A BLOODY RIDE campaign feedback *SPOILERS*

[Erwin]

Just completed battle one of this German campaign. A well-designed scenario. It's an excellent and interesting map, mixture of combined arms troops, and challenges that allow for multiple strategies to achieve the objectives. The Germans also have 105mm arty (altho' no mortars) and an ATG, although I never found a way to use it.

I try to not replay saved games when something bad happens unless it's the game system itself that has f**cked me. Am happy to say that this only happened once I think when vehicles mysteriously decide to go into reverse for no apparent reason - usually around restricted terrain and bridges.

The battle has some nasty surprises from ATG's but I was able to have all my vehicles survive. Although one PzV bogged and immobilized. But, that was ok as the terrain is dryer than the otherwise also xnt but infamous "bogging campaign" HOFFNUNG and the road was littered with (pre-existing by the designer) craters. I especially liked seeing destroyed German and US vehicles from what is obviously a prior battle. So, one can intelligently assess the situation to guess where the ambush points may be on the road. And this map is large enough for flanking maneuver. You also get 2 platoons of engineers to open up the bocage. Lovely.

It was a bit strange to only get two slightly beat up PzGrenadier platoons with the two full strength engineer platoons. I treat engineers like gold dust cos of their explosives and even though there were more of them than regular inf, I was loathe to use engineers in a recon or forward role. So the PzGrenadiers got pretty depleted, a man here and there KIA and WIA etc...

Had one disaster when I got distracted from the main mission and sent a platoon after some fleeing US troops at the side of the map. The US must have gone fanatic as I lost maybe 8 inf trying to wipe out these stragglers! Lesson is: Don't get distracted by what one thinks may be an easy kill.

At the end I started to race to the exit zone, and ran into another ambush (and lost my precious FO!). Again unnecessary haste as I had 20 minutes to go and plenty of 105mm arty. Got a Total Victory with all that time to spare. Although I won the points for low casualties, I think I really should have been more patient and careful and only suffered half of the 40 or so German WIA/KIA. In particular the engineers got wasted at the end as I ran low on inf. I worry that will come back to haunt me in later battles.

The only criticism I have is the briefing, which is written using some German militarese terms re the formations, and it took me a while to figure out what I was supposed to have. Plus one tank was missing - it turned up as a reinforcement. But, that isn't mentioned in the briefing so you wonder about it... I also thought there are too many engineers and I would have preferred to have an extra inf platoon and one engineer platoon. Not sure why the Germans didn't have mortars. Also, when one loses a FO and it's not replaced it's kind of a disaster and I do have to consider if I will need to replay the last 10 turns as going forward into Battle 2 now I have no FO.

Started battle 2, and again it's hard to understand what units I will be getting from the briefing. But, I do not see any engieers at all, and that is worrying as now there is no way to bust through the bocage on either side of bthe road. So, this looks like the Germans are being forced to follow and clear the road for the tanks to continue... Kinda scary, and why no engineers suddenly since it's the same KG as in Battle One? Will report back how this one works out.

PS:

In case you're wondering why I don't post pics it's that partly am too lazy to learn how, but primarily that once one gets down to Level One where the pics look good, one can't tell the difference between any map or any troops - they all look the same, and there are many other xnt pics/AAR's out there already.

[Mr.X]

Hey Erwin,

thanks for your detailed AAR and I am glad to hear, you could enjoy the first part of the "Bloody Ride". And I´m sorry for using some unclear formulation during the briefing. In generally my English is not very well, so sometimes you may be a bit irritated. But don´t worry To loose your FO will be not advantageous, however there are other FO´s on their way to the frontline

And the second mission is not the one you must be frightened for.

Summing up, I try to answer some of the things, you asked:

= on the morning of this mission, the frontline is hold by some German engineers of an engineer-school. These engineers do not belong to the PZL units. First I planed the mission in the way, one could not use them without the risc of losing many victorypoints if they were KIA or WIA - but I decided, that every front commander is free to deal with them in the way he likes. By the way, the German AT-gun belongs to this unit. So, with the soldiers of the engineer-school, I only tried to simulate the garrison of the frontline

= the other German Units, belonging to the PZL, are equipped like the real German Units then. The order of those was to break through the US-Lines as fast as possible - so, the heavy weapons of the 8th Company, including the mortars, were positioned backwards. As you could see and as the Germans of 1944 could see, there was no possibility to break through within a few minutes. One can rightly say, the set up of the whole KG wasn´t ideal in reality. And you poor players of today have to suffer from this bad management

= After the break through, the engineers got the order to be the back up, if another critical situation would occur - like you said, they were to valuable to be lost in "normal" fightings.

