C&R, v2, T1-2

 

We have decide to get a second match of Crusade & Revolution in a row but this time with shifted sides.

I will try to report every two turns or so, as our play by vassal+ACTS is much faster than my writing.

During Turn 1, National was making a standard opening, by attacking Extremadura. The, after losing an African step in a 3-0 combat, I shifted my attention to Andalucia. Again, rolls were not very favorable for National and many attacks ended in a 1/1 result, including a 6-1 odds combat (reduced to 5-1 by the mountain) at Antequera. As a result, National did not perform many advances during first turn. Meanwhile, Republican played mainly for Strategic Redeployment and events (+1MR and Bilbao Trench).

During turn 2, National concentrated into attacking Badajoz to join their lines and assaulting Malaga. First objective was achieved but the attack on Malaga was rejected. However, National managed to take Loja and now his fellows at Granada are not longer isolated.

Republican was establishing a series of defensive positions at Talavera, Don Benito, around Madrid and Gijon.

Events played: Franco takes Command, End of Strait Blocking and Soviet Military Aid for the Republican.

Crusade and Revolution, Turn 9

 

National side is ready to continue his assault in the North. He has rebuilt his corps and sent them to surround Santander.

First attack on Santander destroyed all the Divisional units and let the Republican Corps reduced.

It is being too costly for the National in terms of operation points to finish Santander. The presence of the trench allows to avoid retreat by expending one more step and Republican is using this to slow down the National offensive. Furthermore he was able to redeploy another divisional unit there, allowing them to resist one more action

In the fourth AR of this turn, after three attacks, National finally destroyed all the opposition and retook Santander.

Meanwhile, with all National effort concentrated in the North, Republican was slowly building a great superiority around Aragon. He was playing for more Reinforcements (Madrid and Barcelona) and for Replacements. National answered by trenching Zaragoza.

Then, after the fall of Santander, Republican began to maneuver around Madrid and Zaragoza. His goal was to get some advantage of his local superiority before the National corps deployed at the North could arrive.

Zaragoza: Here National has three Corps: Zaragoza, Leciñena and Monreal to oppose the Republican Corps at Teruel, Caspe, Candanos, two at Sariñena and two more waiting behind at Lerida. Although in general National Corps are of better quality, 3 to 7 seems a poor ratio to maintain the front.

Around Madrid National has 6 Corps (including the one at Soria) but two of them are reduced while Republican has 5 Corps, three of them guarding the mountains, other one at Illescas and a last one deployed at Guadalupe, facing only divisional units and menacing to cut National forces in two. Furthermore, two T-26 brigades are in this area, increasing the firepower of Republican units

To counter this menace, National destroyed the Division at Talavera and place his Italian Corps there, only to be attacked from three sides by the available Republican units. At the same time, Corps in Guadalupe attacked African unit at Trujillo.

The results were dramatic for National. 2/0 at Trujillo and 6/3 at Talavera, destroying African and Italian Corps. However Republican refused to advance:

When National claimed for Replacements in his last Action Round, Republican saw the opportunity to cut National in two (+1MR) and did not hesitate to capture Caceres (+1MR)

Furthermore Huesca has been taken by an attack from Sariñena, bringing +1MR to Republican side.

Republican has atachieved MR=+24

at the end of Turn 9

So, exactly the needed MR level to get an Republican Automatic Victory.

Crusade and Revolution, Turn 8

 

Turn 8 begins with National in difficult position at the Northern Front. After Replacements, Republican has a clear 3 to 1  corps advantage. Furthermore, units at Gijon are well protected by trenchs.

To slow down the republican counterattack, National played for an event in his first Action Round: Comunist interferences. This event forces the republican to spend one operation point to activate each unit for combat.

Republican did not go for the counterattack and, instead, played quite movements to place positions at Santander and Sariñena.

Both players went for Reinforcements: Zaragoza and Coruña for National and Cartagena and Barcelona for Republican.

Then, after relocating his reinforcements and the units surrounding Gijon, National played twice for replacements and another event, Italian submarines to reduce Republican replacements.

This gave enough time to republican for placing a trench at Santander and relocating his own units menacing to retake Granada. Last event gave +1MR nad now it is at 22.

