Fall ’39 – Axis Turn

            The Axis move first and begin with a free Offensive Option on the East Front. I take an Attrition Option in the West Front and Italy takes a Pass Option and sits tight.  The US-Axis Tension table goes up from 0 to 3 (+1 for every game turn, +1 for Germans moving first, and +1 for each offensive option by an Axis major power).

            I send 3 German air factors to counterair the Polish air force and destroy them for the loss of 1 air factor. Then I have an infantry and an armor unit supported by 5 air factors attack the Polish 2-3 infantry south of Warsaw across the San River. The odds are 12 to 6 or 2:1 and the roll is a 5, which on the AWAW CRT is an “d” result, meaning the defender loses half their factors (not accounting for Defensive Modifiers “DM”), so the Poles would lose 1 factor, but since they are a single unit, they are destroyed. I take the hex and then place a Breakthrough counter on it and place the other three armor units in the hex to attack Warsaw during the Exploitation Phase. The three 4-6 tanks units, supported by 12 factors of aircraft will attack the two 2-3 Poles at 24:8 or 3:1 (note that normally infantry aren’t double against exploiting armor, but they are in their capital, so they get the DM normally). The die roll is another 5, which is a “D” result, eliminating all the defenders. That ends the Polish campaign.

The Polish Campaign

            On the West Front, I scoot one of the 3-3 infantry down a couple of hexes to make sure they are all touching French units across the Rhine. That gives me 12 factors, so I roll on the 11-20 column of the Attrition Table with a +1 from the difference in Combat Training Levels (CTL) [in AWAW Germany starts with a CTL of 2 and everyone else starts with a CTL of 1, so I will use that and probably raise them throughout the war, starting in Spring ’42 and then again in Spring ’44, since I’m not using Research rules]. The attrition result is a 1 modified to a 2 for a result of 1C, and the French lose a Replacement unit from Lorient.

            The Italians don’t really have anything to do, so they just remain in place.

            Time to purchase units. Germany spends her maximum 75 BRP’s on (5) 4-6 armor, (8) Replacements, (1) 3-3 infantry, (1) 3-3 paratrooper, and (1) 5-4 air wing.

            Italy buys all the ground units she has available for 18 BRP’s, (6) Replacements, (4) 2-3 infantry, and (1) 2-5 armor.

            I deploy the Germans mostly on the West Front to get ready for the fight with France. Italy deploys the Replacement units on all her beaches and in Rome with the armor and two of the infantry getting shipped down to Libya to beef up the frontier with Egypt.

Next up, the Allies!

Setup and preparing to play

            I have decided to play the campaign game because why not jump right into the deep end? Besides, the campaign game gives you chance to see the ebb and flow of the war in its entirety, which I think makes for a more compelling narrative.

            I’ve decided to play with 5 variants for each side. I will have to just pretend that I don’t know what the Allied variants are, since I can’t think of a way to do it secretly.

Axis Variants

12 – Italians locate flaws in British harbor defenses in Med. Make a single attack on a  fleet using the 28-30 column.

13 – Gain a +2 for this year only for diplomatic rolls for Iraq, Persia & Egypt.

18 – Free Russians from varied occupation policies, allows building Free Russian troops on the East Front.

19 – East Front Winter rolls are at -2 from better winter preparations.

20 – Germany gets +5 added to her BRPs & Base each turn during ’42.

Allied Variants

3 – Better French pre-war prep, all Infantry & Replacement units are available At Start and add (4) 2-3 to Allowable Builds.

6 – Successful 5 Year Plan, Russia Gets BRP base in ’40

7 – Full Anglo-French cooperation, diplomatic die roll -1 when France falls

20 – Add an American 9 factor fleet for free in Spring ’43

27 – Nazi atrocities made public US – Axis Tension +3 Spring ’41

            This gives an interesting range of possibilities for me. Being able to build Free Russian troops (1 factor for every 10 Russian factors destroyed since the last build phase) could be very handy once war with Russia occurs. The free surprise attack allowed by the Italians on the Royal Navy could be very handy when festivities start in Med, as could the bonuses given to diplomatic rolls for Iraq, Persia & Egypt.

