Joseignacio
Posts: 2449
Joined: 5/8/2009
From: Madrid, Spain
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Well, my short description of our game:
We did a bid, but all of us were new to bidding and we had not prepared it, hence that first USA was given for only a -2, then I reacted and took UK for a 0, then other countries were selected and finally Marce, who wanted to play Japan (or I think Italy) was loaded with the german for a +2 more or less.
I was playing UK, and later on had to carry USSR for a couple of turns or so.
From the guys you know here there was Marcejap who was playing Germany but had to do Italy most of the time (the Italian player, Dirc, had some problem with the employee who was going to substitute him in his shop in nearby Kassel), and at the end of the game left Italy and Germany to Dirc and he played Japan.
Poland collapsed as usual. However, we managed to take out of Poland both pilot teams and the division and HQ (these for the British pool).
The british disembarked at France with complete stack of HQ+corps+AA, while I brought from Egypt a second HQ + corps and added an inf div from Britain. It was the first time I defended France so strongly.
Then, the german player aligned Hungary and sent a good part of the Wehrmacht there, along with most of the Luftwaffe. I was surprised he didn't take Denmark but this seemed to be a good tactic because the UK had still enough units and transports to make a beachhead.
Tha japanese was kicking the chinese backwads out of some serious deployment mistakes of the chinese american player.
Yugoslavia fell quite easily, even more than usual since it was 39, and however I feel it doesn't make a difference to have one or two corps more when you face Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe.
Belgium and Holland were attacked soon afterwards with the usual consequences, helped by lucky luftwaffe attacks (through all the game and IMHO, the german built too few planes, and many times ground strikes had lower odds than we usually see sometimes because of attacking even in wrong climate). Only the belge plane was saved for the UK and rebased to Dover.
We had agreed a terrible and horrible mix of rules and optionals, due to the fact that some of us were strongly for 7.0 others wanted to include FiF and some 8.51 draft. As a result of this mess, one of the agreements was that every country could select or not "the Rise of The Undead" rule of FiF that was fortunately revised at 8.51 so that you only get 1 BP per corps destroyed in your home country, but every country should announce what would they use at the beginning of the game. Not surprisingly Chinese and French wanted that. Don't remember USSR.
1940
We made however an advance defense in Belgium, given the strength of our forces (2 hexes BEF + French reinforced by colonial troops and southern units) since the french had had several turns to rail everybody up and bring some terr. This gave us a USA chit roll for defending a minor with at least 4 corps.
The Italian player had his own agenda and this helped us at first, since it would have been impossible to distract so many units to the North or bring them easily through the Mediterranean if he had declared war on France. He did not. Anyway we had complete stacks in Belgium and almost as many behind.
When the Wehrmacht finally attacked, it was countered by a savvy (I took good note for the future games) mix of AA which really blocked several luftwaffe attacks of 1 or max 2 bomber ( he was short of planes I believe, so he had to rationate the attacks, plus he only had 3 HQs) and ground artillery which seemed to be everywhere too, to support land attacks, as well as well positioned HQs to support or/and restore. In the gaps where there was no AA he put the AT brigades he had, as you can see in the image.
The german Panzer were not afraid of AA or AT but their attacks, specially after few units flipped by ground str.,were unsuccessful, at most they gained one hex with a blitz, wether with a 2B or just a B, even though the spent once o-poins. Of course, this rose the value of our stacks...
Meanwhile the chinese, although they had been forced back to the inner China, at the very gates of their last cities (especially at the north), they made a determined defense and they even made 2 or 3 counterattacks rebutting the japanese in the very mountain. Unfortunately, in a japanese attack Mao was sent back to the spiral, what left most of the commies OOS, but maybe because of the climate the japanese couldn't benefit from it, then Mao came back and the front resisted.
The italians declared war on Greece. By then I (CW) was about to receive my third HQ, built at the beginning of 40 and inmediately sent 4 peacekeapers to Greece, followed soon (next turn?) by HQ and some bombers (only units that could rebase there by then) in Crete or nearby.
That HQ was supposed to go to India, what made me a little worried about how was I protecting it against possible japanese attacks. I didn't care about Greece but I wanted the American chit roll, and then it kept the Italian busy.
Greece was reinforced in Athens and another northern city close to Bulgaria, which were the only left ones. Athens resisted several attacks in 1940 with a combination of tough defence (naval support, bombers, english white printed, HQ suppot +2, ...) and good luck. For one second I doubted wether it was really Sparta or Athens (This is Sparta!!!!)