Aragon Front:

Andalucia:

Madrid:

North:

Crusade and Revolution, Turn 7

 

The first three action rounds in Turn 7 were devoted to positional and strategic movements by both players.

National was relocating his units to finish with Northern Front while reinforcing the holes created last turn by Republican at Castilla and Aragon. Republican as using the given time to prepare positions and build trenches at Gijon and Teruel.

Then, National played Iron Belt Plans to remove the trench at Bilbao. At this moment, with his forces surrounded at Bilbao, Republican worked a plan to attack through Santoña:

National, neglecting the movement, went for an full attack against Gijon and Bilbao but both of them failed (4/5 and 4/4). Losses were heavy for both sides but Republican maintained Bilbao alive for one more critical Action Round. This allowed him to retake Santander with his Pol unit:

Bilbao could not longer resist and finally it was taken by National. However, at Gijon a new attack failed again as the Republican played “Guadalajara is not Abisinia”, strongly reducing the National odds and resulting in 3/4 result.

A last effort by National to capture Santander was unsuscessful. Republican devoted his last two Action Rounds to play for Replacements and Reinforcements (two more Corps at Barcelona).

Republican is increasing his superiority at Aragon:

Retaken Santander and playing for Replacements allowed Republican to offer again an stiff resistance in the North for the next turn. The time gained at the defence of Bilbao and Gijon, forcing National to expend cards for attacking and operations may be critical.

After replacements, National may have some problems in the North:

 

Crusade and Revolution, Turn 6

 

With the arrival of the Corps units, National launched a massive attacks on the North Front. He was repeatedly attacking Republican positions during the first three action rounds. Republican tried to keep terrain as much as possible by sacrificing steps at the mountains to avoid retreat.

However, after the fall  Pto del Escudo Santander was an easy target and after Pto Pajares, Republican was confined into Gijon:

Meanwhile, more Corps were arriving to the war, Republicans deploying them at Valencia, Barcelona and Madrid while National sent them to Valladolid and Zaragoza.

Republicans used their numerical superiority to take Teruel:

Small republican counterattacks also eliminated the National units at Aranda:

Crusade and Revolution, Turn 5

 

We are now in the First Winter turn. In C&R, a Winter turn implies that your offensive is limited as only three cards can be played for operations (1 ops does not count against this limit) and you get –1DRM in mountain spaces. Also after National playing Famine, republican loses –1MR each winter. In the case of Severe winter (Republican event), –2MR applies and operations are limited to two cards.

During this turn, Republican tried several times to move National units from Talavera. First, he launched an attack with the strength of the two T-26 units, but national could stand thanks to the play of two Combat Cards (-2 DRM).

Unfortunately for the nationalist side, he had no success into obtaining a position and finally at the end of the turn, republican retook Talavera:

On the other hand, National attacks were concentrated into taking Puertollano and Jaen. Although both assaults were successful, Republican sacrificed a further step to keep the control on the key mountains and reinforce his position by strategic redeployment:

The only important event played during this turn was Severe Winter that will apply next Winter.

With this turn it ends the War of the Columns. Now, cards from the Mobilization Phase will be added to the deck but, before, Corps units must be alternatively placed on the map. To speed up things we meet at the club and place our units using a laptop. This is the final result:

Situation is MR=22, VP=9

Crusade and Revolution

 

After a few months without online games we are now ready to start a new fight over a digital board.

This time, strongly biased by Alberto (Mol) opinion I (Alberto P) have accepted to try Crusade and Revolution.

This game, published by Compass Games, has been designed by David Gomez Relloso and it translates the gameplay and mechanics of the famous Paths of Glory to the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War.

A.M. tried the game a few times, both by using Vassal+ACTS or in our gameclub. For me it will be the first play.

Map is beautiful as well as it has clear and nice cards and counters.

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.

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 .

TURN 8 summer 1863 "For the people"

This time I will begin in all the interphase stuff.

Three  actions must be completed by each player all interphases.

