There were several changes to the playtest kit between sessions:
- A bunch of Ostland stuff that we didn't care about.
- Towns with supplied ground units became airbases.
- Trans-Jordan was created, but we didn't have a map to work from to
incorporate it into our kit.
- A bunch of minor card-changes.
We basically got from the fall of France in summer '41 through the outbreak of Total War in Spring '43. Given that the Soviets had played Stalin Line and that by the fall of France the Soviets had burned all their useful "scare the Germans into coming after me" cards, I really had no reason to go after the Soviets in '42. In general, I think that spending forever in Pre-War as the Axis was a mistake; it gave the Soviets a free hand in their corner of the world; they got turkey as an ally and took out Bulgaria and Rumania (and would have gotten Hungary as well if they'd been cleverer about deployments).
However, it may be that the extra steps I picked up in pre-war are going to absolutely critical to assault the grotesquely stacked Stalin line (every hex but one from Riga to Minsk has at least six steps and a fort, with three HQs providing support).
What happened:
When we left off, I had taken Paris and London on the second turn of Yellow in '41. I'd used the two neutrality results from Yellow to activate a pro-Axis spain and remove a pro-allied marker from Italy. The Brits had 8 mobile steps on the map, two of which were cowering in Northern Ireland. The soviets had Bulgaria, Rumania, Turkey, and had set up the Stalin Line running from Riga to minsk, with additional fortresses guarding the approaches to leningrad on the old Soviet-Baltic border and the occasional fort in the south. VP's were about to flip-flop from Crusade 1 to Tide 1.
My Fall card was a treaty. I tried to treaty Italy, got a No Result. Second turn, got Pressures Neutrals and put a Pro-Axis neutrality marker on Finland. At the bottom of fall, I DoWed Portugal. The brits were busily moving forces to Gibraltar and Egypt. Somewhere in here, I complete the occupation of the british isles, break down North HQ, and start sailing forces away from Britain. (Allied Cards: WMA and Continuing Mobilization)
My winter card was also a Treaty. My first shot picked up Italy, mobilization roll of 6. I start shuffling troops to Tobruk as fast as possible; meanwhile, Portugal falls and I move into position against Gibraltar. The brits reveal Compass and invade Sardinia, taking out the one step I had garrisoning it (there were two considerations driving this, I believe: holding off US Impact Reduced and being able to get the conditional replacements off of Jupiter). Second turn of winter, I pick up Yugoslavia, and rush corps down along the roads to keep the Soviets from crushing it or blocking my access to Greece. I begin to grind away at a heavily-stacked Gibraltar using an Air unit over the hex and spanish troops to soak casualties. The soviets picks up their Caucasus HQ via the Turkish Frontier card, now that Turkey is safely Soviet.
In the Spring, I revealed Demand Courland. Since I already had courland thanks to the Stalin Line and the Soviet Baltic card, it was mostly a NOOP. Alex had gambled on my support unit delay rolls vis a vis Malta, and lost. It had only two steps in it, I had support unit superiority and some seven german steps in Sicily, so I burned through pretty much every support unit I and the brits had and took the island; I ended up leaving the brits the carrier fleet in exchange for getting the hex guaranteed, rather than letting the attack go off at 3-1 and risk not taking it. I also pounded on Gibraltar, but the assault on malta meant I didn't have the support units to prevent reinforcement. The Soviets Continuing Mobilized, and the West played a Coalition. I think it was this season that they got an ASR result and picked up an extra partisan base for use in Total War. My delay rolls from Malta were *terrible*.
My summer card was Treaty. My first roll got me greece, and I sent germans in to protect it, both at salonika and at crete. My second roll was against Hungary, and got a diplomatic incident, which rolled aggression; I took the Middle East table, and ended up with Persia; turning that into a Diplomatic Incident got me a border war against Iraq. My third roll just missed, or maybe ran through another diplomatic incident to no effect.
