Leadership Variant AAR or how to shovel noodles uphill

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Leadership Variant AAR or how to shovel noodles uphill

Goodaye,

This AAR is based around a variant of AT that I knocked up for my own personal use in Random Games. In a nutshell it puts another decision layer over the top of the normal AT operations that revolves around managing a staff of generals that carry out your orders.

I did this not because I see any deficiency in the design of AT (I like it a lot) but because I enjoy this kind of stuff and find it a lot of fun. It does involve a bit of fiddling around and a small amount of bookkeeping but, for me, the effort/return equation is well and truly in the black. It also makes for an entertaining AAR.
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If you’re interested in how it works read on, if not then just skip the explanation and go straight to the AAR below as you can enjoy it without having recourse to a detailed knowledge of the ‘Leadership Variant’.

Oh, before you proceed further you should read my legal disclaimer.

If you’ve waded through my other AAR on the forum, ‘El Supremo Goes to War’, then you are up to speed on my views re: not causing offence, persons of restricted growth, Klingons and lawyers. Same thing applies here expect for the fact that my crack legal team have since abandoned me and I’ve had to revert to threats of extreme physical violence. Best not to take offence as none is intended.


How it Works – under the hood with grease up to here

You are the overall commander and ordering individual units around is beneath you. There are a team of underlings to take care of this. Your job is to manage the underlings. (Kind of. You still move units but you need to do this properly through your chain of command which may or may not respond to your ‘requests’.)

Each Headquarters unit is assumed to be commanded by a General. You command the overall base Headquarters unit. You have the rank of a 5 star General. All other subsequent headquarter units have lower ranked Generals commanding them that answer to your good self. Promptly. And with a proper bloody salute.

Note that for the purposes of simplicity the term General encompasses Air Commodores and Naval Admirals.

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Your subordinate Generals have certain characteristics. The key one being their Military rating. This is a direct measure of their ability to command. It ranges from 1 to 6, with a six being a military superstar and one a rolled gold dud. At the start of each turn you roll a dice (1D6) for each headquarters unit. You need to roll the Generals Military rating or less in order for that headquarters to be ‘activated’. (I’ve borrowed ideas from all kinds of games here and make no claims to originality)
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An activated HQ can move and fight its attached units normally.

An HQ that fails its activation roll can still shuffle units around but none of its units can initiate any form of combat or enter hostile territory.

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Now the overall commander, yourself, has available, each turn, a number of ‘Command Points’ which he can use for various purposes such as rerolling failed activation die rolls, transferring generals around, promoting and demoting generals etc.

That’s the basic concept. The refinements are as follows.


General Characteristics – The make of the man

Roll a few dice to generate the following characteristics. All Generals start at two star rank. No rerolls. It is as it is.

1.Military Rating (1D6) Higher the better

2.Senority (1D6) Higher being the more senior

3.Special Traits (2D6) Roll once on the below table

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Note: Any General with a specialist attribute can move and instigate combat with the relevant units regardless of whether they have been activated or not. The Blitzkrieg attribute can allow the General to attack with any unit provided it is fully motorised. Rattling around on the back of a horse doesn’t count unless it farts petrol fumes.

The Old Fogey is the opposite and can’t initiate combat with anything other than fully non-motorised units (provided he is activated). For this fossil tanks can never be ordered into battle. Conversely if you are on a horse it’s sabres out and tally ho!

Logistically challenged is self explanatory. How bad this trait actually is to your war effort is largely determined by whether you play with the ‘hardcore logistics’ option (I do). In which case it’s a shocker.

Rolling twice means just that. If you fluke it and roll identical traits then – for specialists – treat it as having rolled just one. For attributes that involve a DM to a die roll, eg. Brilliant Tactician, then double the effect. For Old Fogey or Logistically Challenged then cancel them out. Eg. They no longer exist.


Initial Leadership Pool – Still waters run deep, go stagnant and fester

Roll a bunch of dice until you have six generals. Give them all a name and note them down along with their stats. This is your initial pool of carefully trained and nurtured leadership talent. Important note: Give your initial (only) pool of generals a DM+1 on their Military Ratings and Seniority die rolls.

You can cherry pick whomever you want from the pool for as long as you want. As the game progresses and your need for generals increases you are faced with a dilemma. Do you pick the worst of whatever motley talent is left in the pool or do you go outside the pool and risk taking on a random general (roll the dice and take whomever turns up) ?

The idea is that you have a known pool of talent (a mixture but skewed towards good) at the start and if you choose to go outside of that pool essentially a random general will be imposed on you by your political masters. Your influence only goes so far.


Command Points – And that, son, is why I’m in charge!

Each turn you, as overall commander, can exert executive authority. As there is only one of you and the demands on your time are many, there is a limit to what you can do. You have 4 Command points a turn. Use ‘em or lose ‘em.
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Transferring Generals – A Generals gotta go where a Generals gotta go

Sometimes you don’t have the right man in the right place. Prior to the start of any turn you can swap a general with any other general (of the same rank) in a different headquarters. The only downside – apart from the Command point cost – is that each general’s activation die roll (for this turn only) have a DM+1 (harder) to reflect the disruption inherent in any change of command. So a General with a command rating of 4 who is transferred will effectively need to roll a 3 or less this turn to be ‘activated’.


Fire a General – Pink slip the big fella

Plainly some generals don’t perform as you would like them to. Bastards. You have the right to fire and replace them with a General from whatever’s left of your leadership pool or a random General.

However real life is unfortunately not this cut and dried. Some Generals are easier to fire than others. Think of Douglas McArthur and the impressive PR machine that stood behind him.

A Generals’ seniority determines how hard they are to fire.

To fire them you have to roll (1D6) their seniority or more. Every attempt you make at firing them costs one Command point. Funnily enough not many Generals enjoy being shafted. Nor do they appreciate having to continue to take orders from the a**h*le who tried to do so. If you try and fire them and fail in the attempt then their Military rating drops by one permanently (it can’t go lower than one).

