Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

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Grotius
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Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Grotius »

The plan seemed so perfect: Rundstedt leading Army Group South, von Bock commanding Army Group Center, and von Leeb spearheading Army Group North. The best-made plans, and all that.
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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by brian brian »

Great name!
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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Grotius »

This is a brief AAR of my current solitaire game of "Barbarossa," one of the two shortest scenarios in Matrix World in Flames. I'll confess at the outset: while I've played hundreds of board wargames -- everything from ASL to OCS to Third Reich to, lately, the Tactical Combat System -- I've never played the boardgame version of World in Flames. But I've been beta-testing this game since for something like five years, so I've come to know and love it all the same. I think there's value in having newbs test a game like this. You want newbs to buy the game and enjoy it, so best to have a couple newbs test it, too.

If any newbs are reading this, here's some advice from another newb: try the Barbarossa scenario first. It's easier to learn than Guadalcanal, the other short scenario, which requires you to learn the naval rules. And Global War, while awesome, is a bit overwhelming for a newcomer. Barbarossa lets you learn the core of the system with only two major powers in action. Even so, as you're about to see, there's a lot to learn. Mistakes will be made in this AAR. Go easy on me, veterans!

I used the "Fast Start Barbarossa" setup to get going. Kinda wish I'd set up myself and chosen a few more optional rules. In this game, we have Partisans, but no divisions or artillery or other goodies. Still, the Fast Start has the advantage of being, well, fast.

My Germans got off to a fast start too, or so I thought. Fine weather in the first few impulses, rapid progress. This is turn 1 (May/June 1941), impulse #5. I'm surrounding units, cutting off their supply -- and wishing I were doing a better job of disorganizing them. They defend just fine when they're out of supply; it's really crucial to disorganize them too. I've been ground-striking like crazy, but I've been using too many piecemeal ground strikes and not enough concentrated air power. Already behind schedule.

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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Grotius »

Things are even worse for the Germans in the south. For whatever reason, I had my Soviets set up a relatively robust line in the south. I was too cautious about trying to bust through it -- waiting until ground strikes worked, trying to get automatic-win odds, that sort of thing. By the time I got my troops moving, a summer rain had set in. I love the look of rain in MWIF, and the game system models weather really nicely. (It models most stuff really nicely, in fact: air power, naval power, land power, supply, terrain....)

This is Turn 1, (German) Impulse 9. Notice the yellow dot on the top-right of my 8-6 mechanized unit south of the Pripet Marshes. It's out of supply, thanks to the rain muddying up its path to Runstedt, who is only three hexes south. Playing MWIF, you quickly come to scan the board for the dreaded yellow top-right dot.

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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Grotius »

July/August, 1941: The bad weather finally let up. The Germans surround Minsk and take it on the first try, way behind schedule now. I'm still saving my German offensive chit for something big; maybe I should have played it on turn 1. Meanwhile, the Russians repel a couple of attacks in the south, and I've got a virtual sitzkrieg there -- I just didn't assign enough German troops there. The Hungarians and Romanians won't win you the war down there.

On the bright side, I think I have a future as a Soviet commander! The Sovs have done a nice job of backpedaling in the north. They've sniped with their fighters when they get a chance, and otherwise protected their air power. But they also don't have to struggle with supply nearly as much as the Germans. On defense, you can trace to your home cities. On offense, gotta have that HQ in range. Newcomers, if you learn nothing else, make sure you plan where you're going to send your HQs, and whose going to draw supply from them. Almost every German unit needs to be within supply range of an HQ (the exception being units on the Baltic Coast, and even those can't stray far from the sea, especially in bad weather).

Brian, I'm glad you like the AAR name. As you'll see, it's apt. :)

Incidentally, I took this photo using the "medium resolution" version of the units, just because it looks cool. I normally play with high resolution, more zoomed in; but if you zoom out, the medium-rez units are easier on the eyes.

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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Grotius »

July/August 1941, Impulse 9: More bad weather slows down the Germans. Here it clears, giving them a chance to attack the Soviet HQ just north of Pskov. Yes, there's a big gap in Soviet defenses south of Pskov. But Moscow, alas, is a long way away.

Actually, to win this scenario, the Germans need to take a whole bunch of Soviet cities, not just Moscow and Leningrad. I doubt they'll even come close. But it's fun trying!

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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Grotius »

September/October 1941: The weather does not clear until the fall, and finally Rundstedt gets his men moving. A long-awaited breakthrough, at last! I should've done this on turn 1. It just took me a while to get the hang of coordinating ground strikes -- and my Russians proved all to good at making judicious use of ground support missions.

