Well, over two Fridays of playing, I can report we are slow learners but we are getting our hands around the rules.
7 Days to the Rhine River is a little more subtle than we'd thought. The final stretch of the game this Friday was marked by the revelation that we'd missed the morale loss mechanism in the direct firing procedure.
We had a fourth party this week, Barry of Barry's Redoubt was down from Maine for a few hours and lent his experiences in the 1980's to our campaign. Take a look at his Eureka series of near modern reports for some great AAR'S.
A second time for the meeting of the Warpac advance into the FRG required more real estate than was used previously. Since the procurement of the new snowblower has given me a lot of double corrugated cardboard, more mapping was possible. 6 by 4 foot was nearly achieved.
The scenario generation had made the general situation more a meeting engagement, with the BAOR and FRG forces mostly deployed to the first 1500 meters (scaled at the first foot to 18 inches or so) . The Warpac forces deployment was roughly the same from their own start line.
A little less crowded Warpac start, a pretty good view of the table layout. Looking West.
On the strategic map, we translated the situation as such. The first day was marked by the breach of the border area as a surprise to NATO, but reactions to the first wave were on target with the operational plans. No nuclear nor chemical weapons were used and the air support for both forces were not available as the battle for air supremacy was raging. The card mechanism for tactical advantages worked well in this regard, and had the advantage of having off board artillery also being abstracted.
Again, terrain is green for forests, dark brown for secondary roads and building areas, blue for rivers and tan fields, black was reserved for depicting the Autobahn.
Slightly different angle on the table.
We found out partway through we were still not playing the "to hit"
portion of the rules correctly. You can see a lot of formations hugging cover.
I did have the lead tank battalions deployed into company columns, mixed in with recon assets. Despite heavy use of platoon fire and movement, hits did not penetrate the defense units. Lousy dice rolls. The discovery that the morale loss mechanism was not understood by all three of us lead to a turn three halt in the game.
So gentle readers, you will get an AAR after next week's fight, presumably with all the rules in play.
Hopefully with a few photos of units in action.
Comments
And thanks for reminding me it's time for another Eureka post. Gardenstan may be getting a surprise in the latest shipment of replacement vehicles from the Soviets, I just need to finish painting them.
I agree, dk about your local group, but every so often as a group we've decided to give up on a rulebook due to one or another difficulty.
"7 Days" however is happily going to be kept on the Playlist.
Funny thing, it was trying to use the morale markers that had us read as a group and mutter a collective 'duh' as our 20 watt lamps went on.
As part of the fire procedures, a 'hit' which does not penetrate armor still tags the target with a morale marker. Too many markers, goodbye unit, and the losses are included in making activation more difficult.
We had been concentrated on the catastrophic damage a penetrating hit causes. Blood thirsty group we are.
Third time the charm, tomorrow. Maybe we'll get it right and I will get better photos.
As always ready for you to be here.
Good news about another attempt by Gardenstan to be featured.
Always enjoy the pov in the AAR'S.