Scenarios from the Community: Herbstnebel 2.0

[AGRICOLA]

Mea Culpa

My sincere apologies for any fruitless search I may have cause you. I really screwed up, the scenario is SECOND FRONT not NORMANDY. I had used the shorter term on the folder it was in. Sorry for the mental lapse. The scenario is in the Apolyton scenario archives.

My comment that neither the Allies nor their Air Force had manged to get their hands on a map was an oblique reference to most of Normandy being "blacked out" in Second Front, much like the situation in Herbstnebel.

Neither "blackout" strikes me as very realistic. In Normandy, arial photography and extensive ground truth provided by the French resistance surely were combined into excellent maps for the Allied forces, while in the Ardennes the Germans had already traversed much of the map area in 1940 on their way to the Meuse.

[La Fayette]

Second Front

I have been more patient than AGRICOLA, but I completely agree with him: this scenario is beautiful, with a very detailed map and well designed units, but...the author has been so eager to make it follow History that the events file is much more powerful than the few degrees of freedom left to the player.

I felt like a schoolboy waiting for the teacher to allow this and that (somewhat alike when playing Spartacus a few weeks ago) and it became really boring after a while.

I was compelled to play 'Hotseat', which makes for a very difficult game since you don't see enemy moves and lose your units without knowing where the blow came from.

I tried a supposedly clever strategical move, namely taking the Luftwaffe's AFB of Carpiquet very early, but the AFB disappeared and became a village

I finally stopped after having taken Caen (that I wished to take, because I lived there when I was a schoolboy) on turn 35.

To make it short, I think that playing D-day is great, but after that one needs to be either very patient or able to find strategical moves that are strong enough to beat the powerful events file.

[Cyrion]

Originally posted by Scouse Gits
Without checking in the GL Combat Thread - IIRC units in the 'partisan' slot get an enormous (25x??) advantage attacking units with (again IIRC) zero attack factor -

If my memory isn't playing tricks, I think the bonus is rather x4 (or even x3??)! Very useful in Red Front to attack Blockades (whatever their name is in the scen) with partisans!

[AGRICOLA]

@Cyrion

I believe the terms you want are Hedgehogs (German) or Fortified Batteries (all Swedish cities have one).

In the original Red Front (RF 1.4), most of the time a single partisan is more than a match for a Hedgehog. However five or six are required to wipe a FB.

Alas, in his much more difficult version of Red Front (RF 1.5), Colwyn has removed the special abilities so partisans have about as much effect on Hedgehogs and FB's as throwing rotten apples at them.



@La Fayette

Very eloquent summary of your frustrations with Second Front. I truly sympathize with your feeligs and admire your patience.

I hate to be the one who extinguishes the small spark of hope at the end your post that a player is:

able to find strategical moves that are strong enough to beat the powerful events file.

I looked in the notes I usually keep when I first play a scenario. Here's a quote from the notes that pretty well seems to eliminate any significant alternate strategy:

"The only half decent Allied units are aircraft, Heavy Artillery, 105mm Howitzers, M-10 Tank Destroyers and the specialists, Bazookas and Combat Engineers. The rest are cannon fodder. Unfortunately, one can actively build only fighter planes and Heavy Artillery, the other 'good' units appear at the whim of events. "

I think that the inabilty to select what types of equipment are taken from the vast reserves in England and issued to the troops kills all ideas for a better strategy. Your hands are tied.

You fight with what you're given and what you're given isn't what you would build. Oh well.