By the end of 1940 Germany was not still a serious danger for France, they had taken few or very few hexes further than Belgium and the winter would made the rest. Not surprisingly the German did not assist the Italian in Greece even when (in 1941) he finally took Paris till one or several turns after the fall of France.
There was not even one sub attack, although one was planned but finally did not take place because of the low reach of the german subs, beacuse of not having France (Brest) as friendly port, and because italians were not at war. I was overjoyed.
1941
France resisted pretty well as you can imagine, until spring, but by then De Gaulle arrived, and by then the french had their own small blitz pool formed by De Gaulle+mech+arm+ mech div ... due to that (stupid?) rule of the Rise of the Living Dead, which was giving France a lot of additional BPS, along with the resources CW was supplying.
There were bloody attacks and unexpectedly the line was broken in a pretty strong point, just out of the Maginot line, close to Metz, I think it's a city, and the german having only 2 hexes. The Maginot garrisoning units retreated backwards as usual except those in Metz (to defend key resource/factory/city) but maybe in a rather disorganized way, and were easily destroyed after having a role through blocking with ZOCs.
Slowly the germand started to emburse Paris, but the french had still a lot of good units, including the armors and the british were holding fast the coast, allowing stubborn defence. In a certain moment, the Armoured spearhead envolving Paris was hit by British succesful ground strikes (with everthing in range), paralizing advance for two valuable impulses...
After having cleared only 2 hexes in front of Paris, the germans didn't want to wait any more and spent o-points to make an assault, which was successful. The problem for them is that it was te beginning of a summer turn, and they did this without caring to beat the rest of the french units, which could have been good too, in order to have one or two more hexes to assault Paris. Then the "maquis" french came...
... I call it Maquis because Paris was taken so it was like guerrilla, but in truth there were serious 3:1 or so attacks on the Germans, some of them with blitz bonuses and/or HQs support. The result would have been expensive enough for the german under normal circumstances but the Luck allied with the French player who rolled a 19 and a 20 in 2 from 5 rolls (maybe 6) The result is that the german player lost several good units (units good anough to be frontal, inside France) including a MONT corps to a total of at least 5 units.
The british had ceded land with order one hex backwards at a time, coordinatedly with the french. Now an HQ and it's stack embarked and left for Egypt, while the other HQ and stack raced for Bordeaux (excellent defendible hex, you can only attack from one hex) to have the German try to kick us out of there (and distract them from other uses), or accept we'll keep a foot in France!!!; including the AA to counter the Luftwaffe. In the photo below some french units will move in the french turn to attack the german flipped HQ, unfortunately not killing it, as well as the other stacks, and the stack of the garrison of Lille made a kamikaze attack as well...
The German followed the CW stack closely to the south but we eventually reached Bordeaux although an infantry corps had to be left in the woods before, to cover retreat. The german air transported a Para and a Mont div for an unknown reason, to Bayonne. However, that was a mountain hex. I saw a possibility to harm him more and made a very lucky ground strike, flipping the corps and moved blocking supply, then attacked with my single stack + naval support. Destroyed both, not sure now if planes and crew too. Later embarked for more glory at Lybia, the oblective of distracting wehrmach and Lftwaffe was fulfilled.
The italians continued to attack Greece and although some lesser units were lost in the Greek/CW side, both cities resisted well and there were several more units blocking mountains and ready to reinforce Athens from an island nearby (with a strait pass, see map). The Greek eventually raced for Tyrana but the germans finally came in time to block the advance.
Finally the Germans raced to Greece (although they had not moved the unused units from France to Greece at once. In fact they were slowly railing them to Poland. The Russian guy had told us he could have declared war to Russia when they had everythng but for 5 or 6 garrisons and militia in Poland but for some reason he did not. Now the German was coming back.
An expeditionary army composed of fast non-motorized (mainly) units and a good part of the luftwaffe was finally racing south to Greece, Bulgaria was aligned and very soon I saw my northern city (Tessalonika?) was going to be overwhelmed, by then only a Terr was there. I embarked my HQ and left for India. The next attack of the italians was finally successful. My american ally was encouraging me to defend Grece at all costs, since he was almost arriving, but by then that was already impossible.
