Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

Keep in mind this game was started 6 months ago, long before the recent changes to the EF box. I think it will be much harder to withdraw German units from the EF box and not suffer large EF point losses (and an early end to the war). In fact, the system now assumes that units will be sent east as early as fall 43, or it should be falling behind.

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ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

Congrats on finishing your game and AAR, and thanks for the entertaining read.

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ORIGINAL: jwolf

Thanks for the great AAR, really a pleasure to follow your game. As for the ending ... it's almost as though the Reds had some spies in the Western ranks to tell them when to put the pedal to the metal and win the race for Berlin. But we know the Soviets would never do such a dishonorable thing. Good luck as you switch to the dark side.

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ORIGINAL: smokindave34

Thanks for the great game Loki and on the excellent AAR (as all of your AAR's are - I don't know where you find all these photos?). A few observations from the Wolf's Lair....

1) As Loki stated my biggest advantage was the lack of a serious second front to defend in Italy. Once it was obvious there was to be no second landing I was able to strip most of my forces from Italy for the defense of France. This was a huge advantage as I was able to keep a fairly strong line while sending the bulk of my manpower to rebuild understrength units on the East Front.

2) Loki's systematic targeting of my airbases in Italy completely wrecked the Luftwaffe Italian command. I had no choice but to pull back what little air defenses I had to northern Italy.

3) I could sense that Loki was getting the hang of how the supply system worked as the Western Allies moved east across France. The pace never seemed to slow down and in fact was picking up even in winter/rainy weather. By the end my forces were at the breaking point. Loki would have had a clean breakthrough with little to stop him in southern Germany - this was going to happen literally on the next turn (until the Soviets spoiled it for you!).

4) I think the EF box is better but I'm not sure it's completely balanced (we will tell more in our next game). I was committed to try and keep the Soviets on their historical pace by either adding to or removing from the EF box. I felt like I was still a bit too strong in France even with the Soviets on their historical pace (this may have been due to the light action in Italy). I didn't put one unit on refit on the Western Front for the last 2-3 months of gameplay deciding to try and keep the east front up to strength. I was kind of surprised that the Soviets jumped so far west on the last turn since a turn earlier they were right on pace. As the axis player I guess I would like to play with EF box on since it gives you some options to toy with.

I think the learning curve is much steeper for the Western Allies in this game and if we played again I think at best I would get a draw. As I stated earlier by the end of summer I could tell Loki had mastered the supply situation and I was struggling to hold on.

Looking forward to round 2 of our War in the West! By the way, if I were you I would build significant defensive works in northern Denmark as I hear it is ripe for an invasion (sorry....I couldn't help it )

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ORIGINAL: Rick

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ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

Congrats on finishing your game and AAR, and thanks for the entertaining read.

+1

Thanks!
Rick

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ORIGINAL: smokindave34

Thanks Joel. Roger has elected to play as axis with the EF box on for our next game so we will see how the new changes effect the Soviet progress. Not sure if Roger is planning on another AAR?

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ORIGINAL: Devonport

Thanks for the AAR loki100, always enjoyable to read and good to learn from others successes (and failures ). Any chance you will do one from the 'other' side?

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I can't currently look at a map of Denmark without a significant shudder

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ORIGINAL: jonboym

Still think this is one of the best WitW AARs even though it was played over a year ago.

About to return to the game after a few months away and wondered if you can remember a couple of things:-

- What was your Support Unit strategy? In particular what sort of SUs did you attach to you spearhead units for amphib attacks, breakouts and for the armoured mouse? What was your strategy in general with regard to SUs in corps and Army HQs?

- When you used the amphib TF "Death Star" on Cherbourg how did you keep the Normandy beach temp ports open as I thought a TF needs to be kept next to them at all times?