heliodorus04
Posts: 1647
Joined: 11/1/2008 From: Nashville TN Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Farfarer Of course I use Build Up ruthlessly, but it is sure as heck not IGNORING logistics - it is a massive gamble, once which could lose me the war against my opponent. Burning through 100,000 trucks on the quasi-roads of Russia and expending all my Admin points (zero leadership changes, swapping Sus or other 'luxuries') to do "HQ Leapfrog and re-assignment" is NOT a freebie. It is the ability to make a strategic-operational decision to put the needed resources into an attempt to "win the war by Christmas". As has been commented upon, this leapfrogging also costs all your tanks, so your Panzer Divs are strength 5 motorized infantry with 48 MP and chronic high fatigue by turn 10. My current Sov opponent is very good, using aggressive checkerboard, superb selection of which hexes to fortify or defend. I doubt I could have gotent very far without a god spearhead each turn chopping up rail lines. It is otherwise a good Beta, thanks. While your strategic tradeoff analysis is sound, I think you're overlooking one part of the gamesmanship you engage in: If you succeed, you win the game early (say, 1942 or 1941 is early). If you fail, you can just concede defeat in 1941 (oh, I'm out of trucks, supply range, and replacements - I'm doomed, nice game, I surrender). In both of these cases, you've wasted the Soviet player's time because he never had much of a chance to actually play. If you won, he was bludgeoned by the gamesmanship enabled by HQ buildup, encircled in pocket after pocket without any ability to counter-attack (at least outside blizzard). If you failed, well, you just played about a year's worth of the game in which the Soviet was doing little else but maneuvering his 'ants' (to use Oleg's quite accurate term), the 1-1 divisions of 1941, to try to cost you more in trucks. No disrespect to you intended. It's a valid strategy given mechanics. It's just rather unsporting to your Soviet opponent to use this mechanic thusly. I do think that 20 MPs is ridiculously small for the range of buildup (I'm for the 30 MP/20 hexes distance myself). And as a competent German player, I would put it this way (mirroring some of what Mehring believes, I think): Any competent German player should only RARELY need to use HQ buildup to accomplish his goals. If you know how to maneuver units to maximize your supply situation, a 20-MP buildup range is all but useless. In other news, some of you might need to see your gynecologist.
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Fall 2021-Playing: Stalingrad'42 (GMT); Advanced Squad Leader, Reading: Masters of the Air (GREAT BOOK!) Rulebooks: ASL (always ASL), Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game Painting: WHFB Lizardmen leaders
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