A) Bringing reinforcement into action. North soldiers are easier to bring. 8sp (40.000 men) in the east for example Washington D.C., 6sp (30.000) at the center f.ex. Cincinnatti (Oh); and 4sp (20.000) in the west f.ex St Louis (Mo) or Cairo (Il). But the question is that if south raided any state capital last turn or WDC hasn´t railroad connexion with the north you are loosing troops continuously. For the south is even more difficult, they receive 9sp every turn, but this number is reduced by 5000 men (1sp) every state north had conquered form the original 11 confederate states. After that south must roll a d.r. for every bklockade zone i has open, if the number rolled is higher than than the actual blockade level the sp arrives, otherwise there is a sw penalty.

B) Strategic movement, norht may move until 15 sp by train, south just 7. If this sp are going to be received by an Army, movement are not only restricted to RR.

C) Placement of new leaders scheduled to arrive this turn. They come randomly, you put them in the spaces and then flip them to see where they are.

Action begins!!  turn 8 is the tourning point of this game. South begins first as he plays a "campaign card", so Lee's AoW may attack an OOS WDC, so south puts a flag in north capital achieving a severe punishment   in sw (-30). Second activation is used to bring reinforcement to AoW. Remember south had only 7 points to move by RR every interphase, it means that very often confederate player must organize corps from north Carolina to bring troops the front.

AoP and Grafton corp are strong but they will arrive WDC late as south played a campaign, Washington FALLS!!

First action for north is to form AoC again (...new and improved AoC!!), there's no reason to hurry now afer Halleck surrender's at WDC.  Then AoW smashes against Hooker corp at Starsburg (Va) achieving another overwhelming  victory, almost destroying Hooker corp and making them retreat to Franklin. After the battle AoW secures Strasburg loyalty and comes back to WDC. Grant reacts and goes to Fraklin to absorb the rest of Hooker's corp and to threaten AoW form the south.

Confederate then places another ironclad at Paducah to try to open another way into northern territory (in the west this time). Time for Grant to move again and try to reach Hanover, but it was intercepted by AoNV and in an even battle +5 for blues +7 for greys, another grey victory is achieved. Not an awfull move, as if AoNV failed interception or Grant had won the battle, with  AoC in Hanover would had left both enemy armies (AoW at WDC and AoNV at Fredericksburg) OOS, and northern AoC itself could reach easily supply in any of the near ports.

Then A.P Hill was detached as a corp from AoNV and then attacks AoC at Gordonsville, Grant had to hit 1-5 to get supplies back, but fails with a "6" so APHill atacks AoC with a strong +3 drm, anyway AoC is too hard for Mr Hill but a 2/3 is achieved. Then AoP moves to rescue threaten AoC (with just 1000men) and relieves them with 20000 new recruits, reducing AoP to 6sp (30000 men), but now AoC is save (for the time being)  with 6sp (30000 men too). Then grey AoW goes to hit AoP (it had a lower defence +5, for +7 AoC) and gets another 3/1 victory (three in a row!!,... not a turn for good rolling for the north this time). After all this battles all arond Strasburg AoC turns to reinforce again waiting  for another enemy offensive. Then after two card activations with all four armies back and forth around Strasburg and Culppeper, last activation allowed McClellan's AoP to retake W.D.C. but as it is a capital (even in enemy's hand) battle is a complete failure.

Blockade level=3 

Turn casualties                 USA         CSA

battle                                115.000       60.000              ***terrible difference this time!!!****

Attrition                                 -               5000

All war casualties                    USA           CSA

   (including attrition)                  430000        290000

An especially bloody turn, board has changed dramatically in just two turns.  A serie of bad die rolls, confederate skill, and a number of bad decisions of union staff commander, brings the north to a critical situation.

WWII: BtB, Turn 15, Fall 44

No Orders from the Fuhrer this turn while Stalin has asked his generals to continue with the offensive .
With the time running out and the Allies more and more stronger, Axis begun the turn playing an event for getting one more Victory point.

Following the orders of Stalin, Russian generals launched an attack in the Ukrainian Front. Six Mechanized Fronts moved into combat against German positions at Cherkassi and Kirovograd. But, well prepared the experienced German Armies repelled the frontal assault and inflicted heavy losses at Russians (9 steps). Immediately, German activated more reserves to the area and reinforced Cherkassi with Armies from Konotop.

