Manstein Strikes Back

Tags

• duel-on-the-steppe
• manstein
• magazine
• strategy-and-tactics
• zoc
• zoc-chess

After rotating a number of games on and off the table without even setting them up, I finally got a bug to do Scenario 2 in Duel on the Steppe. I had a pretty good time playing Scenario 1, and I'd like to eventually play Scenario 3, which is scenarios 1 and 2 played back to back. So it's a good time to work through Scenario 2.

Also, I'm on PTO from work, so I have some time, even though I seem to feel super tired at the moment.

Setting up

The setup, as usual for simulation-type games, take a while. Need to find the current units, then emplace the correctly on the map. It's smart to lay out all the reinforcements as well.

Once it's set up, this scenario looks pretty grim for the Germans. Hard to see how they are going to acheive many victory points, given that they're already behind, and have to get far, far ahead.

Highlights

These are some brief notes, don't have time or inclination to do a blow-by-blow this evening.

Turn 5

Weather: Clear/Normal

Looks very, very grim for the Germans, as nearly all of the Russian units activated before any of the German units. Not that motivated to write up many details this turn.

Turn 6

Weather: Rain/Mud, except I didn't pay any attention at all to the weather. I moved everything its full movement allowance, and flew sorties. Blunder.

The Germans got lucky twice this turn, by having most of their units activated before the Russians got going. Almost turning into IGOUGO.

This was the first piece of luck.

The second piece of luck was some lady in a humoguous RV tried to turn around in the cul-de-sac and crunched a neighbor's car. I raced out there to move my car before it got crunched. When I got back in, I forgot to have 40th Army continue to encircle Cr/Rs, and pulled the Cr/Rs activation next, allowing an expitious escape for the Germans.

Nice reinforcements coming in for Cr/Rs, lucky it's still in business.

I'm starting to use artillery more, and close air support in offense. Haven't tried it in defense yet.

This game could use some player aids very badly.

And that's it for the evening, will pick up again tomorrow morning.

Turn 7

Good morning! Time to return to Duel on the Steppe.

Weather: Clear/Mud.

This time I limited movement to half movement points per the rules.

First: Blunder, got through 7 of 12 activations forgetting about the reinforcements!

Here's a breakdown of the activation sequence:

1. 3d TA: Drive SW to attempt to cut off SS supply.
2. 3d Pz: Encircle Russians near Lisichansk.
3. SS: Drive east to push Russian line back.
4. 69th A: Advance west to entrap Cr/Rs.
5. 40th A: Advance NW to push Cr/Rs into 69th Army.
6. 40 Pz: Move in on Russian infantry at Karnyi Limon.
7. AGP: Advance SW to engage 3d Pz, engagement details below.
8. 48th Pz: Secure Lisichansk.
9. OKH: Nothing.
10. 52: Nothing.
11. 6th A: Retreat NW away from advancing SS.

I may have missed an activation in the list above, but all units either moved or fought or both.

AGP engages 3d Pz

First battle:

Roll 7, defender retreats 2.

Second battle:

Defending terrain: across minor river, 1L to 2:3.

Air bids:

Roll 2d6, German 12 (!), Russian 7, eliminate 1 air unit, net air -1 DRM.

AGP provides +2 artillery, net DRM +1

Roll 1d6, 7 + 1, 1/R2, which is a defender elimination on ZOC. Big bummer for Germans.

That's an alarming looking stack on 3625, consisting of the two German units, and all the air and artillery brought to bear on the battle.

According to Section 8.0 of the rules, there is no ZOC negation except for tracing supply lines.

In this situation, that means the German units cannot escape north via 7 Pz. Hence, by the rules, lacking a EZOC-free route to retreat, this unit is eliminated.

Note: Stalwart defense wasn't used here, but probably wouldn't have made a difference given the R2 result.

Turn 8

Weather: Clear/Normal

This turn saw several battles taking out a fair number of units. The Germans employed the "backhand blow," without much effect really. They weren't positioned correctly to exploit it.

Final score: Russians 22, Germans 24.

Victory conditions prescribe a German win with 14 more VPs than earned by the Russians, so this is a Russian win.

AAR

Last night, I wanted to throw this game into the garbage because it felt hopelessly unbalanced towards the Russians.

This morning (August 27), I feel much better, and even though the Germans are going to lose it very badly, I can almost visualize how they could win it. Almost. Enough to inspire me to take on the full campaign.

As in the first game I played (Scenario 1, Turns 1-4), the dual activation didn't come into play. There never seems to be any units which are not within range of the relevant HQ which don't have a role to play as soon as they can be activated.

Lessons learned

The key to killing units in this game is the ZOC elimination on retreat. While other games enforce a step loss, or allow a retreat through a "negated" ZOC, this game only allows negated ZOCs for tracing supply lines. Hence, a low odds attack with a defender retreat can knock out a very strong unit, as in GrossDeutschland strong. The Russians were able to do this several times to the Germans, which makes sense due to the sheer numbers of Russians. The Germans were unable to position themselves to exploit ZOC elimination very often.

Another key thing for the Germans is to not get sucked up into fighting when it's better to move into defensive terrain. Unfortunately, the Russians win by doing nothing, so the Germans must find a way to fight without losing too many units.

The "backhand blow" probably has to be planned for the whole game, so that it can be employed effectively. This would mean a lot of positioning for the Germans to get the Russians in a place where it's worth using it. In this game, only 2-3 battles in Turn 8 benefitted.

Impression of the game

This game desperately needs a couple more player aids. I think I'll make some up in advance before taking on the whole 8 turn scenario. In particular:

1. OOB worksheet
2. Reinforcement schedule for each side, for the whole 8 turns, which can double as a dead pool as the game progresses.
3. Control markers for cities. Not strictly necessary, but I just like that sort of thing.
4. More supply markers.
5. Air support staging worksheet. These sorts of things are often on the map, and I believe there could have been room on this map.
6. Combat resolution worksheet which could be photocopied.

None of the above are strictly necessary, but they would make the game easier to play.

Blunders

1. Forgot to halve movement for Turn 6 mud.
2. Used air in Turn 6 when weather was rain.
3. Forgot to bring in reinforcements at the beginning of Turn 7.

Tags

• duel-on-the-steppe
• manstein
• magazine
• strategy-and-tactics
• zoc
• zoc-chess