This is done to reflect the political difficulty in firing a popular or well connected general. Getting rid of a dud general who has high seniority can be awkward. Fail and you are lumbered with a cranky dud who is out to get you. This puts a premium on putting the right general in the right job right from the word go. It also makes taking a random general more of a risk. What if he turns out to have a command rating of 1 and a seniority of 6? You could be stuck with him forever.

There is one saving grace, however. Any General who fails to activate three turns in a row gets a DM-1 (easier) on his firing dice reflecting your greater chance of terminating somebody who sat on his ass for the last 3 months and who has done three fifths of bugger all.


Performance – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

A Generals ability and fame tend to rise and fall roughly in parallel with their perceived success on the battlefield.

Every time a village/town or city is captured or lost, the General whose troops are involved (if multiple use the one with the most units engaged) must roll to see if he has been affected by this. I roll once for a village/town and twice for a city (I play with the ‘optimise for AI’ setting so there are lots of villages/towns and I generally have few cities on the map).

For the purposes of Performance rolls I only count cities and villages/towns that have been captured from the enemy and not from the Peoples Republic.
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Note: Both Military Skill and Seniority have to stay within their 1 to 6 outer limits as a result of any adjustments.

As can be seen from the tables above the potential downside of failure outweighs the benefits of success. This is done deliberately as whenever there is a success every man and his dog put their hand up to claim the glory, thus diluting the benefits whereas failure usually results in a sad and lonesome scapegoat.

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Theatre HQ’s – home of the big cheese

All Generals start with 2 stars. You have 5 stars and occupy the main Headquarters. Now whenever the need arises to chain Headquarters, eg. Main HQ – Theatre HQ – Corps HQ - Operational HQ , then you have an intermediate HQ which I’ll term , for the purposes of explanation, a ‘Theatre HQ’. (It could be a Corps HQ, depends on how many links in the chain you have)

Corps HQ’s need a three star General in them. A higher level Theatre HQ needs a four star general. They all report to you at the Main nerve centre HQ. Each Corps HQ has a number of subsidiary Operational HQ’s, each of which is run by a standard two star General.

The interesting part about this is that if a Corps HQ fails it’s activation roll then none of it’s subsidiary Operational HQ’s can attempt to activate this turn. Yep, your three star Generals are key personnel.

Now some people play AT without the need for intermediate, Corps HQ’s. Everything hangs off the Main HQ. In which case none of this applies and you probably aren’t the sort of person who is reading this part anyway.

On the other hand, if you’re like me (seek professional help), you probably enjoy the little intricacies involved in getting the chain of command functioning properly.

I tend to use a bit of common sense with Corps and Theatre HQ’s. The geography of the map tells me when and where I need one.

How do they work? The HQ that suddenly reports to your Main HQ and has all the other operational HQ’s hanging of it now becomes a Corps HQ. The two star General is given a field promotion to three stars and breaks out the whiskey and wild wanton women. Hoo Harr!

A small change is needed to his characteristics. He no longer deals with day to day military affairs and instead becomes an administrator of staff. So his Military Skill rating, his seniority and any attributes are no longer applicable. What is important is his ‘Administrative Rating’.

Roll one dice with the following modifiers. This becomes his Admin rating.
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There is a good reason that the Military Skill doesn’t simply translate to the General’s Administrative Rating upon promotion (unless it is exceptional at either end of the spectrum). They are different jobs and being good at one doesn’t necessarily make you good at the other. You also don’t find out just how good a three star General is until he is promoted.

His Administrative rating is the number that must be rolled, or less, each turn in order to activate him. His only function, once activated, is to allow his attached Operational HQ’s to roll for activation. They aren’t automatically activated; they simply have the opportunity to roll for activation.

It can be seen that having a Theatre HQ General fail to activate can be a full blown disaster. An entire front comes to a halt.
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Hence they are a prime candidate for burning up your Command Points in activation rerolls. This means that as Supreme Commander you undergo a change from dealing directly with your initial small group of two star Generals to focusing on your Corps or Theatre HQ three and four star Generals. Getting them out of bed in the morning, alert and sober, heading in the right direction, is now your overriding goal.

One final point. Any higher level General (Corps or Theatre) gets a DM-1 to his activation die roll (easier) provided he has a Level 2 staff or higher at his disposal.
Additionally a Corps commander gets a DM-1 (easier) to his activation roll if his superior Theatre Commander succeeds in activating. This reflects the downward momentum of directives from above. Everybody knows that sh*t rolls downhill. So do orders and initiative.
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Emergency Activation – Please Press the Red Big Red Button

So you have a chain of command. For reasons best known only to themselves either your Corps or Theatre level commanders failed to activate and you have a critical situation that needs immediate attention.

As Supreme Commander you can hit the override button and bypass the chain of command. You can use your Command Points to attempt to directly activate a lowly two star General who might, for example, be spearheading your attack.

Make your activation rolls as normal using one Command point per attempt.

The downside to you attempting to micromanage the war effort is that you run the risk of p*ssing off your bypassed higher level Commanders. For each activation attempt you make (whether successful or not) roll a 1D6 for each bypassed Commander. On a roll of one then their Admin rating drops by 1 permanently. Cumulative. Nobody takes kindly to higher authority riding rough shod over them.


Promotions – I am available if my country needs me…

Now you’ve got your first four star General sitting in his Theatre HQ. What happens if he turns out to have an Administrative Rating of 2 and can’t distinguish his a** from his head? Wow. You’ll be spending most of your Command Points on getting him activated each turn leaving you very little left for anything else.

Can you fire him and replace him with a random four star General? No. Three and Four star Generals don’t grow on trees. Your options are to promote one of your existing Generals (who are one rank lower, eg. Two star to Three star) or alternatively to promote somebody sitting in your leadership pool.

First things first however. You have to fire the incumbent. Once you’ve done that you can promote somebody up from the ranks below or from the pool. Don’t roll for the new blokes Admin rating until he is sitting in the chair.