            The two French variants could really be a pain. They get to deploy all their Allowable Build infantry and replacement units at start, and then get 4 extra 2-3 infantry in Allowable Builds, and the English can stack with them and provide Defensive Air Support for French units. Boo
            The other variants seem like they will not be earth shaking. having an extra American fleet will probably suck for me, however.

Diplomatic Stuff

At the start of the game all the countries get there basic allotment of Diplomatic Points (DP), as follows:

Germany: 3
Italy: 2
Britain: 3
France: 2
Russia: 2
USA: 3 (but she can’t use any until the US – Axis Tension table rises to a certain level)

For 1939 I allocated the DP’s as follows:

            Germany: 2 in Belgium, 1 in Egypt
            Italy: 1 in Belgium, 1 in Egypt

            I figure that I can cause some mischief for Britain if I can get a couple of Wafdist partisans to pop up in Egypt, and I thought I’d see if intimidating Belgium/Luxembourg might be useful. I opted against putting any DP into Poland because having them as a minor ally doesn’t seem that useful, it’s also a long shot with the small amount of DP available.

For the Allies I rolled randomly and then chose whatever country seemed most useful/realistic that was near the random result (if the actual rolled results was impractical, etc).

So the Allied allocation is as follows:
            Britain: 2 in Poland (oops, maybe I should have put some there!), 1 in Greece
            France: 1 in Iraq, 1 in Ireland
            Russia: 1 in Yugoslavia, 1 in Turkey

            I know some of these choices seem useless for the Allies (Iraq, Ireland), but that is part of what makes this interesting (for me at least, hopefully any readers as well).

            Ok, so the results of the pre-game diplomacy rolls are as follows.

I chose to roll for Egypt (mainly because I am not in a position to take advantage of a good result in Belgium) and get a 2 modified to a 4 for “No Effect”, I guess that the Wafdists are holding out to see how things develop.

For the Western Allies I roll for Ireland and get a 1 modified to a 0 which results in Ireland being tranquil for the rest of the war. No chance for bonuses for my U-boats later on… poop. Finally, Russia rolls for Turkey and gets a 4 modified to 3 for no effect, clearly the Turks are unimpressed.

Next up: Fall ’39 turn

At Start: Fall ’39

Advanced Third Reich solo Campaign Game

            I have recently been revisiting Avalon Hill’s Advanced Third Reich (A3R) after 25 odd years, and thought I would document a solo game. I have started it about 4 times prior to this as I relearned the rules with an older brain that evidently doesn’t absorb game rules as well as it did in my 30’s.

            One of the issues even going into playing it again was the difficulty (for me) of playing solitaire. I didn’t want to deprive myself of the joy of the unexpected. There are so many things going on in the game and decisions to make, that I didn’t want it to turn into a tic-tac-to sort of “set up attack – set up perfect defense against it” that a straight playing would (probably) provide. So I decided on the unconventional decision to try and use a tarot deck to guide the strategy of the opponent side on a turn by turn basis. I have used a tarot deck previously as an aid for role playing game plot creation and NPC  goals.

            I decided to play the Axis since they set the tone/pace for the early part of the game. So am playing them to the best of my ability and drawing a card for England, France, Russia and when they get into the war, the USA. I don’t know how to read tarot cards so I rely on a wonderful book (again,  I only use it for a creativity starter for RPG’s) called 1-2-3 Tarot: Answers in an Instant by Donald Tyson. Using this method allows me to not know what the Allies are going to do during a given turn, which makes the game turn into an entertaining narrative. I am using a couple of things from Empire of the Rising Sun, the extra variants and the rules providing the extra Diplomatic Points (DP’s) each year with no cost (one extra DP per full 100 BRP the country starts the year with). I am using the VASSAL map for playing Third Reich on the A World at War (GMT’s monster version of Third Reich) map. And finally I am using the Combat Results Table and the Attrition Table from A World at War (AWAW) which are different from straight A3R, the CRT being very different. That decision also led me to borrow the idea of Combat Training Levels (CTR) from AWAW, which modify attrition results and allow follow up attacks if the first doesn’t succeed (I will elaborate as this goes forward). What I am not using are the research rules, which look cool, but look like they will add a ton of paperwork to my game… maybe at a later date I’ll try them out.