So, all in all, you as the player have to manage the same situation like the officers of PZL on this day (and it was one of the worst days of the PZL-Division ):

- no reconnaissance at all (the units of PZL arrived too late)

- not the right weapons considerung to the terrain, the enemy and the aims of the assault

I hope, I could answer some of your questions Erwin and I´d be very glad if you could enjoy the next missions.

Regards

Frank

[Erwin]

Am about 23 minutes thru the 2nd mission and this one is a LOT of fun. It's like playing "sniper" with tanks.

After sending out infantry recon (and preplotting arty with a regular HQ since I had lost my FO in Battle 1) I started to see lots of US artillery pieces. I was able to bring a tank and the 37mm halftrack up my right flank and after shifting around a bit was able to get LOS to about 6 of them so far, plus some halftracks and trucks, all of which have been KO'd with NO friendly casualties or losses so far. That's the best I have ever done.

I liked your trick of putting the US armor in craters. It definitely made em harder to get LOS to and shoot em, but I finally managed.

But, it's getting to that time when I have to send in the infantry to the buildings, and I cannot breach the bocage for the vehicles, so they'll have to go on the road, and I suspect some ambushes...

Some may consider this scenario easy so far. But, I like that I at least "feel" that I played smart and have (so far) been rewarded. We'll see how the 2nd half goes...

[Mr.X]

Hey Erwin,

glad to hear this But things will become harder .....

Regards

Frank

[Erwin]

Ok, so ten minutes later a hidden TD that was keyholed nicely pranged one of my precious Panthers. However, I really enjoyed assaulting into the farm while another platoon worked its way towards the barn and crossroads.

This was a rare scenario for me where I suffered only 5 or 6 inf casualties in addition to the tank. Thank goodness, as I had lost way too many men in the previous scenario - half of them in the last few minutes as I raced towards the exit, thinking the Amis were finished.

This time I stayed cautious to the end and was rewarded with a TOTAL VICTORY, even tho' I didn't quite get to the Barn objective, and nowhere near the exit.

The arty seemed to take care of the SPG's since all the crews were found to be hiding in trenches. Not sure if that was the designer intent, but it made it easy to mop up the few inf defenders that had survived the barrage.

All in all, one of the most original scenarios I have seen in CMBN so far. One of my favorite scenarios as well. While it may feel "easy" I liked the fact that my good combined arms tactics (I like to think) were rewarded, rather than facing one "tricky" impossible to avoid, fatal ambush after another, (or one bloody "Hard Knocks" type scenario after another).

Really looking forward to battle #3. I see it is a much larger map and looks like more room to maneuver - assuming I can get thru the bocage, and not sure if I get any charges again.

BTW: None of the Germans seem to have Schrecks in this Campaign. Odd?

One observation about the game system. During Campaigns I occasionally Cease Fire to see the effect of the arty barrage (no looking at the map of course) and to see if my tactics were being effective re causing casualties. So, a few times I let the next Battle start. I was surprised to find that the starting forces in follow-on battles were slightly different every time I looked. Eg: Sometimes there were 2 FO's instead of one. Sometimes there were 3 tanks instead of 2. The number of guys in squads was slightly different etc.

Not sure if this has anything to do with a Designer decision, or if the game system randomizes things a bit.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

One observation about the game system. During Campaigns I occasionally Cease Fire to see the effect of the arty barrage (no looking at the map of course) and to see if my tactics were being effective re causing casualties. So, a few times I let the next Battle start. I was surprised to find that the starting forces in follow-on battles were slightly different every time I looked. Eg: Sometimes there were 2 FO's instead of one. Sometimes there were 3 tanks instead of 2. The number of guys in squads was slightly different etc.

While I know nothing about this campaign (looking forward to playing it when I get time), my guess is that the designer has put replacements into it. The way that replacements work is that there is x% chance that each unit will be refitted to full readiness. This will largely account for different starting forces between missions, because it rolls the dice each time you end the mission.

[Erwin]

I am glad that A BLOODY RIDE campaign has replacements, as it was touch and go whether I could complete HOFFNUNG since there seemed to be no replacements in that campaign.

Looking around at the start of Battle 3 the map looks terrific and it's much larger (and wider) than the average CMBN map. One doesn't have much opportunity for flanking in most CMBN maps which are small, and initially it looks like (finally) one can enjoy flanking maneuver on this map. But, am immediately concerned re how does one get the vehicles to support the inf offroad with no engineers or charges to make holes in the bocage. I find it very hard to distinguish hedges that a vehicle can bulldoze thru vs the low bocage which it cannot. Also, bulldozing will definitely incrementally damage the tracks and I cannot afford immobilizations.