Now there’s a catch to this. Generals, like most of us, are extremely status conscious. They religiously memorise the seniority listings and are very aware of who is the next cab off the rank for promotion. By promoting Generals willy nilly you are upsetting the natural order of things and will cause great resentment amongst your cadre of commanders.

So the deal is that you can only promote your senior most General (of the rank in question, eg. Most senior of all the two star generals if you are promoting up to a Corps level three star). Senior being the one with the highest Seniority rating (or equal highest).

Important Caveat: Both onboard and Pool generals count when determining seniority.

You can promote somebody else but there is a DM-1 (bad) on their Administrative Rating roll to reflect the resentment of all the remaining equivalent ranked Generals who now have to answer to an upstart higher ranked General who has been promoted over the top of them by your good self.

The strategy here is to choose carefully who to promote. A high Administrative Rating (eg. A capable 3 or 4 star General) is crucial to the war effort. Aim to promote Generals who have the greatly desired ‘Skilled Administrator’ attribute or who have a high level of Military skill (6) in order to optimise the Admin die roll.

If you find yourself with a dud 3 or 4 star General then look around for your best candidate for promotion. It’s likely that he lacks seniority and would suffer a penalty on his Admin roll if you promoted him too early. What I do is to identify my best candidates and rotate them into front line combat positions where they have the opportunity to increase their Military skill and Seniority through success on the battlefield. I aim to carefully build them up, and if necessary, clear their path by firing a few incompetent but more senior brother Generals.


Death – or it’s tough at the top

A nasty but pertinent topic. Anytime a Headquarters is attacked by the enemy and suffers causalities then you must determine if the relevant General has died with his boots on.

Roll the dice. 2D6. Roll a 3 and they are wounded. Swap them immediately with a General from the Leadership Pool for a quick and orderly handover. The wounded General must stay in the Pool on the reserve list (they still count against the six max limit for the pool) until he either recovers (12 – you roll an ‘injury’ 2D6 each turn) or dies from his wounds (2). Upon a successful return the General’s seniority increases by 1 to reflect the increased status of a wounded war hero.

Roll a 2 and it’s Taps at dusk with full military honours. A Pool (random if pool empty) General immediately takes over and attempts to get his head around a complicated, demoralised situation. His first activation roll is at DM+2 (very bad), his second is at DM+1 (bad) and normal thereafter. Good luck soldier.
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Yep, headquarters are important. Look after them.


Naval Units

Naval units (doesn’t apply to merchants) are different in that they don’t operate within defined territories. The rules here are pretty simple. No naval units can put to sea unless their associated HQ/General is activated. Once at sea they are free to roam however are unable to initiate any combat unless they are ‘activated’. Of course a General with the ‘Naval Specialist’ attribute automatically activates his naval units every turn, regardless.


Random Occurrences

What would life be like without random events? Boring, that’s what. So once a turn I roll 2D6. On double sixes (12) I consult the… drum roll building to a crescendo … Random Events Table!! Yeah, baby.
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Hardcore Logistics Option

If using this option you need an HQ for every village, town, city and factory. That adds up to a hell of a lot of HQ’s for a decent sized map.

To make this manageable you can assign a ‘generic’ two star general to any HQ instead of going through the normal processes.

The generic two star general has an automatic military rating of 2 and a seniority of 1. They can be fired but never promoted. They have no traits.

You can have as many of these cookie-cutter leaders as you like and they have no impact on your leadership pool.


Summary – Two plus two equals five

It sounds like a lot of work. It isn’t. Most of the time you are only dealing with your front line generals. For all the rest in the rear areas it doesn’t really matter if they are activated or not. The exceptions to this are Generals with the “Logistically Challenged” trait and any who have to deal with rear-area rebellions.

If you have a lot of Headquarters and generals then you most likely have them in a chain of command. In which case it’s also pretty simple. Roll to activate your Theatre Commanders. If O.K then roll for the Corps. If O.K then roll for the frontline generals. If you’re Theatre Commander doesn’t activate then end of story unless you want to risk an emergency activation.

If you find yourself with a dud General in a key position then your best option is to transfer him to a safe, rear-area headquarters where he can dither away secure in the knowledge that the chances of him having to ever draw his sword are slim and none.

Unsurprisingly, this is what occurs in real life.

If you don’t have this option available (he might be a higher level commander) then you could get creative and make a new Corps level Headquarters that is in charge of a bunch of rear area swabs. Transfer him here and your problems are solved.

Important Caveat ! You can only transfer higher level Generals (3 or 4 star) to another HQ provided the new HQ commands a greater or equivalent number of Operational HQ’s.

So Dwight D. Dud, your four star Theatre Commander with an Admin Rating of 2 can be moved sideways into command of the dormant rear area but only if he has the equivalent fourteen HQ’s underneath him that he is currently commanding. Anything less and he point blank refuses and considers his manhood offended.

Now if you don’t want the additional overhead then you’ll have to fire him. This can get messy. It all depends on his seniority. Once he’s gone you’ll have to promote somebody. This can also require a delicate touch due to seniority.

The big, zoomed out, picture is that you start off commanding a small number of Generals directly. Everything is easily manageable. You have direct control.
As the war rolls on your forces increase in size and magnitude along with ever more Generals. You reach the point where you need a proper Chain of Command.

Managing the Chain of Command now becomes your main focus. As it should. Having the right General in the right position also takes on greater importance. Conversely dealing with people problems becomes more involved the larger your army grows.

Lots of tradeoffs here.

People. Awkward and difficult. Wouldn’t war be great without ‘em?


Shorthand Naming of HQ’s on map

To keep bookkeeping to a minimum I name all relevant HQ’s like thus;

Eg. Montgomery_M2S3_Air_OP

Montgomery, Military Skill 2, Seniority 3, Air Ops Specialist, Operational HQ.