In the meantime, I (CW) made a mistake, I let the Italian take without problems Lebannon and Syria, which he would soon use against me, without declaring war because of american entry chit rolls. Not only this but he also aligned Irak, getting vital resource/petrol. I had my HQs at France or just arriving, and he found me when I had started to go for Tripoli, since he left few units there, so I could only block him with impovised stacks in Tel Aviv and Damascus of div+terr inside cities, while I waited for the second HQ and stack.
By then (end 1941) the russian had grown so strong that the german was afraid to attack, so he did not, and this meant a lot of luftwaffe was set to the Mediterranean and like 4 corps to Lebannon (if I remember well), included one armored corps. They were able to pass because of recurrent extreme bad luck with the dice of the CW player.
About then the Japanese declare war on Britain and inmediately cleared NEI, we had a battle including a force of CW taking the HQ to India and a corps. The HQ could pass and reached Calcutta, where it would prove very useful. Another mistake of CW, the other corps I aborted Lumpur, while another of my corps was blocking but it was obviously flipped and unfortunately could not trace, so it was an easy prey, ..., along with the transport. 
I lost early in the game 3 transports, the others by very bad luck, which would have serious consequences like very few planes transported to Egyp till late in the game.
The japanese very easily overwhelmed my units in Burma, even though the Chinese were then in a position to try to help and tried to. We had built a road in Burma to help bring the resource. He lost planes in the attempt to ground strike them.
1942
There was a steady defence in the borders of India, and only at the last stages of 42 could the japanese take one hex, but then Mountbatten and an ARM-HQ arrived (the previous HQ was then sent back to Egypt) and nothing else could be done. In fact, we stroke back and killed an INF uin the Burma mountains, unsupplied (year 42).
All along 41 and 42 there were no attacks on my convoys except one in 42, in a crowded Bay of Biscay, but I had had no losses (didn't find) so I easily aborted them all and remade the line through North Athlantic.
The american friend came to our rescue in Europe. War!!!
However, the italians soon had lost a good number of convoys (mainly because the american player was not as unlucky as me  ), and there was a kind of misunderstanding between the two players who payed Italy and those were not rebuilt. That made the italian have for the rest of the game a TRS in a vulnerable position, which I was not able to find along many attempts every impulse, then he would have been another transport away from OOS and with a very limited mobility to Africa.
The war at the desert was not advancing too much because CW could not unsupply Italy and sometimes supply themselves (thanks God the japanese mostly didn't pay attention to Red Sea) because of my bad luck. Out of 20 rolls i had 17 of 7 or more, while the Italian had like 17 1s, 2s and 2s, with a marked tendency to 1 and 2. As a result, and although CW had received all the buildable CVs (my 1st priority) and had pretty decent planes on them, it was impossible to have good possibilities to counterattack in Lebannon, attack with advantage in Libya or invade anywhere.
CW suffered severe losses including 4 CV in one turn!!! And my super long range Navals (range 20, cost 4) seemed to arrive only in time for their destruction with pilot and all (I lost 3 of them).
Fortunately, more and more carriers, of even better quality were arriving, but only to fill partially the losses, instead of becoming the projected sea bastion in the Mediterranean sea.
The CW anyway, managed to send some units to make a line between Damascus and Tel Aviv, including 2 HQ and one armor, and simultaneously attack in Tobruk, where we destroyed the last serious defense in the way to Tripoli. The port nearby and the port close to El Agheila, served to disembark CW units racing to Tripoli. The americans invaded italian occupied Argelia, and like a crossbolt leaded through Tunisia to Tipoli as well.
USA and CW arrived about the same time and made a coordinated attack on the reinforced hex (italians sent a second -white printed- corps) of Tripoli, winning the battle and the country.
There were three CW attacks with odds about +12 and +13 in Siria and Lebannon, two of which were successful for the british (but Phyrric) and one was defeat, but in all three of them the roll was 4, 5 and/or 6, which resulted in extremely heavy loses for the british, and due to the unexpected of the result (up to 3 units) some expensive and special units had to be killed (twice my Para corps, for example). And at sea a transport was sunk unit along with it's Mar unit.
The americans debarked as peacekeapers in a forgotten (by the jap) Hong Kong, and later declared war on Japan, using the surprise for two port attacks. Unfortunately, and although I warned him, the USA player (disagreed and) made a mistake and counted too much surprise on his side so the weak attacks (one nav each) made pretty big losses to the jap, which were not legal.  
1943
Tripoli taken, but we couldn't do too much due to Ita and Ger supremacy in the Med. !!! Finally the USA invaded Sardinia, which was soon countered by the italian.
