Hey all in a different topic Kingtiger said this scenario wasn't fun the following is his experince

This was exactly the problem we encountered when playing "assault on the Siegfried line" from the Normandy expansion: whatever you do DO NOT go into a building or pillbox! The only alterantive they had was to run out into the open. In other words, the Germans were caught between a rock and a hard place. Dind't the Allies actually experience some problems breaking through the Siegfried line?... Consequently we didn't enjoy this scenario at all. To make matters worse units could combine fire. Just imagine 4 Sherman shooting at a building hex...Disallowing combined fire in this scenario would have gone a long way in re-balancing it

from my plays during testing this didn't come up.

so i'd like other feedback from anyone who's played the scenario. so i can see if i need to make changes

thanks

BJaffe01

Sadly I haven't played the scenario myself, and I dont have the opportunity to play in some time, but I realy enjoy the signals you are giving, (that you are willing to fix scenarios)

well, we played two campaigns so far. honestly, the last scenario (siegfried) seemed somewhat broken to us, too. Placing entrenchments in wood hexes (4 cover without the concussive firepower-rule) worked pretty well in delaying the americans long enough to build up reinforements in the barracks as fast as possible.

the americans seemed to have just a bit too much firepower with the sherman tanks. so, removing app. 2 tanks maybe fixes this problem. using the watchdog-leadership deck worked fine, you can delay the anmerican advance with a well placed minefield and get that extra punch with the heavy machine gun support. ok, that were our experiences.

greetz from germany!

ps...hey, i do live app. 25km away from the siegfried line. maybe i should visit the line to give us additional inside scoop...lol :-)

Thanks Cipheron. feedback is welcome. so far it seems the Americans have to much Firepower. did the German tanks affect the game any?

Grand Stone sorry you aren't getting to play but i understand how that happens. i'm always open to ideas to fix a scenario if it's broken

BJaffe01

I have not played this scenario as of yet but hope to soon, it looks like a challege for the Germans. Bill would be nice to hear of your experiances play testing this one (ie what stratagies you found best for both sides) maybe this would give others bit of an insight and and shine some light on stratagies they havent explored yet.

I wholeheartedly agree that it's great news that a scenario designer is willing to adapt scenarios.

I'd like to add that the thing that bothered us perhaps even more than the potential "brokenness" of the scenario, was that it felt wrong: whatever you do, don't take cover and stay out in the open! I've read quite a few books on the battles near and for the Siegfried line and read that it usually took demolition charges and the like to take out certain types of bunkers. In the scenario you just have two or three Shermans combine fire and the pillbox and squad in it are gone, so again the only alternative is NOT to put your units there. An easy fix would indeed be to place fortifications/ entrenchments in woods hexes upon set-up and to not allow concussive firepower unless from close range. The scenario really appealed to us as far as the aesthetics and line-ups were concerned, which is why we decided to play it. However, we got so disheartened by the above that we stopped after a little while and set up another. Really a shame, because we felt confident that with a few minor tweeks, the scenario could be a lot of fun!

I think that the ´combine fire´ concept ruins the whole game, not just a scenario. I cannot state any possible benefit of this concept, while its drawbacks are significant:

1. Negation of the game defensive elements - cover and armor. By the *player´s* will, the game(!) concepts are neutralized. Otherwise important and for that purpose designed defensive concepts (cover and armor) and tactics (keeping to cover) are degraded to a totally marginal role. The player may annihilate a game concept by another one to which there is no defense.

1.1. Specifically, while the combine-attack leader uses all his firepower and faces full defender´s armor/cover, any number of participants will add half their firepower (ridiculous restriction as you may increase their number and therefore the number of dice as you wish), but will face NO ARMOR of the defender. The armor just vanishes against the participants´ shots. The cover vanishes. The more guns you bring to bear at this very moment, the better. You unspelled their defenses by a wave of your wand. Use this spell well. Because if you wait, the armor will return to them and you will be back in reality.