Provided I do this I can look at any unit on the map and see instantly whose command they are operating under and all the relevant activation details. Same with the HQ’s.

Easy.

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AAR Start – Finally !

So here’s the deal.
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The aim is for a mixed map sprinkled with hindering terrain and a minimal amount of infrastructure.

I’ve cranked up research to 300% so that each decision matters and ticked;

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My thinking here is that I’ve got a significant challenge in front of me by virtue of the slow start, slow tech, Hardcore logistics overhead (substantial) and Rebellions. This is before taking into account the limitations of my ‘Leadership Mod’ which effectively means that I won’t have the precise level of control over my forces that I’m used to.

To offset all of the above I’ve included “Factories” which will enable me to make up some of the production deficit (vs. the 150% AI+ opponents) given the right circumstances.

Fingers crossed.


Initial Starting Pool

In no particular order here is my handful of ace generals that I commence with as per the ‘initial pool’ above. Each and every one of them has had the benefit of my personal edification.

Note that they are all British. I’ve decided to unify all my Commanders from one particular country. You mix drinks at your peril and I’d imagine it’s the same with Generals. I chose England.

Am I English myself? No. Do I know lots of famous British Generals? No again.

Are there any famous British Generals from WW2? I can think of one, maybe two but that’s about it.

Perhaps my poor perception of England’s Military greatness has led me to them in an act of overt sympathy.

Nope.

In fact I’m thinking I should have gone with the Germans but what the hell, the English once had an empire. That must count for something.
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Looking at the list it’s basically duds on the left and go-getters on the right. Clearly my carefully imparted wisdom found fertile ground in some and noxious weeds in others.

The two standard-outs are Montgomery and Auchinleck, Slim being pretty run of the mill. Percival, Cunningham and Alexander all have their bums glued firmly to the reserve bench and are to be used only in the event of dire emergency.

Alexander in particular is a one-man military train wreck. With a skill of 2 and the ‘Old Fogey’ trait (refuses to use mobile units) he is made extra scary by virtue of his extremely high seniority (‘6’). If I give the man a job he’s almost guaranteed to bugger it up and I’ll have a devil of a job firing him.

Unfortunately if I don’t use him he’ll sit there in my General’s Pool taking up a slot that could be better utilised by somebody else. Maybe I can put him in charge of truck maintenance. Or latrine duty rosters.

Slim is a disappointment. He’s the only real life British Commander that I’m aware of (I’m pretty ignorant in this department) that actually made a difference. Of course he’s used to the jungles of Burma and I’m sending him to Europastan so I can understand him taking refuge in boats and bathtubs.

Montgomery has – of course - pushed his way to the front of the pack (with a couple of lucky die rolls) and is demanding my attention. I’ll have to make sure the pr*ckly little bugger has a handsome batman. Dressed as robin.

Auchinleck is my other superstar. About all I can remember of him was that he was in the deserts of North Africa. I’ll have to look him up but I’ve got a sneaky suspicion that he’s performing above his pay grade.


To be continued...

Cheers,

Lancer

[Joshuatree]

All I can say is [&o]

[Barthheart]

WoW! Just WoW![&o]

Amazing what people with too much time on their hands will come up with![:D]

This will be an interesting read for sure......

[Westheim]

Very impressive! Now I can't wait to see how you struggle through an AAR with these guys.

Question: this is flavour for you only, right? I bet the AI can't handle it.

[tweber]

Looks really interesting.  How do you handle the activation of troops / tracking of cities lost or captured?  Are you going to post this on the scenario bank?

[jjdenver]

Wow a lot of work went into this. It looks like fun!

[lancer]

Goodaye,

Amazing what people with too much time on their hands will come up with![:D]

I had four days off work sick and was given a copy of Adobe Creative Suite and told to learn it.

Question: this is flavour for you only, right? I bet the AI can't handle it.

Yep. Speak to Vic.

How do you handle the activation of troops / tracking of cities lost or captured?

Don't need to track any of the above. In the AAR (already done) I show the tracking sheet I use. It's pretty simple.

I play the game normally. Whenever I want to move a unit I can see ('cause I named the HQ's as above) which HQ it's with and the activation roll. Provided that HQ activates (and if it has a rating of 6 then it's automatic) then all it's units are good to go.

All of this only applies if you want to attack or enter hostile territory so the extra overhead is minimal.

As far as cities goes I sort it out there and then. I capture a city, I roll to see the effect on the commander. Done.

Bear in mind that I'm not advocating that anyone actually uses this. I did it purely for my own enjoyment (and as a means of learning some new software). Having done it I thought I may as well post it. Feel free to roll your eyes, laugh, whatever. I won't take offence.

When I put it all together at the start (the rules) I probably went overboard but suprisingly it actually worked very smoothly and turned out to be a lot of fun. I'll kick out a new installment every day or so and you can judge for yourself.

Cheers,

Lancer

[lancer]

Strategic Overview

Right. While my executive talent is busy getting their boots polished I’d better get my head around the big picture.

Normally I’d give this job to my HQ staff but given that I don’t currently have any – or an army – I’ll wing it myself.

Here’s the map of Europastan. Great place.

Come visit one day. Bring the family. And a gun.





That’s us down in the south-eastern corner. I’ve unilaterally renamed our nation to the “Commonwealth”. Didn’t like the sound of the “British”. Thought it best to leave some room for colonial input.

You can do this kind of stuff when you’re in charge. All power to me.

Around the traps are various other hostile nations of dubious ancestry. All the blank spaces in between are populated by Europastan’s native population, the “Plebs”.

About all you need to know about the Plebs is that there is a lot of them, they’re all hideously short, fat and smelly and – luckily - can’t shoot straight. As far as I know they eat with a fork but beyond that it’s anyone’s guess.

Who cares? They’re all doomed to die. Such is the life of the Pleb.

Still, I might have to issue gumboots to all the grunts. The last thing a solider wants when he is fighting for God and Country is to squelch down onto something yucky. Plebs. No Opera, Oprah or clean Orifices. Sh*ting in the bushes does that to you. Bloody disgusting.

