Bloody March Turn 4

Sep 1 2014

Turn 4

Continuing from Bloody March Turn 3, we find that the Honduran CES has been sent packing, and the FDN forces are all huddled up in entrenched positions, half at Las Vegas, the remaining with the CIA helicopters at Silca.

The FSLN has decided this is most unsatisfactory, and will attempt to dislodge the CIA forces at Silca.

This will take more than one turn as 50-02 moves slowly north.

FSLN phases

Supply: In supply.
Regular Ground Unit Movement:
- 50-02: from 1909 to 1908
- Lopz: from 2208 to 2108
Insurgency Movement:
- PVP, Estr from 2208 to 2108
- MRH from 2208 to 2007
- Pom, Uman from 1909 to 2007
What FSLN is trying to do here is manage a 1:1 attack which is going to almost certainly cost an insurgency unit, but has a small (1/6) of reducing the defenders by one unit.
First Insurgency Disbandment: None.
Ground Combat: Actually, this is the game, as the defender is in a mountain jungle hex, with a ground combat helicopter of AF with column shift 1L, and insurgents in the defense. The net result is -2 DRM which will be defender retreat at best. There is no possibility of defender step reduction.

Since I could easily move all FSLN units pretty much out of easy reach of FDN, such that if the FDN went chasing one group of commies, the other would swoop in and take the position at Silca.

Final score: FDN 4, FSLN 1, Marginal Victory for FDN.

Final configuration at end of FSLN phase, Bloody March Turn
4 .

This is where I called the game. It might have been mildly interesting to see whether the FDN could have achieved better than Marginal Victory, but it's Labor Day, and I have stuff to do which is more interesting.

After Action Report

This was a long adventure for such a short game.

As it turns out, the historical result was a Decisive Victory for the FDN forces.

Had this game played out completely, that could have still been a possibility. On the other hand, the FSLN forces were in pretty good position to repulse attacks, and some bad die rolling could also reduce it to a Stalemate.

Some thoughts on the game

This first full play through has been quite a challenge. This is definitely the most complex game I've played. In terms of absolute complexity, my hunch is that it's near the top of a middle tier complexity, perhaps a 6, or the bottom of top tier of complexity, maybe 7, out of 9. Most of the complexity is associated with the following:

Long phase sequence on each turn, 16 phases for the standard game, 19 for the intervention game.
Large variety of combat types, including ground to ground with armor and infantry, air to ground, ground to air, close air support, air to air, probably more with the intervention game and naval and marine forces coming into play.
Combat and movement factors are very small compared with other games. For example, with a movement factor of 3, in the forest, crossing a river hex requires the entire MF of 2 for forest hex entry plus one for crossing a river. Note that this applies to regular units. Insurgent units do not pay movement penalties.

This has a side effect (or maybe a main effect) of making roads and trails extremely valuable to control.
The insurgency rules add an unusual dimension to the game, almost like having a second game running underneath the main game. The movement, combat advantages and ephemeral nature of the insurgent forces requires a fair bit of thought for effectively employing these forces.

While the above adds a fair bit of complexity, it turns out the that record tracks manage what could have been a bookkeeping blowout. Other than perhaps figuring odds, there is no need (so far) in the standard game to break out the Mark I lead pencil. That in itself feels like quite an acheivement to me.

The rule book is one of the best I've seen. While it's thick-ish (~60 pages for the standard game, 40 more for the intervention game), the rules are remarkably clear. So much so that the few rules which are vague or ambiguous really stand out. When the ambiguity is easily noticed, it's much easier to infer intent, or at least provide a reasonable house rule in lieue of a ruling.

No dispersal

One of the odd things about the game is that it feels smaller scale than it is. That is, it feels company sized, but it's not, it's brigade and regiment sized. At a certain scale, step losses probably make more sense than dispersals, especially with the reorganization mechanism for rebuilding units.

Closing observations

Some people are bothered that one of the basic premises of the game is Sandinistas acting as Soviet proxies.

I can definitely understand why this is bothersome to many people, and to some extent, I find it a small bit bothersome myself.

However, this conflict with all its associated Iran-Contra drama made headlines for the better part of at least a couple of years. Its one of only a couple of topics I recall listening to on NPR pretty much daily. (Another being the savings and loan scandal. I was framing houses in Austin at the time.)

It didn't seem to be clear to NPR what, exactly, was going on down there.

So hindsight, as they say, is 20-20.

Fast forward to now, playing what was a state-of-the-art game when it was published, I don't have any problem suspending disbelief.

In fact, if CA is "fantasy," it's no more or no less fantasy than Victory Games popular Fleet series, which clearly (and thankfully!) models hypothetical conflicts.

Here's my impression after spending a bit of time with the game:

The rules are very clear to me, and contain a lot of worked examples. Bear in mind I do network application development for day job, so rules with this sort of clarity and precision are a welcome change from what I deal with day-to-day at work (where quality is correlated to WTFs/minute).
Handling insurgent activation and deactivation is critically important, and allows hit and run technique. Poof call up a unit or three of insurgents, do some hit and run (insurgents immune to ezocs), and poof stand them down for future reactivation. Opponent can't eliminate what's not on the board. CA models this much more explicitly than the COIN games.
All the accounting information is on the single map, really important for me as my table is about 2' x 3' Having record tracks off-map is a major pain.
Mark Herman helped develop it. =)

CA isn't for everyone, but I like it, and as noted above, would be delighted to acquire a spare copy for parts.

What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

Have a solo game ready to play.
Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
Referee a game in progress.