2. No restriction to this negation. The attacker may use it ad absurdum.

3. Blatant unreality. All things being equal, a single salvo is NOT more damaging than a consecutive fire. Never. They are equal. And since the defender does not consume his cover by using it against consecutive fire, he should not consume it by using it against a salvo.
With the logic of the combine fire: hey, you defender, you just consumed your cover you stupid! When I will fire at you again the next round, you will have none!

In my opinion, sacking this flawed concept would retrospectively balance many scenarios (Crossroads and Liberation to name just two) and make creating new ones significantly easier and funnier - since you can actually count on the defensive game concept to do their job.

Good hunting

As mentioned earlier, I havent played this spesific scenario, but I do reconize the problems.

I agree that combined fire can be problematic. Since it is to simple to use combined fire, it iis difficult to design heavy fortification and tanks with high armor is not difficult to destroy as long as you have enough firepower. In many situations combined fire rules does not matter much. This is when both side are of similar size. When fireing at houses, odds are that it is better to fire at the house seperately. But when firing at pillboxes with 6 in cover, then it does matter, and using combined fire is significantly stronger and faster compered to firing your units seperatly.

The problem arises when one side (typically US) has MANY tanks and the defenders (typically german) has defensive position and/or better tanks. In typical cases where the US has MANY tanks, and the germans only a few, combined fire has a tendenzy to make life simple for the US. Because quantity is useually so much better than quality. Typically, not allways ofcourse.

I also believe that concussive firepower is slighty to powerfull. Degrading it to +2 in firepower (and no range modifier) would have been an improvement. Then the improved firepower would almost negate the cover of houses, but not completely.

Ofcourse, both these things are general rules and slightly more difficult to change than simply adding some german guns etc.

Well i see we have a combined firepower issue for many players. I think there is a fix possible but it needs a real close look.

sadly i didn't keep play test notes. but one thing i remember is that if rain starts everything gets a little harder. the Americans have many things in their favor so yeah it's a hard scenario for the Germans.

Kingtiger you are right cover is essential to staying alive. do me a favor if you wouldn't mind play the scenario again and use you concussive fire suggestion plus set up the way you suggest. if could take pictures after you set and as you play i could see what works. if any one else wants to do this i would be happy to look at what they do

i've worked up a new crossroads scenario that i will share eventually

thanks all for the feedback its helpful

BJaffe01

I wonder if it would work better if only units that are in hexes with officers could combine fire.

Further thought: Maybe units in the same hex can always combine fire, but may combine with units in another hex only when an officer is in each of the hexes.

Krieghund said:

If you want to go that way (and I do not), you might consider scharging one command point for each combined fire involving non-adjacent units.

I dont see combine fire as a big deal i mean if you leave a squad in a spot and allow 4 other squads to get in postion your going to get cut up. Its all about trying to avoid putting your units in a postion where they are subjected to mass combine fire, i know this sometimes cant be avioded but thats war (its all about making good tactical decisions). On the other hand there are scenarios where combine fire should be restricted. I think instead of changing the rules new operations cards should be put into the game, we already have the massive confussion card where no combine fire is allowed. But im thinking more about restrcting it for example: (just making them up as i write them)

Limited communications (I think it was rare for all squads to carry a radio set to communicate) Squads can only combine fire if in the same or adjusent hex as the activated squad

unfitted radios (not all tanks and vehicles were fitted with radios) Tanks and vehcles can only combine fire if they have LOS to the activated unit and LOS to the target.

Anyway just a thought.

Aussie_Digger said:

Very good thoughts!

I also don't believe that combined fire is ALWAYS a problem. In certain cases doing it WILL in all likelihood enable you to destroy 1 or two enemy units, but remember that this would also fatigue all those units. If the enemy still has many fresh ones left, this may be a risky tactic...

BJaffe01 said:

I'll try to replay it within the next couple of weeks with entrenchments and pillboxes in the woods hexes and no combined fire unless from short range!

Thanks Kingtiger i want to see what you come up with. i have some ideas that i will look at shortly as well.

