lottery.

When people speak about badly balanced scenarios, they often think of This one.

My advice on this scenario if you want to win is either play as the Americans or take the reinforcements deck away from them. Also it would be nice if the sole German tank wasn't crippled.

Don 't feel bad. ALL of the base game scenarios are ridiculously skewed towards the Americans.

The one exception being The Stavelot Express. When I first asked about scenarios on this board someone told me it was comically unwinnable for the americans, and boy were they right. It's so insanely unwinnable it almost makes up for every other scenario being impossible for the germans. The Americans get 4 bazooka teams against 6 tigers, 4 PzIVs, and a bunch of halftracks...yeah. The way the scoring works you'd have to take out 6-7 of the german tanks (good luck with that) for the scores to be anywhere close to even. The americans get extra points the longer they hold some trucks in the middle before escaping, but even holding them there a single turn is risking it. On top of this for some insane reason there's a fuel depot worth 5 extra VP points if the germans capture it by turn 6 when there's no way the americans can hold it past turn 4. I honestly think the scenario might be even if the germans had HALF the forces they get.

I'd really like to see a fan made (or official!) balance retweaking of the base game scenarios. The one that comes closest is the one where the americans have to take the hill bunker.

FrankMcG said:

You name it!!! Played this one as Americans, too. My friend's tanks just rolled over my squads and I could do absolutely nothing against it. I felt like haveing to stop an express train with my bare hands. We decided to end this scenario after two rounds or so, because it is just too unbalanced....like At the Breaking Point which I "experienced" as the German player twice, introducing friends to ToI.

I think the only reason for choosing this scenario and the German side twice was, because I introduced ToI to friends and I wanted them to love the game as much as I do. So I gave them a spectacular win for the first time. But seriously: This scenario is crap

Interesting enough, "At the Breaking Point" is the scenario my friend and I played this past weekend. Being that we are both very new to the game its interesting to note that our "newness" (and infamiliarity with the system) caused us both to make tactical errors. The errors for the Americans was not reinforcing one side properly and gave my side (Germans) a sudden hole in the ranks that I immediately exploited in turn 4.

Things had run a bit late and we were unable to finish the scenario, but in all honesty, even with the exploitation I doubt I would have met the scenario "win" requirements for the Germans due to the huge resupply. The crippled German tank definitely hindered things enough.

The good news on scenarios is that we can always change the rules, tweak, and experiment to find the balance required to make things more "even" than historical

GREAT game overall though!

Jed

Am I missing something with the setup on this scenario?? Which American units are reinforcements? Are the reinforcements from their strategy deck only? Do all the American units start on the board. I looked for an errata. Thanks.

MrBadass said:

I do believe the reinforcemente are from the American Reinforcement deck.