BATTLEFRONT: The Ridge (Playtest)

[lufttiger]

Ah, excellent points, i think Magna should take liberties on this and add to
it as to why something happened, even if he makes it up it would gives us
a why.

Like for example: "Just as the 88 was being fired by the gunner a loader just
behind him bumps him and throws his shot off"

That kinda of stuff, so i'm not sitting here going how the hell did that
88 miss

Just a thought.

Cheers guys!

[TRDG]

Roger that!!


His intent here I beleave is to get us familiar with the game, then go wild on the next one to come, and with more players as well. Time will tell, but I bet it will get better and better as time goes on, and the different games played.

Cheers, ya want some Tea yet? We could be "serving it" to your troops fairly quickly here, at least the "blinded", "need glasses, SUN GLASSES!!" 88 crew....

Tommy

[lufttiger]

good one mate, but we still have our Panzers.
And besides we just got a message from Der Fuher, No surrender, No retreat.

And vhere is me Kreigsmarine, and Luftwaffe, and Vonder Veapons!???

[MAGNA]

Very interesting points there gents. I have played games where I had JagdPanzer IV's and Panthers which had veteran crews (more adds to your shooting and moral). One was very frustrating as my rolls couldn't hit a damn thing. The other guy on my team had the same problem with the artillery. Six units at a time bunched up under a Nebelwerfer barrage - two goes in a row and only one suppression.

Our infantry saved the day. One company was impervious to everything and held our position long enough to force a draw. The Panthers were blown to bits by Shermans and Churchills.

Our main problem was being disordered by a hit and then fired at again. The disordering causes an immediate 30% reduction in fire accuracy as well as other problems.

This was the hassle with the 88. The first shots it took were not great either. The clse range shot was lowered to a 10% chance of a kill. If the 88 had not been disordered the least it would have done at that range would have been to disorder the Crusader. It's chance of a kill would have gone up to around 80%.

You could say the crew was still recovering from the artillery hits they took.

Again, bad luck for the Germans as far as the dice goes but fortune favours the bold when it comes to the British moves.

Still, it's not over yet and the Germans get their chance now.

[Whiterook]

Well, this explains what I had in my mind of, the 88 crew just got slammed previously...I don't care how much you qualify as crack troops, when you've just had an intense artillery barrage that disorderd you and your neighbor (the sdkfz. 7), your next shots aren't going to generally be pretty. The other thing with this game, and board games in general is, rolls do funny things to reality. Again, think in terms of what Tommy touched briefly on...this is a representation of Fog of War through dice rolls...it don't always make sense, as I'm sure many things in combat don't.

I'm slowly getting a feel for the game mechanics, but I'm still a bit hazy on how everything works. What confuses me the most at the moment is Disordered and Suppression. What do each of these elements actually do? And if I've followed along properly, the rolls for re-ordering have been made on your own initiative Magna? ...or have orders been sent to you for re-ordering? I really need a detailed "dumbed-down" explaination of what these elements are and how they effect combat.

I think Tommy has a much better grasp of how the game works than me, so far. I feel comfortable to contribute with overall tactics in the battleplan, but at the moment, it's kinda like lobbing grenades over the stone wall...who knows what the boom will bring!

[MAGNA]

Good questions.

Suppression.

To put it simply suppresses a unit - that is the political answer which tells you nothing.
The real answer is it inhibits a units ability to move and fire by affecting their morale and readiness. A suppressed unit loses 10% off it's firing capability and 10% off it's reorder/movement roll.

A disordered unit is worse off. 30% of it's fire / move / and reorder capabilities - a big slice. A disordered unit with armour (tank - a/car) loses 1 factor of it's armour when disordered if it is fired at. So a disordered tank with armour of 4 goes down to armour of 3. This can make all the difference when being fired at.

The 88 managed to suppress the Crusader before the close combat occurred. This saved the gun and crew as the Crusader had to take 1 off it's close combat factor for being suppressed. The dice came up with the Crusader winning by 3. A win by 4 and the 88 would have been destroyed.

If you want another example of dice luck - we are playing a World War I naval game at our games group at the moment. The sides were fairly even until last night. Our destroyers were moving forward to get in position to fire torpedoes and scatter the German ships so we could isolate one or two of the larger ones and hammer them.

Their light cruisers and destroyers fired at ours as you do and we expected a few hits to be taken. Now, there is a little thin called a critical hit dice. Sometimes it happens. You then get to roll two 6 sided dice to see what the hit is. If it is a 12 there is a magazine explosion. A destroyer has 11 hull points. A magazine explosion takes 20.

OK - simple - a calculated risk on our part and if the battleships fire at the destroyers as well it takes them off our capital ships. Brilliant plan. We forgot about the dice rolls - what are the chances of three critical hits in a row on three destroyers all being rolled ? Not high. What are the chances of those three criticals then being rolled and all coming up as 12 ? Not high. Well, last night I saw it happen. Three destroyers blown to bits with no result for us. Then two of our larger ships suffered severe damage at long range. Did we hit them ? Yes we did. It was just so frustrating to have a brilliant set of moves putting the opposition just where you wanted them and then having the whole thing literally sink in front of you. That's the thing with gaming - anything can happen.

I don't tend to do scenarios where sides are even either. It seems to be more interesting to have one side striving for victory with their superior numbers and the other side holding them off with less. I don't always do this but it does seem to make it more playable.

[TRDG]

I thought I PMed the one you gave me to WR, but I guess not, I could kick myself now, but it's up so others can take a gander at it to though!!

Cheers

Tommy

[Whiterook]

Originally Posted by TRDG

I thought I PMed the one you gave me to WR, but I guess not, I could kick myself now, but it's up so others can take a gander at it to though!!

Cheers

Tommy

Hunh? You mean what Magna just posted on Suppression and Disorder? Sorry, just a bit confuse as to what you just said, Mate. Someone muuuust hav pppuuuuut sumthing in me te......

[TRDG]

I asked some questions on tht specific topic by PM, and got a reply, and I thought I PMed you the reply as well.........

Cheers

Tom

[Whiterook]

Oooooo, gotchya!