Maybe I should just nuke the lot of ‘em. Go on a holiday for ten thousand years…

Onwards. Strategy.

It appears that the Commonwealth of Nations, a soon-to-be looming colossus astride the world stage, resides in the fair city of DoopCastle on Heard Is. And, yes, I have renamed the island but was unable to do anything about our capital.

For those who feel the urge to indulge in merriment at our expense I can only bring your attention to the dark stains on the floor. And the walls. And the ceiling.

DoopCastle is destined to be the capital of the known world. I’m told that it means “City of Warriors” in Celtic. Get over it.

Illustriously named cities notwithstanding, being situated on a piss-ant little island way down at the back of beyond isn’t a good start.

I’ll be the only nation forced to convoy every soldier, bean and bullet across the ocean in order to get somewhere useful. This will impose a significant naval overhead that nobody else will have to bother with. Damn.

Even worse is the fact that once I get troops ashore there isn’t any super-duper place to go. Looking at the map it seems as if the Gods took a great big bite out of the landmass to the immediate north west of me. The very same missing landmass that would be my natural route of expansion.

Instead it looks as if I’m going to have to become a dispersed seafaring, coastal dwelling people in the manner of ancient Carthage in the Mediterranean. Given that I’ve got mountain chains blocking every route to the west that might not be too remote an analogy.

So I’ll research Elephants and make my move in the dead of winter. They won’t be expecting that.





Sadly Carthage croaked. Geographical dispersion got them in the end. Bugger.



To be continued...

Lancer

[Joshuatree]

Classic already.

[Westheim]

ORIGINAL: lancer
Around the traps are various other hostile nations of dubious ancestry. All the blank spaces in between are populated by Europastan’s native population, the “Plebs”.

About all you need to know about the Plebs is that there is a lot of them, they’re all hideously short, fat and smelly and – luckily - can’t shoot straight. As far as I know they eat with a fork but beyond that it’s anyone’s guess.

Oh my god, I laughed so hard ... [:D]

Anyway, you really wanted to make it extra hard to yourself with that map, huh?

[lancer]

Onto Plan B.

Thinking BIG (is there any other way?) I have to decide who I’m going to take out first, the Italians to my West or the Soviets to my North.

With either choice there are probably going to be the same givens in that;

- I’ll be way behind in expansion due to my crappy start position

- I’ll be significantly behind in production capacity as a result

- I’ll be fighting a two front war

- I’ll be at a disadvantage on both fronts due to my having to use sea lanes

Looking at the map below I see that I have a much longer and more open sea route to the north and once ashore I’m fighting in open terrain all the way up to the Soviet Capital.

As I doubt that I’ll be able to blitzkrieg my way straight through the gates of the Kremlin early on I’m looking at a prolonged, high-attrition slog northwards. If I even make it that far considering that I’ll be heavily outnumbered.





The Italians look more doable. It’s a short sea hop to the ‘Sicilian’ peninsular with a clearly defendable enclosed land mass that I could feasibly grab at the start and then turtle down behind the mountains/lake while I build up a factory-led Industrial heartland.

Once I’ve got my production capacity cranking I’ve then got a clear shot at the Italian capital.

Even better is that once I roll up the Italians I’ll have control over the entire southern land mass which has only one small bottleneck land connection to the north, the rest being blue water.

Easy to defend and plenty of space to expand my production base before renewing my onwards march to glory.

A question mark hangs over the Ottoman Empire. Their capital is very close to the southern land mass.

They might choose to expand southwards thus pushing the Italians further eastwards which would be extremely bad for my plans to turn the Sicilian peninsular into smoke stack central.

However I’m betting that the wide open plains to the north and east will be so tempting to a bunch of horse-mounted Turks that they’ll leave the Italians to peacefully populate the rest of the south.

There is a third option. A north-western thrust into what I’ve termed the ‘Neutral Zone’. Neutral in that it sits equidistant from the three surrounding nations and is likely to be one of the last areas to be conquered.

I could, if I wanted, move in there and grab a large chunk of land before anybody else gets there. Two problems here.

The first being the extended sea lanes I’d need to support an effort this far from my capital and the second being having to defend aforementioned sea lanes against attacks from both open flanks.

Additionally the terrain in the neutral zone doesn’t lend itself to the establishment of an easily defendable industrial production base. Nor is it near any enemy capital.

So it’s decided. The Italians.



To be continued...

Cheers
Lancer

[lancer]

O.K, let’s get down to tin tacks and figure out how it’s going to work. Some geography might be handy.





As ruling Monarch and official cartographer to the world I’ve taken a few liberties. As is my want.

Here’s the plan. It’s in colour so it must be true.

DoopCastle on Heard Island down in the southeastern corner. That’s the jump off point or the centre of the ant’s nest depending on your point of view.

In order to get control of the Sicilian Peninsular I need to make a rapid three village thrust due west: Stoneforest – Beely – Arion.

By the time I done this I’ve probably got the Italians knocking on my front door so I need to establish a hasty defensive line in the marked blocking positions if I am going to have any hope of holding the peninsular.

This thrust is my overriding priority and I’ll initially need merchant shipping to cross the sea gap and a couple of divisions of submachinegunners to capture Stoneforest. Some mortar support might come in handy here.





Once Stoneforest is underfoot then I’ll sprint down the road to Beely and thence Arion using armoured cars, backfilling with SMG divisions as I go.

FardCrossing will depend on Italian expansion. If I think that there is even a whisker of a possibility of smelling greasy pizza in the neighbourhood then I punch north and secure it pronto.

Then I’ll need maybe six or more divisions of Rifle armed grunts to secure the Apennine Mountains and form my initial defensive line.

The villages of New Glory and Ranger are marked as secondary objectives on the tactical battle map and that’s exactly what they are. To be tackled only after all of the above is done and dusted.