BJaffe01

BJaffe01 said:

well, as far as i can remember, the two german tanks had not a great impact. 6 shermans plus 2 m10 werde just too much. the terrain was a problem for the germans, too, since there are buildings all around the tank reinforcemnet area. it took them just another round to get into combat ("line of sight") (with half firepower, of course). so the german tanks were not a big deal in the end.

greetz from germany!!!

Cipheron said:

It was the same when I played that scenario. A couple of well-entrenched AT guns would have made life a bit more difficult for the Allies.

BJaffe01 said:

Game has been scheduled for Wednesday 23rd of February.

As another poster said; it's indeed a shame AT guns are virtually only used in DotF. Now, surely the rules that go with them could have and perhaps should have been done better, but I don't think they're that bad that they simply shouldn't be used. After the revisions (crew may fire from entrenchment etc.) they've already improved a lot. So indeed an 88 or two might also greatly help the Germans.Anyway, we'll first try with the original line-ups and then simply placing the entrenchments and pillboxes in wooded terrain rather than in clear terrain and vehicles can only combine fire when at close range.

Thanks again Kingtiger and Cipheron. i can't remember why i didn't include at-guns in the scenario but 2 88's or if ever available 2 75's would certainly spell trouble for the Americans.

an idea i had but discarded was to have the German Reinforcements appear at the north edge of 10a maybe i need to look into that again

BJaffe01

hm, if i have time the coming weekend, i`ll give the scenario another try. this time i`ll reduce the american tank armada down to 4 shermans and 2 m10s. if it starts raining, things get better for the germans, because the effectiveness of the american infantry is somewhat reduced (maybe it`s a nice idea to start the game with the "light/heavy rain"-card being in play...!? )

using the "watchdog"-leadership deck has been helpful in the past (as i already stated), since the germans have a great chance to use "heavy gun support " with the depot and the barracks available to them and laying down "mines" to slow down the american advance.

one thing i don`t know how to fix is the fact, that german armor is surrounded by buildings by the time it appears on the battlefield, maybe it`s good idea to move the panzer IV in the woods in the north, giving it additionally 2 cover.

ok, have a nica day! and i keep my fingers crossed that this month the long awaited new expansion will see the dawn of light :-)

greetz from germany!!!

Yep, sure would be nice to revisit this scenario a warm up to "FoTB".

Was also thinking of allowing a special rule like this one: "Fortified buildings": Entrenchments may be set up in building hexes. (I'm assuming here that in the expectation of an attack sandbags might be placed behind windows etc.). This would give certain units +5 cover, in which case the Americans might have to commit more units to a combined fire attack than they'd like to (maybe in this case any restrictions on the combined fire rules wouldn't even be necessary...). Anyway, I'd need to look up the scenario again and see the map and line-ups in front of me.

The game's been set up for tomorrow. I've placed one pillbox in the woods instead of in the open, and another one on a hill hex, instead of in the open (not that it provides better protection in this case, but it gives it slightly more reach). I've also placed one or two entrenchments in building hexes (normally not allowed, but these represent fortified buildings; i.e. with sandbags in and around it). This will also give the Germans some desperately needed additional cover.

Perhaps with these changes in place a restriction on combined fire won't even be necessary anymore, but we'll play that combined fire is only allowed at short range.

I'll let you know about our findings!

Another, perhaps very easy fix to this scenario might be to simply add a few AT guns to the German forces at set up. Since FoTB hasn't arrived yet, I think I may just try it like that: The germans start with two 88s at set up and play the rest as written. No need to toy with the map or special rules or whatever. ( Then again, assuming the Americans go first, some combined fire of a few Shermans, even at long range and the 88s will be gone...; placing them out of LOS will simply be a repetition of what we felt was wrong with the scenario in th first place: whatever you do, do not enter LOS as the combined fire from the Shermans will take you out without a doubt...)

Any requests/ suggestions on how exactly you'd want us to play the scenario, Bill?