(Ground strikes disorganize the enemy, which is helpful to an attacker, and absolutely killer if the enemy is also out of supply. Ground support, by contrast, just adds combat factors to an attack, potentially altering the odds. Since the defendant usually has fewer combat factors, one aircraft on ground support can boost the defense much more than the offense. E.g., if the initial odds are 40:5, 5 ground-support air factors on offense make only a marginal difference in odds -- whereas five extra air factors on defense cut the odds in half, from 40:5 to 40:10, or from 8:1 down to 4:1.)

Anyway, it's cool to get a "breakthrough" result. You get to drive your tanks behind the enemy, and (optionally) you can make tank noises as you do so.

Took this photo at a higher MWIF zoom level, which is why it looks better. My earlier photos don't really do this game justice. It's a thing of beauty.

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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Grotius »

End of October, 1941: Von Leeb and von Bock get moving, too! They've learned to mass their airpower; better one big 10-factor ground strike than two 5-factor ground strikes. (Steve's player's manual says this, of course, but I took a while to learn the lesson.) All of a sudden, there's a scary line of Germans bearing down on Moscow! And the Soviets are in full retreat in the south. Plans in flames? Pfft. We'll see.

More to come tomorrow.

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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Ian R »

Why are the Soviets fielding units such as the 4th Guards Tank Army in 1941?
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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Grotius »

Good question. A two-part answer from me, but experts may have better explanations.

First, WIF does have an optional rule that more tightly regulates the emergence of Guards units, called "Guards Banner Units," but I'm not playing with that optional rule. (As I said at the outset, if I had to do it again, I'd have set up manually with virtually all the optional rules enabled.) Units have to perform well to get Guards status, and so forth.

Second, more generally, WIF adds a bit of randomization to the unit pool at game start, and when you build things. When you build a fighter, you're not guaranteed getting the model of your choice. Same with armor. You can mitigate this uncertainty by "scrapping" obsolete designs at various points of the game, including at game start. I don't know whether this scenario (which was set up by someone else) featured much unit-scrapping.

Anyway, perhaps a WIF expert could chime in and comment more authoritatively.
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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by composer99 »

The unit names are largely for flavour, although as far as I am aware their combat factors tend to reflect the historical performance of the units they are named after to some extent (this will naturally be less precise for the Soviet forces because they are army-size units).

The units that best reflect the history of the Guards unit designation are the Guards Banner units, which as Grotius notes are an optional rule he isn't playing with. To my knowledge, the names of ordinary units with "Guards" in the name is probably more of a cosmetic affectation.
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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by brian brian »

2 questions

a) - what is the "Fast Start Barbarossa" option?

b) - my memory of playing the Barbarossa scenario is that 25 Russian units must set up within 2 hexes of the German border(s)...is this still the case? I think this may be optional, I can't remember.



On the 4th Guards Tank Army I'll explain how I've seen it - I'm sure it was challenging to do the Russian unit write ups. The 9-5 Armor unit, labelled "4th GD ARM" on the counter, is the Soviet's first "white-print" unit, called "elite" unit in the game. These units have a strength of 3 when defending while out of supply; also the Russian units of this status are more effective in combat during snow weather. It has a first availability date of 1941; normally in a game starting in 1939 the earliest it could appear on the map would be the Sep/Oct 1941 turn and frequently later as the Russians rush to build a maximum quantity army before a maximum quality army.

But when setting up a scenario, all units with an availability date of that year are available to de drawn, so it is possible for the WiF & MWiF Russians to draw the 4th Guards Tank Army at start in May/Jun 1941 in the Barbarossa scenario. I have played with opponents who by agreement only let units be placed on the map if they could have been built in a campaign game by that time, which affects a few small things when setting up in Sep/Oct 1939, but that is a tiny issue for history buffs so sort out.

The real Russians awarded "Guards" designation to experienced combat units that had been successful at the front. A way to build up unit morale.

The WiF counters do things a little differently, using the "GD" (Guards) designation to differentiate the white-print / elite counters from the earlier units of that type. The highest number appears first in the force pool and as the unit designation number decreases the unit's factors increase slightly. In this case the 1st Guards Tank Army appears in the force pool in 1944 as an 11-5 ARM unit. The system is just a simple way to use some historical flavor on the units, without much synchronicity to the actual historical order of battle.

The "Guards Banner Army" units are similarly abstracted. I believe the historical Russians could promote a 'Guards' unit to a 'Guards Banner' unit.