Concurrent while all of this is going on I need to raise a couple of divisions of engineers and start my factory building program as soon as possible. Luckily I have an intact road network across the Sicilian Peninsular with few rivers (apart from the Po river system near FardCrossing).

I can envisage the need for engineering support to fortify my Apennine defensive line before it starts coming under serious pressure but hopefully I’ve got time to get at least one factory complex up and running before then.





Excellent. I have a plan. Plan to succeed and don’t plan to fail etc. etc. Keep this up and they might make me a company director at Barclays. Just before it goes busto.

But. Always a but. I have to make a decision about what to do with the Soviets. Basically I’m looking for a holding action here. Keep them at bay and out of the Adriatic until I’m ready to deal with them.

There are two villages on the southern Crimean coast – Minster and Queenswall. If I leave either of them undefended I run the risk that Stalin will take the war directly to my doorstep via an air / naval assault.

As I can’t afford convoy losses I’ll probably have to grab both and hang onto them like grim death.

Minster is defendable by virtue of it being behind a river but Queenswall is out on the plains and subject to a potential three-sided concentric attack. Ideally I’d like to ring them both with fortifications to give me some breathing space but that’s not going to happen.

While I can’t read Stalin’s mind looking at the map I can almost guarantee that he’ll be funnelled due south by the mountain range lining his western border.

I’m going to be lucky to be able to grab both villages and bulk them up in time before his assault columns hit.

Somehow I have to do this at the same time as my synchronised blitzkrieg along the Sicilian Peninsular. Whether DoopCastle has enough production capacity to handle both the Sicilian and Crimean Theatres simultaneously is debatable and doubtful.

I’ve cancelled all holiday leave. In fact I’ve cancelled everything. Nobody leaves until the war’s over.

To further complicate matters I’m virtually forced into taking Balboa if I want to supply and support any action in the Crimea. Fighter and divebomber squadrons based here would be almost obligatory as I won’t have any room for them in the two Crimean cities.

Hopefully I can raise a naval force of at least a couple of cruisers to help defend my Crimean foothold as it won’t be long before Stalin will be throwing the kitchen sink at them.

And do I worry about the two cities over in the neutral zone? Probably only if they are under threat of conquest from somebody else. By the time that happens I should have a handful of factories belching smoke and can support an over-the-ocean effort.

Righto. Who do I give the Sicilian and Crimea front to? I’ll give the Sicilian one to the abrasive squirt and keep Auchinleck for the Crimea.

Once the Sicilian peninsular is wrapped up I’ll need to promote one of them to a Corps HQ commander, probably based in Stoneforest.

I’ll probably give Slim command of the Beely HQ given it’s central position on the peninsular. He’ll be in charge of overall security which will no doubt rear it’s ugly head at regular intervals as I’ve opted for ‘Rebellions’.

No way I can have hairy chested rebels running riot through my industrial base.

There is a nagging thought buzzing around my head that tells me I’m over-reaching. It’s easy to deal with bugs that buzz but thoughts are more difficult. I pull out my trusty notebook and jot down some rough calculations.





That adds up to 156,600 resource points. With a timeframe of about a year (16 turns) to have both campaigns wrapped up (any longer and it’ll be a moot point due to the encroachment of the Soviets and Italians) I’ll have a total production capacity of 160,000 rp’s courtesy of the hard working folk of DoopCastle.

This doesn’t leave any margin for error. As both campaigns are essentially ‘stomp-the-plebs’ exercises the minimal forces detailed above should be enough to do the job. Plebs shouldn’t be that tough.

Unfortunately there isn’t any allowance for supply. It’s going to be a case of living of the land. All these little 500 rp villages that I’m going to be steamrolling over will have to provide the necessary amounts of supply.

Nor is there any room for my kick-start Factory program. Each factory is going to cost me 19,500 rp’s (more than normal as with the Hardcore Logistics Option you need an HQ per factory). No can do.

It’ll be a case of push out hard, grab the land then hang on by my fingertips for another year or two (16 – 32 turns) while I build up my production capacity.

Mmmm.




To be continued...

Cheers,

Lancer

[lancer]

Breaking Press Release from Commander Kremin of the Commonwealth

The following has been reported in the local DoopCastle Herald.

Seems like your trusty notebook failed miserably regarding the production points reqired to build 480 SMGs, which takes 52,800 ProdP, a little more than the 19,800 the notebook calculated.

I wish to state that this is - of course - spurious nonsense. Halliburton International has recently bought shares in our fine country and as such is selling shiny new submachineguns to us at a much reduced rate.

Fine guns. The troops are happy and apart from the small matter of our national debt it's all good.

The DoopCastle Herald is currently in need of a new editor. I will deal with all applicants personally.

Onwards.

Commander Kremin of the Commonwealth

[lancer]

Turn 5

Good news and bad news. Both the Sicilian and Crimean campaigns are going to plan. Minister and Stoneforest are under our control. Everyone with beady eyes or a gimpy leg has been nailed to the wall and bludgeoned to death. Order has been restored.

Two divisions are in transit for the assault on Queenswall and it’s expected our objectives for the Crimean will be achieved well before schedule.

There is currently no indication of Soviet moves southwards so – contrary to expectations – we may have some time to fortify our position. I’ve installed Auchinleck as our man in Crimea. Go Claude.





Down on the Sicilian Peninsular I’ve set up a convoy route to our newly establish depot at Stoneforest. An armoured car division has been shipped across and will be kicked into action next turn. The Plebs we’ve met so far are about as together as a humpty dumpty.

An Italian insurrection has broken out around Fardskill which, if it takes root, will prove awkward.

But the really bad news is that Montgomery has come down with a cough, bugger him. I give him command of the Sicilian campaign and the very next turn he’s bed ridden. Is whacking Plebs that stressful?

I rolled double sixes and scored a random event. As Montgomery was the only general in action at the time he was it. Just for giggles I then rolled a one. Now he is out of action, crook, for the foreseeable future.

