Centennial PoG. Turn 5

After the fall of Belgrade and Warsaw, the main objective of this turn for the CP was to clean the rest of Serbians troops and completely control the Balkans. For this, they achieved to bring Bulgaria into war, releasing some Austrian armies that were fundamental to defend the Alps.

Bulgaria enters the war.

The last day of Serbian troops.

And, in fact, Italy was the center of this turn as Italians launched an offensive against the Austrian defensive positions and were menacing to penetrate into the plains of Hungary.

Italianas have achieved to take Villach, routing the Austrian Corps and were besieging Trieste. An Austrian Army from the Balkans was quickly relocated at Zagreb to stop the Allied. On the other side of the Alps, French attempted to assault Trent but failed.
GE 7th Army abandoned Strasbourg and began to move towards Innsbruck and Villach to help Central Powers in this critical situation.

The German Army forced the Italians to retreat to safer positions. Their last try on taken Trent alsoresulted in big losses for the Italians and an halt to their offensive intentions.
VP=12, WS, CP=6, AP=7

Centennial PoG. Turn 4

The arrival of fresh units in Winter 15 allowed the Austrians to continue their attack on Belgrade. This time, Serbian efforts were not enough and their capital had fallen to the Central Power. At the same time, German Armies continued their invasion in Poland, defeating the garrison at Ivangorod fortress and penetrating into Lublin.
Trying to release some pressure from other fronts, Allied begin a series of operations in North Italy to menace the weak corps guarding the fortress at the Alps.

CP answered by bringing more corps into the mountains.

In Belgium, a strong British force (1st Army and BEF) opposed the weak northern flank of German front line.

After playing Landwher, German were safe at the West and they launched a new offensive against Russia.

But, fortunately there was enough Russian reserves to fill the hole.
In overall a good turn for CPs. They conquered Belgrade and destroyed Serbian Armies that can not be rebuild. In Russia, they have made good advances. Only in Italy has the Allied some place for counterattack.
VP=10, WS, AP=7, CP=4

Centennial PoG. Turn 3

 

After the successful attacks in France during the first months of the war, Central Powers shifted their attention to the Balkans problem. Bringing more Austrian Armies into play, they launched an attack on Belgrade that it was rejected by serbians.

Then, there was a series of maneuvers in France to better place the troops. German was making some retreat to avoid combat with French while gaining terrain in Poland. Latter on the turn, Allied decided to bring Italy into war. This immediately provoked an urgent strategic redeployment by Central Powers:

 

Turn finished with some small attacks by Allied player to obey his Mandatory offensive (French). This is the map at the End of Turn 3:

VP: +11. WS: AP=7, CP=3.

Centennial PoG. Turn 2

 

September 1914 saw more bloody combats in the Western Front. Both sides put more Armies into the Battlefield (Br, Fr and Ge reinforcements cards were played this turn).

German continued the offensive against Verdun fortress and, with a overwhelming victory (again 7 steps), forced the French to retire to Bar-le-Duc. Then German besieged Verdun and the rest of GE Armies were attacking French at Bar-le-Duc and the strong positions at Nancy.

GE attack on Verdun

GE hit Bar-le-Duc and Nancy

French achieved to repel the attack on Nancy (4-7) causing heavy casualties but were routed from Bar-le-Duc  and there was a real critical situation with Central Powers menacing to cut-off the French troops at Nancy and Belfort.

More French Corps were called from the Reserve to fill the gap. Then German offensive went for a rest to replace some of the exhausted soldiers.

Western Front at the End od Turn 2

In just two months of combats, French has already lost 4 Armies of their initial setup. British Reinforcements should arrive ASAP or the entire front will collapse.

In the East there was no much activity this turn. Just a few combats around AH border at Ivangorod were the rest of Russians Corps were routed. This is the situation:

 

This time, Allied did not fulfill their MO (British) and lost 1 VP.

End of turn 2: VP: +10. WS, AP=5, CP=2. Thus, next turn, Allied will move to Limited War.

Centennial Paths of Glory. Turn 1

Our standard Fall PoG game had begun last October 2nd.  As many other wargamers we will celebrate the Centennial of WWI by playing PoG. We decided to not go for the historical setup but a standard one. Molina will lead the CPs and me will command APs.
Turn 1: August 1914
MO: AH and BR.

CPs had opened with a standard movement. Playing Guns of August for a devastating attack on Sedan, succesfully flanking the French Armies with no GE losses and 7 steps for the poor French. GE 1st and 3rd Army entered Sedan when FRc retreated to Melun.

Then action was shifted to the East with Russian and Austrian trying flankings attacks on Tarnopol and Belgrade respectively. Both attacks failed and were big defeats for the attacking players. Russian offensive in Galicia was stopped at the very first attempt and AH must deal with the menacing serbs.
Then followed a few Action Rounds with CP player replacing their forces in Austro-Serbian border while AP was  playing for events to advance in his WS (now at 4, Rape of Belgium and Blockade) towards  limited War.
CP continued to hit in the Western Front by attacking the fortress at Verdun and causing big casualties while the combined BEF and Belgium forces counterattacked at the german flanks in Liege.
Russians tried to put some pressure into AH ranks but with little success.
AP missed a big opportunity at the end of August when CPs played for Replacements and Allied did not have enough OPs to penetrate directly into the German supply sources.

After the Brit attack Germans have a hole in their lines that goes directly into Essen (supply source).  AP can not penetrate because having only 2CP cards they can not activate Brussels (2ops) and Lomza (1op) in the last action to put the whole CP army into OOS (and ending the war in August).

End of turn: VP=9, WS: AP=4, CP=2.

Coming back to blogging …

Last  season (as happy dads we measure our running year by summer holidays so september marks the beginning of our gaming season) I was very busy to update our blog (including a laptop death in November-December).
But not enough to stop playing.  Thus, I had some very good Vassal plays: Paths of Glory, Normandy’44, Twilight Struggle and a long, long game of Here I Stand. Also Alberto was enough patient to teach me ASL and his favourite game For the People.
In the folowing posts I will try to recover some of the old pics of our Vassal games as well as some of the face-to-face sessions from last year.
We begun last season, as usual, with a now classical Fall Paths of Glory match. Unfortunately I did not keep a good record of our blasting PoG game (files were in the now reformatted laptop). It was a really funny match with Central Powers (me) surrounding half of the French Army but being surrounded in Austria and in the Middle East.
At some point it seems that CP could achieve enough VPs for winning but Allied Player (evil Alberto Molina) counterattacked in Pomerania and put a Russian Corps next to Berlin !!!
Finally the last two game turns were critical and AP won after succesfully defending Italy and Paris.
This is the only pic I had in my computer, It corresponds to Fall 1917 when German Armies are ready to envelope Frenchs:

But at the same time, Turks are suffering in Middle East:

And Russians have destroyed AH Armies at Przemsyl envelopping those at Lemberg:

Some day i will find the USB key where i had all the logs of this incredible match. Then I will show you how big mistakes are made .