The choice seems to be whether to send inf through the fields supported only by arty (lovely 210mm + 105mm), or stick to the (single) road where the tanks can support them. And even after reinforcements, there will only be 1 company of 3 (beat up) platoons of PzGr inf for this large map. So, I fear that the only reasonable choice is to have the inf flank the road to spot ambushes and stick with the armor. I hate having only one option. But, am not sure that there is enuff inf to both escort the armor and go on a flanking mission thru the fields unsupported by vehicles (so even resupply would be a problem). For such a large map I also think that one company of inf seems inadequate and will be like a herd of small rodents wandering thru the fields. Hmmm... I wonder if the designer really wants one to stick to the roads with the vehicles... In which case, why make the map so wide instead of thinner and longer?

An issue in all the battles so far of A BLOODY RIDE, is that the designer does not indicate when reinforcements will arrive (or where). That makes planning harder. I assume that they would arrive on the road, but I have been wrong footed in other campaigns where reinforcements arrive on one side of a map after one has spent many turns marching the initial set-up infantry over to that side - and now one has no units where one was expecting reinforcements.

So designers: Please let players have some idea of when and where reinforcements will arrive, (unless complete uncertainty is a REALLY important aspect of your scenario).

[Mr.X]

Hey Erwin,

after enjoying the successful run through mission #2 you have quasi returned back to reality

Now you are facing the same problems like most of the other players, who reported to me - and the same problems, the poor guys in 1944 were confronted with. The German officers then asked theirselves similar questions: Why no reconnaissance? Why not enough heavy weapons? Why no engineers? And so on.... Actually, they got orders and had no real chance to debate these orders. And the longer the war reached, the more irrational many orders became. So, they were forced to give the best with the few men and weapons they had. And this is your task, too

And don´t worry - you have powerful weapons: especially heavy artillery. But you have to use them clever And you won´t fight against an enemy who is much more powerful than your Force is.

Regards

Frank

[Mr.X]

Ahh, I have forgotten to answer one of your questions

The reinforcements during this campaign will always arrive at the normal starting point of your units - the only exception is marked, so that you should not be irritated.

Regards

Frank

[Erwin]

Thanks for the notes, Mr.X. I still recommend that you indicate at least approximately WHAT reinforcements will arrive and WHEN. Also, it would do no harm to indicate what replacements and resupply may be coming as it makes a big difference if you know you'll not see any vs at least you know you will have some replacements and/or supply.

Played the first 15 minutes of Battle 3 and am loving it as it is again an original situation. I didn't expect to be attacked! And it's fun to have to scramble around to rescue flank recon units from being massacred. My beat up 2nd platoon just arrived to help out on my left flank. 2 of the reinforcing squads only have 3 guys in them thanks to the murderous first scenario! And they needed to stop for resupply b4 I could deploy them. A problem with WEGO, but I enjoy the challenge of having to think 2 or more minutes ahead to predict problems.

So far, this 3rd scenario is a real winner as well, and again completely different in character from the previous two. You have done an xnt job in designing these scenarios.

BTW: How many scenarios are in this campaign, and are there any branches??

[Erwin]

I just realized that I have only played the first 10 minutes(!) of Battle 3 of A BLOODY RIDE and it was all action from the 2nd minute on.

My cautious advance up the road led by inf was successful in foiling a bazooka ambush with at least a squad backing it up. Sent forward a 251/10 and a Panther to kill most of the ambushers and the rest flee across the river. But, heavy accurate mortar fire damage the tank forcing it to withdraw.

Was fortunate I had a squad reconning the flank as they ran into a full US platoon trying to flank my start positions. Took 3 casualties, but inflicted a lot more. A German 2nd platoon reinforcement arrived around 5 minutes in at just the right time to reinforce the beleaguered flank squad. Beat back the US attack with heavy US casualties. Over 25 I think. I have to be very careful about rushing to pursue the fleeing US on the flank as I learned I can run into another ambush and lose a lot that way. Already, I see explosions from unknown source and 1 man down. I think I need to be more cautious and w/d most of my flank security forces back to the road and focus on the main line of attack

Am pretty stumped on the road at almost the start positions as mortars pound even my armor if it moves further, and I can see an M10 TD keyholed on the first ford I have to cross a hundred meters ahead, and imo too dangerous to send a Panther to try and duel with a TD. Will take a while to get arty to bombard it since the Germans have no mortars (and the arty is currently plotted to bombard the farm buildings and a line of bocage on the far side of the river as that looks like a good 2nd line of defense for the US).

Great beginning to the scenario. Tons of tactical decisions to make and challenges to think about. So far this may be my favorite CMBN Campaign!

[Mr.X]

Hey Erwin,

great to hear this hope, you will enjoy the next missions, too. By the way, you have asked, if there are any branches. There is one branch in this campaign, but all in all I have made the story linerar.

Regards

Frank