He lurks, coughing and spluttering, in the reserve pool while I roll 2D6 each turn. He stays sick until I roll a 12 again. On snake-eyes the irascible little bastard succumbs to whatever the hell ails him.

With one of my two superstar general’s now spitting blood and sputum I’m forced to replace him with general Slim, king of the bathtub.


To be continued...

Lancer

[lancer]

Turn 8

The end of summer and I’m doing well. Surprisingly I’ve expanded faster than anyone else. Perhaps that simply a function of me being a human. I can direct my expansion towards specific targets whereas the AI takes a more scattergun approach.

Either way I’m managing only by cutting right back on supplies and staff. Most HQ’s have only a skeleton staff of one lonely, frazzled and confused clerk and many frontline units are running near empty, supply-wise.

I figure that with the toilet-challenged Plebs being my only opposition at present I can afford to stretch the rubber band to its fullest extent. I’ve also left DoopCastle virtually undefended with just a handful of riflemen which may not be the wisest course of action considering a rebellion could be festering on Heard Island as we speak. I’m working the population to the bone and the unionists are becoming militant.

Perhaps I’d better bulk up my state security apparatus, just in case.

With five Operational HQ’s up and running and a similar number of two star Generals in the field I’m starting to run into command issues. Specifically the bastards aren’t always doing what I’m telling them to do.

With the increasing need for generals I’ve had to dig deeper into my talent pool than I intended and as a result I’ve got some generals out there that haven’t exactly got a black-belt in generalship if you know what I mean.

Montgomery still thrashing around his sick bed threatening to drop dead from pneumonia, chronic constipation or AIDs hasn’t helped.

I’ve made the conscious decision (I tried making ‘em when I was drunk but only ended up confusing the dog with so many orders that he ran howling out the door and fanged the neighbours cat) to put my best generals on the Crimean front reasoning that, although it’s going to be a defensive action for the foreseeable future, I’ll need a high level reaction ability to stay on top of the situation.

The downside is that the Sicilian theatre is full of deadbeats. My best general is Slim (Military Skill 4) and I’ve been leapfrogging him up the peninsular as I go. The disruption inherent in changing HQ’s means that I’ve been facing an activation roll of 3 (on 1D6) instead of the normal 4 and I’ve had to burn up a fair number of command points in order to keep the momentum going.

I’ve achieved the three village thrust to the Apennine Mountains that I was aiming for but there are Plebs aplenty in my rear.

I’ve formed a mop-up division at Stoneforest but haven’t been able to get them rolling due to my on-the-spot general, Neil Ritchie, being focused on organising the supply depot instead of tending to his military duties. His Military Skill is only a 3 and after taking care of Slim I don’t have enough command points left to ‘realign his thinking’.

Unfortunately the demands upon me have been such that I’ve only been able to refill two random generals into my pool and it’s now got a distinctly shallow sheen about it.

It’s become apparent that if I want to take FardCrossing to the north I’ll have to build a road and bridge some rivers as the Po river system is extensive enough to seriously crimp my supply lines.

I’ve got an engineering unit ready, willing and able but a lack of transport capability at Stoneforest has left me unable to shift them up the peninsular where they are needed. Trucks. Need lots of trucks.

Big picture wise the Ottomans are doing as expected, the Germans are floundering around the forests way up north, the Soviets have crossed the mountains (contrary to my expectations) and the Italians are driving hard eastwards, damn them





I may have to rethink my proposed defensive line on the peninsular that I was planning on anchoring around the Apennine Mountain range. If the Italians keep coming then I won’t have time to check them and will have to dig in behind the southern river instead.

Also it’s becoming evident that the Soviets may be my biggest long term threat. Early stages yet but I only recently noticed that the sole Pleb city on the map is just to their north. They have the ability to really wind up their production capacity and exert enormous pressure on my foothold at the base of the Crimea.

Fortifications here may be a necessity, not an option.



To be continued...

Lancer

[lancer]

Turn 16

One year down. The end of my initial planning stage. Where am I at?

Largely exactly where I want to be. I’ve taken all the ground I expected pretty much with the amount of forces I estimated I would need.

Before I start looking overly smug and officious I’d better point out the alterations to the master plan.

It’s a biggie.

My invasion force to Balboa (little island in the middle of the Adriatic sea) was diverted at the last minute to the Iberian theatre (see map below as to where this is [edit] next post).

Just as I was about to storm the bourgeois seaside boulevards of Balboa I made the debateable decision to postpone the assault and instead sailed my division of crack troops way up into the far reaches of the northern Adriatic.

Porpouch.

Landed, shot some Plebs and captured it.

I’m still not certain that I’ve done the right thing here.

As the Soviets were about to take it I decided I’d better get their first in order to protect my hold over the Adriatic. By preventing the Soviets access to Porpouch I deny them any viable sea access (apart from a remote village way up to the north east).

In the overall scheme of things I decided that the benefits of not having vodka swilling peasants threatening to lurch ashore throughout my empire outweighed the logistical difficulties inherent in supporting a remote theatre of operations.

To ease my mind I’ve appointed my best available general, Alanbrooke , to command the Iberian theatre, such as it is.





I really wanted Montgomery but the sad little bugger rolled over, wheezed, coughed and croaked when I tried to kick him out of his sickbed. On turn 13!

There’s a lesson swirling around here somewhere. Batman and Robin should have kept it platonic.






To be continued...

Lancer

[TheArchduke]

What an awesome AAR! Please keep it coming.

I especially would like to see closeups of the Crimean and Italien campaign situation as it seems you have encountered resistance..

[lancer]

Turn 16 continued

Barely had I taken Porpouch than the Soviets started probing with light forces. Mmm. Not owning Balboa could start to hurt in a hurry as I really need it to stage my forces for both the Crimean and Iberian theatres.

My ability to get a second invasion fleet up and running in the foreseeable future isn’t looking good given the demands that I’m currently facing.

I might just have to roll with the punches and go with my instincts.