Soviets rapidly understood the weak position at Konotop and shifted their offensive there, hitting with the new version of his main tank T-34 (+1 drm). But Germans had a surprise in his hand and played Panzerfaust that forced Russians to take a step loss, reducing the force of the attack. Again the German resistance was stiff but they could not stop the Soviet advance and retreated to Chernigov. German was obliged to bring more units to fill the gap at Chernigov, this time with a combination of German and Romanian Armies and exhausting all his strategic reserve.

	At this point, Allied attention shifted completely to the Western Front and the combined force of British and American Armies attacked the West Wall Trench at Saar that was defended by German Armies.   Allied won the battle but German resisted at the fort by losing one extra step.
Axis redeployed his units at the Western Front to better defend the Rhin but they make a fatal mistake by placing two weak corps to defend Holland. Allied did not miss the opportunity and attacked Holland with the British units from Antwerp and the reinforcement of the British 2nd Army brought from Belfort. Germans were crushed and Holland was liberated. Situation is critical for the Axis that looked for replacements.
	The Allied Mechanized units rapidly penetrated into the hole and the British 1st Army reached Hamburg and menaces Berlin. In the meantime American 3rd Army, leaded by Patton attacked the fort at Ruhr. First attack was successful but German was able to maintain the position. But Patton allows the 3rd Army to make another attack and they hit Ruhr again. And the heroic defense made by the Germans allowed them to survive at the fort with just  1 step left.

But in the last action of the turn, Germans surrendered after American First Army entered Berlin.
This is the final map

Step losses this turn:
Ge: 34 steps, It: 3 steps.
Ru: 17 steps, Br: 6 steps.
Losses really reflects the heavy combats in this last turn.
A great game played Alberto Molina (Axis) and Alberto Pomar (Allied) from March 9th, 2013 to May 27th, 2013.

WWII:BtB, Turn 14, Summer 44

 

More and more voices are claiming in Russia for a total offensive and Stavka gave orders at the beginning of the summer 44 to attack.

German begun cautiously, by reinforcing his Force Pool with Mechanized Corps and preparing replacements.

In turn, Soviet Commanders brought into the battlefield several Shock and Mechanized Armies from the reserve and initiated the expected offensive in the first week of summer.

First, to give more moral to his population, Stalin attack the trenched German positions at Kaluga, in front of Moscow and Tula, to relief the pressure onto his capital.		At the same time, Mechanized Fronts attacked from the flanks the German Armies at Ukraine to cross the Dnieper river.
The attack was completely successful and the Germans were defeated and routed from his trenches with heavy losses.		In Dnepropetrovsk, Soviet destroyed the weak Italian Army and advanced into the city. A great attack was also seen in Nikopol with German retreating towards Kirovograd. Soviet is now firmly established beyond the river.

 

Hearing his officers, Hitler decided to abandon the exposed position and Orel and retreated his infantry units towards the forests. Russian did not miss the opportunity and have taken Orel (VP=6) while continuing the pursuit of the Germans in Ukraine. But, well trained, 1st Pz Army have resisted at Kirovograd.

German mobilized more of his units from the Army Group Center and the 3rd PZ Army joined the front at Kirovograd.  Axis minors defend Kremenchug while the valuable German Infantry Armies are forming a thin line between Cherkassi-Poltava- Konotop. But Soviet had another surprise in his hands and transformed the standard Infantry Fronts at Melitopol into fear Mechanized Fronts. Looking for any weakness in the Axis line, Soviets did not search a combat against the Pz Armies and instead moved to attack Kremenchug and Poltava. Germans were defeated in both spaces but Russian did not advance.

 

Axis played for more replacements while Russian was still pushing the attack to the very end. Relocating his forces he occupied Kremenchug with a strong force of three Mechanized Fronts and attacked Kirovograd with another three. Germans resisted and two of the Russian Mechanized Fronts were severely damaged. This halted Russian offensive for the summer and they have played for replacements.

 

In France  the only noticeable movement was an attack of the American forces against the trenches at Saar. Difficult to be a success, this was part of the attrition war that Allied are employing to force Axis to divide his replacements.

Map at the end of summer:

A very bloody turn. Losses were

German: 25 steps, IT: 6, Romanian: 4

Russian: 27 steps, US. 4 steps.

VP= +6 (Orel shifted to Allied).