While I did't have too much to do by then except attack the german-italian force in Syria/Lebannon sloooooowly.
Although the Italians had frogmen from the very beginning, CW constructed theirs ASAP, even though they are of inferior quality. In 1942 they strike La Spezia, sinking an Amph and damaging a CV (yes, an italian CV) at least.
All this time some other players were supposed to carry the Russian (the russian player left the game because of a misunderstanding) but finally the german declared war. However, they din't do anything, partly because the german couldn't use surprise, since the russians were away, partly because the germans move forward for the 3 resources near Kiev and the URSS player was worried about that advance, partly because the german then came back and defended in the river close to Latvia/Lituania, and in the Romanian border. Also, and mainly, I am sorry to say because the game seemed to be close to an end because of time and the players who were supposed to move the russians simply passed to have more fun sinking more japanese fleet.   
1942
I took the russian and spend o-points for a successful (and if I recall well, rather lucky) attack breaking the riverline and getting in with an ARM and a MECH guard banner, and nobody is flipped. I attack like about +8 or +9 i believe, so it was not too bad, but I get like a 15...
The german ground strikes, and although (I thik I recall) the necessary roll was a 3 or less, he is lucky enough to flip both units with one plane.
The german then, sent everything to ground support and so did I. Due to german underproduction of air force, we URSS were slightly stronger in fighters and vastly in bombers. I sent everything in range and I had normal or good luck (I had been suffering a lot of 4s and 20s against in the mediterranean dogfights, and I was answering sistematically with 11s, 10s, 12s and some unusual 15s) and using our superiority I destroy all his active fighters taking some losses though, forcing him to open way with his remaining bombers (some had cleared) if he wanted to reinforce. He did (!!!) and lost some more good bombers for a support that didn't really change the odds (obviously unlike mine), I passed all the planes and I had more support than I could use (being my land units worth 23 points). However he was lucky in the roll and got back the space, although I think my units got only a /B.
I think he made this because he didn't care because the game was leading to the end.
I sent my frogmen again (rebuilt inmediately after using them) and they sunk the just repaired CV and damaged some more units. This time I was very lucky with the surprise, otherwise it wouldn't have been so succesful because with the rush of the last turns I attacked believing the italian fleet was still inside La Specia but only 2/5 remained (about the same number had left the previous impulse and others were patrolling).
The Germans strat bombed England!!! Since Luftwaffe was not really needed in Russia, part of it had died honourably in the mediterranean, along with a lot of RAF units, and part were in Brest area strat bombing England. I had sent everything to Libya, since the American had declared war on Portugal and now I could rebase planes... He made 1 or 2 PP damage a couple of times... 
The Japanese was totally blocked in China and India unsupplied and kicked from the Pac/Asia islands, production most of the time reduced to Japan resources and the continent factories separately (no convoys in Japan sea most of the time), it was clear it would fall before 44.
The conquer of Italy was still a work to do. No germans inside (or few) but Sardinia well defended, the Italian fleet still almost as strong (bad rolls to find), ...
Germany was safe in the russian front due to the other russian players having done nothing several turns.
In the last minute Germany decided to go for Sealion to have a nice end of the game. Used like I was, to german total inactivity in the West front, except for the strat bomb, I didn't have a single bomber to give support, or any land unit except one garr in London that I could have railed to the coastal city close to the invasion. Several ones were arriving next turn, and I counted on some americans who set for N Africa without warning. Still, it was a homeland notional. He invaded with an amph and an inf unit + a mar div but he had a very bad roll (I think 4 or 5 ) and the result was 13 so both died.
The game ended about summer 43. IMO we won, Japan was at the verge of collapse and Germany/Itally simply couldn't defend from UK/USA, with most of the german land units blocking a similar number of URSS units in URSS close to polish border and romanian border.
Later on the german showed me he could have sent more units (hidden) in reach of UK, like a PARA or two (maybe the second was a MONT ready for transport). To be true, these final 10 minutes of the CON I was almost not paying attention. He showed me what he thought he could have done:
I told him he would probably have succeeded had he sent those along with the invading party...
All possible merit for this AAR goes to Marcello, whose photos I am using.
Here is a link to a Marcello AAR he made on his own and I heve not even read yet...
https://www.facebook.com/#!/notes/marce-jap/eurowifcon-2011-game-report/217479768323224
< Message edited by Joseignacio -- 11/18/2011 12:05:24 PM >
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RE: Euro WiF Con 2amin011 - 
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