A different problem with the system is the MECH units, which have a similar naming system. I don't think the Soviets ever put together 'Mech' units in a more standard sense the way the Germans and Americans did. Be that as it may, you can definitely see the 1st GD ARM on the board at the same time as the 1st GD MECH, whatever a Russian MECH Army may be (not historical). But part of the design is that all countries have the same unit types. World in Flames is a high level design with things partially abstracted, not a detailed recreation of an historical oob.

2 notes on the actual Russian order of battle in the war - In WiF there are no Russian "Shock" armies, such as the Russian 3rd Shock Army; created in the dark days of December 1941 it was the unit which eventually took the Reichstag in the Battle of Berlin. Which I've always thought was a pity; I thought that would have been a good choice for the MECH unit designations, or the elite INF units as I think the Shock Armies were mostly infantry and the big armor units were Guards or Guards Banner Tank Armies. ?

Also the real Russians put together "Fortress Fronts" which seem to be an inspiration for the GARRison pieces, among other units fielded by other powers. But there are no such "Fortress Front" pieces in the game, which admittedly would be hard to put on a counter. The GARR pieces do use historical Russian Infantry Army numbers, though I hope the "Fortress Front" units are mentioned in the Russian GARR write-ups.
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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Ur_Vile_WEdge »

ORIGINAL: brian brian

2 questions

a) - what is the "Fast Start Barbarossa" option?

b) - my memory of playing the Barbarossa scenario is that 25 Russian units must set up within 2 hexes of the German border(s)...is this still the case? I think this may be optional, I can't remember.



a) Guessing here, since I'm just a fan who watches AARs, but it's probably a computer generated auto setup for a given set of rules, something you can just push a few buttons and start playing instead of piece by piece putting your units down.


b) They changed that in uhm, I forget when exactly. One of the revised setup charts. It's now 10 Corps/armies within 2 hexes of Romania, and another 10 within 2 hexes of German controlled East Prussia or Poland.

I was never entirely certain if a unit plopped down in the hex southwest of Lvov (which is within 2 of both borders) counted against both limits or not.
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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Grotius »

Dang it: the forum ate my first response. Trying again.

1. "Fast Start" games are saved games made by beta-testers (I think). The player has already chosen optional rules (usually just seven or eight), has already scrapped obsolete units, and usually has set up all the units for you. So you can load it up and start right away with your first action choice. It certainly saves time! Once you've played MWIF a bit, you'll probably want to make all those initial decisions yourself. (As I've mentioned already, I kinda wish I'd chosen my own optional rules.) But it's still nice to have the fast-start games, if only to load them up and see what one possible setup looks like.

2. Yep, MWIF (like WIF) requires the Soviets to set up close to the borders with the Axis. If you don't, the game makes you fix it before you finish the setup phase. The full "Global War" scenario gives the Soviets much more flexibility. And the Germans, for that matter. In the Global War game, some German players never do a Barbarossa at all, opting instead for a Sea Lion or Gibraltar or some such.

Incidentally, one nice thing about solitaire mode is that you can make your own house rules. (Obviously you could agree to such things in Netplay, too.) For example, I've made the Soviets keep some units in the Far East in this AAR, even though I could easily train them west. Likewise, I've been keeping a couple of German militia units in reserve. I did have a couple Siberian units appear north of Moscow, but I may keep them in reserve too. In "Guadalcanal," I make my Japanese set up more or less historically, even though it might be better to aim more toward India; and conversely I make my USA set up in the South Pacific, even though the Americans could hide in Honolulu until they're stronger.
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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Grotius »

November/December, 1941: It's snowing in Russia. The German push toward Moscow grinds to a halt, and the Russians trudge forward in the snow. Aircraft are grounded, for the most part. Supply is a problem.

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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Grotius »

Still, the Germans make progress in the south. The armored breakthrough threatens Kiev, so the Russians shorten their line and pull back. Again, this should have happened in the summer, not November. My bad!

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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Grotius »

But the weather worsens. There's a mix of snow and blizzard in the south, slowing the German advance. Look at all those ominous yellow dots in the German rear: as Runstedt slogs forward in the snow, he leaves his air force out of supply behind him.

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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Grotius »

By Impulse 7, it's full-on blizzard conditions in most of Russia. Around Moscow, the Russians inch forward, regaining some lost ground.

More to come tomorrow. :)

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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Canoerebel »

Here be Grotius
Flaming the world entirely
Playing AE?  Nope.
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RE: Plans in Flames: A Barbarossa AAR.

Post by Grotius »

Flaming the red bear
Takes a few hours and some fuel;
A. E. takes all time.
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