In the Crimea I’m ahead schedule. The Soviets have been slow to push south enabling me time to ship across an engineering division and commence construction of a ring of fortifications around Queenswall.

The Sicilian theatre is all hot blooded fireworks. The Italians continued their strong eastwards thrust and I’ve had to meet them head on in the Apennine Mountains.

They chose not to muck around with scouts or probes and instead lunged straight at us with the sharpest knife in the kitchen.





Outnumbered five to one General Slim barely managed to hold them in the mountains. As I desperately rushed reinforcements up the supply pipeline to Arion, Slim fed them straight into the battle - to hell with readiness.

At one point things were looking so desperate that much needed resources had to be diverted into researching and building several divebomber squadrons. As the Italians kept bringing forward more and more troops we are able to interdict them on the roads before they reach the relative safety of the mountains.

Still, it’s touch and go.

Worse, I haven’t managed to subdue the Italian rebellion near Beely. All I’ve managed is to contain them so as to keep the supply line up through the peninsular open. They’re drawing supplies and reinforcements via the southern Adriatic and keep getting stronger.

A glance at the map shows that my rapid initial expansion has ended with the metallic screech of hard and rapid braking. I’m currently second last in victory points. Surprisingly the Ottoman Empire has done the best.

I suspect that this is geographical. They are perfectly positioned to expand through wide open steppes and have done so with alacrity. Their foothold on the southern landmass was wiped out by the Italians and I doubt if they’ll be returning in a hurry.

Here’s a detailed look at the Sicilian theatre. This is the first time I’ve played seriously with my self-made ‘Leadership Variant’ and a number of interesting aspects are becoming apparent, highlighted below.





I’ve got five Operational HQ’s in the theatre. I haven’t gone with a Corps HQ yet as I don’t need one due to the – still manageable – distance back to my capitol. Once I commence my next expansion phase I’ll definitely have to reorganise my command structure.

If you look at the map you can see that I’ve got three commanders with a very average Military skill of 3, one above average with a ‘4’ (Slim, hidden underneath Arbuthnott) and a real kick-ass general in Gubbins who is a ‘6’ (automatic activation).

Unfortunately they aren’t all where I want them to be. Ideally I’d like Slim and Gubbins swapped over so that I’ve got my best general dealing with the critical Apennine Mountain’s defence.

The problem I face is that it will cost me one command point to do so and there’s a turn of disruption inherent in the process (DM+1 to their activation roll). Due to the hectic pace of developments I haven’t yet been able to find a spare command point.

The reason that I didn’t place Gubbins where he should be in the first place was that Gubbins wasn’t around when I needed him. When I have a need for a new general I can either roll up a random one or draw from my pool.

Random – as you can guess – is a shot in the dark. With the pool at least you have a choice.

On the downside everytime you pull a general out of the pool you have an empty slot. To refill it with a random general costs another command point. If you don’t do this then you end up with a tiny pool probably full of no-hopers desperate for a job.

So I’m finding it a difficult balancing act as to how many valuable command points I can afford to burn up in order to keep my pool full which in turn gives me a greater choice of generals. As time passes and I get busier and busier it’s becoming increasingly harder to make that choice.

The Italian rebellion shown above near Beely is a case in point. Here I found a fairly standard 26 x Rifle unit threatening my supply line. Within a couple of turns I had managed to rush forces (as shown above) to contain them.

Normally I’d attack immediately trusting that my three-side concentric assault backed up by a couple of armoured cars would do the job. Problem solved.

Not so with my variant. I have three units surrounding the Italians. All three units come from separate commands – Arbuthnott (Military skill 3), Ritchie (‘2’) & Cunningham (‘3’).

Now in order to make a simultaneous attack with all three units I need them all activated. So here I’m faced with rolling a 3 or less twice and a 2 or less once guaranteeing that I’ll probably need to burn up a bunch of command points to make it happen.

For the last six turns I’ve been unable to find enough spare command points to give it a go. In the meantime the Italians have hunkered down and – through a supply connection to the south – reinforced. I now faced with over 40 x Rifles, fully dug-in.

So I’d have to say that my Leadership Variant is making the game a lot tougher than I expected. I’m constantly having to make difficult choices over where to spend my four precious command points each turn. Often times I hit the wall and can’t do what I want which is really frustrating.

Kind of like issuing an order in real life and finding out later that – for whatever reason – it wasn’t acted upon.

It’s awfully tempting to sneak in a reroll here and there. Being a person of iron discipline (except when it come to Wine, Women and Wocolate) I’ve resisted the temptation but it’s dangling out there like the forbidden fruit.

Opposed to this is the ‘flavour’. Being able to personalise the individual HQ’s and their commands makes it a lot of fun. There’s an element of role-playing here.

Every turn I’ve been hanging on my activation roll for Slim as he’s fought his way stubbornly up through the peninsular. So far Slim is – after a shaky start – rising to the occasion and that’s another reason why I haven’t swapped him with Gubbins. The man is doing a fine job, let him be!

He even looks the part. Check out his Indiana Jones hat in the photo. The sort of bloke who doesn’t worry about protocol. Gets in there and does what has to be done. On two occasions I’ve ordered him and his staff directly into battle. Go Slim.

Trying to get the best out of your generals plays a part here to. I’ve deliberately put Alan Cunningham in charge up at Ranger. The man’s a dud but I’ve given him a command and our dive bombers. Because of his ‘Air Op’s Specialist’ trait I’m assured of an automatic activation each turn.





This is what I use to keep tabs on the generals. Every turn I tick off command points as I use them. Anyone on the reserve bench due to ill health is noted so I can remember to roll for their recovery (or organise their funeral). Any instance of a general needing a modifier to his activation roll next turn is also noted.

Above you can see the effect of my leapfrogging Slim from HQ to HQ as we advanced up the peninsular. Once again it’s just a reminder that if I want to activate that general then there’s an adjustment to be made.

Quick and easy.



To be continued...

Lancer