Anyone own the expansion yet? If so, played yet? What do you think?

Unpacked my two copies yesterday. Components look good, scenarios are interesting. No winter weather deck, pity.

The snow boards are beautiful.

hi, here are my initial thoughts:

this exp seems to be the best (so far). eight scenarios, 4 winter and 4 summer. yesterday we finished playing the first scenario, shock and awe. this was a rocker! very ballanced and very, very dynamic: the soviets and the germans each get reinforcements when they are greatly needed, so to say. the germans won this one in the last game turn with the last move. very cool. the soviets have the option to use heavy mortars (op card), which is very expensive to use (4cps necessary).

the ammunition tokens are provided for all nations currently available, not only germans and soviets. but i do missed some "winter weather"- cards or soviet leader-cards. maybe with a house rule the soviets can use american leaders as soviet leaders, or something like that.

right now, i´m looking forward playing the rest of the scenarios. ther are two big summer tank battles.

ok, have a nice day! greetz from germany!

Cipheron said:

I think the heavy mortars are far too expensive in CPs for their effect. I would have preferred this card to be a modification card for mortar figures.

Winter weather would have been a cool (pun intended, as always) addition. We can use the summer cards, though, replacing the word rain with snow would work most of the time.

I also miss the Soviet leaders. We should come up with something for them.

Also missing are campaign specialzation versions of the two new specializations. I really would have liked them, together with another mini-campaign. Well, have to create the campaign specializations and maybe later a mini-campaign myself, I guess.

KlausFritsch said:

Yes, the absence of a winter weather deck ((light, heavy) snow, blizzard, severe frost etc.) is strange to say the least. Don't expect it to be in the Pacific exapnsion... . While i've never played using leaders I do agree that if the other nations have them, so should Russia. Finally campaign specilizations would have been welcome too. Well maybe in some future expansion...Are there ANY special rules for winter weather (op cards and the like or scenario special rules).

Have the cards including the errata for the "go to ground" and "camouflage" cards from the base set finally been included?

Kingtiger said:

The scenarios contain special rules for winter and some cards do, too.

No errata cards for the base set, though.

The Soviet Heavy Mortars needed to be expensive as they are Division level assets that where assigned based on need. i don't remember them being underpowered but it's been a year since i've looked at the cards.

BJaffe01

BJaffe01 said:

Any idea why the Katyusha is weaker than the Nebelwerfer?

Accuracy. the Nebelwerfer was fin stablized rocket the Katyusha rockets where not. believe it or not the Nebelwerfer was a very accurate weapon

BJaffe01

BJaffe01 said:

How would you model on-board Nebelwerfers? Could the tubes be depressed enough to fire at adjacent hexes?

Actually, the Nebelwerfer rockets were spin stabilised while the Katyusha rockets were fin stabilised.

The german rockets had a rings of small jets at the back that were all at an angle, this caused the projectile to rotate very fast during flight and made it indeed relatively accurate. The soviet version simply had fins, making it less accurate ... but also (you guessed it) a lot easier and cheaper to make.

(Note to self: buy new expansion ASAP!)

KlausFritsch said:

I know that the Katyusha could be used at basicly pointblank range. I read a report by german panzercommanders who faced this during the Battle of Kursk ... very intimidating, not very accurate/effective against tanks. I'm not so sure about the Nebelwerfers though. Judging from pictures, the barrels can't be lowered into a straight horizontal position ... although a creative guncrew could always achieve that with some digging and logs here and there. Probably also not very effective though.

They were most effective wen used as intended: ranged saturation bombardement.

Looks like to me there would be no problem to point the nebelwerfer point blank range.

VanCamper said:

THAT's good news!

In the same vein, I was wondering if I could use my miniatures from A&A WAS in homemade TOI scenarios. I could make good use of direct artillery support from a BB's main guns. Fortunately, I found a document that supports my idea.

Who wants to play a Kursk variant with me?

(I think katyushas and nebelwerfer should stay off map...)

MB

VanCamper said:

If you try to fire it like that, it would launch the launcher (crew included) backward at an equal force as the rockets going forward.

I don't think the crew would agree to that plan ...

But like I said, with some creative digging and placing a few logs here and there, it should be possible.

I wonder what a salvo at point-blank range would do to a T-34?

Meta Baston said:

Depends ... are the creeks deep or shallow?

Meta Baston said:

I think most Katyusha or Nebelwerfer crews would agree heartily.

I would like on-board stats and rules for those scenarios where batteries are assaulted directly.

KlausFritsch said:

I understand. But I think that, given time, the crews would jump in their halftracks/trucks and flee, wouldn't they?

Now, let's say they're surprise assaulted. I guess they would pick up their rifle and fire back (and try to survive). No? (Remember that assault on the gun emplacements at Brécourt, in "Bands of brothers". German crews did not turn their gun around to fire at point blank range, didn't they?)

Ok, ok, now, lets say you got this really particular situation of this Katyusha crew who under attack 1. jumped in the truck; 2. drived the truck to face those nasty panthers coming just behind that tree line; 3. Fired the rockets (the launchers were full of ready to launch rockets) at those nasty panthers. What happened, this is what we all want to know now, mhmm?

Well, I hope I get my army pack expansion with Stugs and medium tanks and light tanks and armored cars and that new scenario book on the Eastern Front BEFORE FFG spends time designing game stats and rules for this situation!!!!

(I had to speak out about that army pack expansion, sorry. I feel better now.)

MB

The nebelwerfer tubes were recoiless, ie. the rocket blast went out the back without any resistence from the tube. The main thing was, not to be standing right behind the tubes when the rockets launched. See this video:

www.youtube.com/watch

Meta Baston said:

I was more thinking of situations in North Africa when British gunners stood by their 25-pounders trying to stop German tanks at close range.

KlausFritsch said:

I see. I think the SU-122 gun stats gives an idea of what could be the stats of on-map artillery guns. I wonder: do you have the 25-pounders already? What scale, if so?

VanCamper said:

Interesting video! Thanks!

You will notice that nobody stands near the firing tubes. Nobody behind, beside, or close to it when it fires. I wonder how dangerous it is for the ears or the lungs and how far you must be from it to be safe when it fires.

There is also this video,

Meta Baston said:

I have a battery of 4 25-pounders from Flames of War, 15mm scale. They are not assembled and painted yet, though. They will have to wait until after the Soviet ZIS 3 guns (guns already done, crew in progress), German PaK40 guns, Soviet KV-85s and German 105mm artillery pieces have been painted.

Meta Baston said:

The Maultier was my favorite instant firepower unit when I played PanzerLeader, especially when using the optional fire and move rules.Such a unit should be in TOI for sure as a halftrack reinforcement that might arrive just in time to throw back a Russian infantry advance.

Say, Meta, can pictures be taken( like you did with Days of Fox ) with the web cam on a computer? Also, If you have the FOTB expansion, have you painted any of the models yet? If so, post them please, because we need some idea how to paint Russians.

VanCamper said:

You can take pictures from a webcam using the snapshot function of the cam's software, or messenger's snapshot function or Skype's. But you will get poor quality picture, as I doubt the cam has macro capacity. Even if you try to capture a general situation, make sure it's well-lit.

No, I didn't start painting the Russians, yet. I don't expect to be done with this until late summer.

(How's your painting going? Are you done with the Germans? Did you start others?)

MB