brian brian
Posts: 3191
Joined: 11/16/2005 Status: offline
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Extraneous will very much enjoy playing World in Flames. The game is especially fun when you discover that a rule was played incorrectly, but it is now too late in the play of that game to fix things. Your Alternative History of WWII is now set in stone. Next time, things will be different, but one might as well keep playing to see what happens. Sometimes the Played-It-Wrong is too great to continue the game, but that is a minority of occurrences. Let's return to strategy and it's repercussion in the Balkans. Perhaps Greeks would disagree that they are part of the Balkans. Leaving that aside, the participation of Bulgaria and Rumania in an attack on Greece is a distraction, one that players of the game can easily get hung up on. Just because the political (or other) rules of the game allow something to happen, does not make that happening a good thing. In this case, the co-operation rules greatly detract from what the political rules _might_ give the Axis if we posit an unlikely series of events from German/Russian political decision-making. So again let's return to strategy. Orm's suggested defense of Greece is a good one, but I think I would do it a little differently against a Nov/Dec 39 DOW. The key is southern Greece. In the long run, the Axis need hexes adjacent to Athens to get a good attack. Approaching solely from the north lets the Allies maximize their defense of those approaches. So good Axis strategy is to attack from multiple axes (ha) - southern Greece. Putting the MTN corps in southern Greece protects the two ports from automatic surprise impulse landings, but allows one east of Kalamai. Once the Italians are ashore there, the Greeks will have a more difficult time keeping the Italians out of the hexes adjacent to Athens. If a Greek corps is set up a hex to the north-east, at the head of the Gulf of Corinth, Kalamai port is surrendered to a possible landing, but the Greeks can march to ZOC block Italian divisions from marching to the all-important hex adjacent to Athens. The Italians best move would be to land their mountain division in southern Greece, but that would mean they have given up the mobility of the MTN corps on the approach from Albania, via breaking down the MTN corps at-start. I would also set up the Greek MTN corps in Athens (& thus the INF at Corinth), to cover the beaches on the surprise impulse, and then to advance to the resource hex on the first Greek impulse, which the INF corps can not do as well from Athens. I think that defence gives the Greeks the best chance of using their units to block the Italians from the Athens' approaches, until the turn ends, the Athens MIL appears, and hopefully some Allied reinforcements, and solid defense of all 3 mountain hexes adjacent to Athens. On average, Nov/Dec should be a short turn, possibly with the Axis burning their first impulse to position forces. All that is actually operational / tactical I think. Edited to correct a port name....
< Message edited by brian brian -- 5/12/2013 2:41:53 AM >
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