Meanwhile, an interesting drama played out in the desert. The WAllies played Jupiter and a whole mess of things happened. I'd had a large number of german steps building up in Libya ready to begin the Revolving Door Army of Doom plan that has since been outlawed -- build up an army, fight with it, and break it down in Conditional Events to avoid occupation. I was intending to use this as heavily as needed to deal with Malta, Gibraltar, and Libya... as it turned out, I hardly used it. As a result of this buildup, the brits saw an opportunity to kill german steps by overstack and went for it. It took some breakdowns and driving deep into Libya, but the brits managed to kill off several german steps. My response was to burn a few italians in soaking off the British HQ, organizing the remaining germans into armies, and smacking a lone british corps that'd been left out in the cold as part of the attack; I got a Dr3 0/1, knocking the corps back onto the HQ and killing two steps. The brits backed up a bit on their turn, IIRC. I then managed to use a luftflotte to cut supply for the british HQ and cleared the rest of the brits out of Libya and Western Egypt. The brits responded by invading Tobruk, using the Beachhead to provide supply to the cut-off HQ; the invasion was successful and put most of my forces in the area OOS. Meanwhile, the Brits are collecting their conditional replacements for Sardinia.
The soviets played Diplomacy, but it didn't have any terribly interesting effects (there've been a few Military Aid results along the line, pretty much all of which have gone to Turkey).
My Fall card was an ultimatum, and I used it as a diplomatic incident on Hungary that got me Free Passage. I used the push marker and the axis convoy to throw together an attack that cleared tobruk and cost a step off the WDF HQ (popping it). The Brits revealed their Settlement card; the soviets were set up to take out Finland if I activated it, and my choices at this point were {Finland, France, Sweden, Syria, Switzerland}. Since D-N was pretty safe as long as the brits don't have a port on the North Sea, I went with France. The brits lost three steps due to demobilization, and those all fell on 0-1-0's. Soviets played LWP.
Winter I played another Ultimatum for the steps, got a no-result off of the Diplomatic Incident (against Syria; I had hopes for a useful result allowing me to flank the Alamein line), and generally raced troops to the East as fast as I could. The brits played a WMA and the soviets played another LWP.
***
I'm poised to reveal Typhoon in the spring [Note: the image shows a truce marker on the Western Allied Minors box, which we later corrected; the Settlement cards only put truce markers on the relevant Major Power.], with the occasional german army in the balkans and southern poland, the vast bulk up north facing off against the massive Stalin Line. The turn record track has exactly one thing on it (for all factions): a 6-6-3 coming back in the mud.
I seem to have around 45 german steps in Eastern Poland. My force pool is extremely strained by the forces I've got scattered. I'm expecting I'll lose out on some of Barbarossa's replacement steps. For example, I have both panzer armies on the map, and I have only 4 panzers in my force pool. My infantry force pool is similarly limited; I *might* be able to prevent losing out on any of barbarossa's replacements by temporarily de-garrisoning britain to combine into armies and by taking the airborne in typhoon and hoping I get it back for barbarossa....
Facing off against my 45 German steps are 57 soviet steps. The soviets have a total of 81 steps on the map. The germans have about 34 steps between the balkans, africa, and garrisons. (Ouch, I hadn't realized it was that much... 9 in britain, 6 in africa, 7 in the balkans....)
The balance of the soviet forces are in the Balkans, in Rumania, Bulgaria, and Turkey.
After this session, we realized that Alex had never activated an Axis country with Jupiter, and he decided that Ireland would be the best choice, so that got activated in between sessions.
It was also between sessions that I realized that my deployment against the Soviets was way too inflexible... I should have been threatening Zhmerinka as well (which has since vanished from the map). I could have arranged for taking either Riga and Minsk or Minsk and Zhmerinka. It turns out that had I been threatening Zhmerinka, Alex would have abandoned it. That would have significantly improved my situation for Barbarossa, as we'll see in the upcoming sessions.
It was also clear in retrospect that when British Settlement was revealed, I should have immediately begun stripping germans out of North Africa and sending them to be useful against the Soviets rather than thinking of burning down the truce and clearing the Brits out of Egypt.
In our next session...
