Victory at Verdenne - Anybody had one yet?

[Jaeger Jonzo]

just fought this scenario with a regular opponent and it was a really good tough fight for the first hour but the battle then petered out as both sides had suffered heavy losses and were pretty exhausted. The town changed hands 3 times! (if only Bfc had more realistic damage for buildings )

We still had over an hour left on the clock and both sides expected reinforcements to dribble in or arrive en-masse but nothing else happened, which was a real anti-climax after such a great fight. We continued with sporadic fighting but then both hit ceasefire with 40mins going.

Great scenario on a good map, just needed some late units to keep it spicy. I got a total victory as the US player   

[Combatintman]

Really pleased you enjoyed it and that it worked well in H2H. The scenario is a mash up of actions fought over a few days so the experiences you describe seem to be reflective of ground truth.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

On ‎03‎/‎07‎/‎2016 at 2:32 PM, Warts 'n' all said:

It is interesting to read how another player approaches the game. For myself I always play the game in chronological order. I don't pick a particular campaign because it looks the most interesting, or the easiest, or most challenging. I just work my way through them from the earliest onwards recording my results as I go, if I win, all well and good, if I lose (as often happens) I take my defeat on the chin and move on.

Me too, must be a British thing! 

[Heinrich505]

Combatintman,

  Played this out to the very bitterly cold end.  On Elite vs. AI, I managed a major victory playing as Axis.  Yes, yes, playing versus AI, but I thought the AI did a very good job and was pretty convincing in the execution of the battle plan.  The battle for the town was vicious - I had to be very careful to conserve my troops.  The battle in the woods on my right flank was equally brutal.  I got pretty beat up in that area.

  I was stunned by the beauty of the map.  I went to Google Earth to check the area out and you were pretty much spot on with your map. 

  I did up a little story to go with my struggle and I posted it in the screenshots section.  I wasn't sure how many might see this thread as it was already on page two. 

  Thanks again.  It played out very well, had a very historical feel to it, the map was great, and it was a challenge.  Great work!

Heinrich505

[Combatintman]

On ‎25‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 8:45 AM, Heinrich505 said:

Combatintman,

  Played this out to the very bitterly cold end.  On Elite vs. AI, I managed a major victory playing as Axis.  Yes, yes, playing versus AI, but I thought the AI did a very good job and was pretty convincing in the execution of the battle plan.  The battle for the town was vicious - I had to be very careful to conserve my troops.  The battle in the woods on my right flank was equally brutal.  I got pretty beat up in that area.

  I was stunned by the beauty of the map.  I went to Google Earth to check the area out and you were pretty much spot on with your map. 

  I did up a little story to go with my struggle and I posted it in the screenshots section.  I wasn't sure how many might see this thread as it was already on page two. 

  Thanks again.  It played out very well, had a very historical feel to it, the map was great, and it was a challenge.  Great work!

Heinrich505

Thank you for your comments and great work with your screenies in the other thread, you've composed some really atmospheric shots in there. The map was actually pretty easy, albeit time consuming, to make although I will admit that I don't make maps to the detail that some of the other guys out there do. The only thing I'd really change about it would have to have put more trees and foliage tiles down but I felt I couldn't do this because that would make the scenario trickier to load and affect framerates for people with lower spec computers. Otherwise the map was put together primarily by using two overlays. The first was a 1944 era map which gave me the road layout, extent of built-up/wooded areas and contour intervals. The second was a Google Earth image. Other than that I looked for some pictures of the Chateau and the now disappeared railway station and looked at some of the panoramio images on Google Earth of buildings to get the flavour right.

I'm also glad the AI challenged you - a great tip that I learnt from JonS was that it only has to be challenging, it doesn't have to be designed to win at all costs. I think the other part of the challenge in the scenario though is the choices that are presented to the player. This is one of the things that attracted me to this series of battles for Verdenne because both sides have isolated elements and have to decide whether they:

Hold the isolated element in place and try and rescue the element quickly with the main force.

Try to defeat the nearest enemy in front of them and then hope to link up with the isolated element before it is destroyed.

Withdraw the isolated element and use it in a coordinated attack with the main force on the enemy's isolated element before tackling the other objectives.

Conduct some form of fighting withdrawal with the isolated element in the direction of the advancing main force.

Finally, although the scenario does not replicate a particular action, it does accurately reflect the tactical situation on that day thus giving it that realistic feel that you mentioned. This is the most important design consideration for me, I prefer to either replicate or closely mirror actual battles in all of my scenario content across the titles.

[Erwin]

Is this a mission in a campaign or the standalone "To Verdenne & Victory"?

[Combatintman]

3 hours ago, Erwin said:

Is this a mission in a campaign or the standalone "To Verdenne & Victory"?

Scenario

[Erwin]

"To Verdenne & Victory" then.  (I have no "Victory at Verdenne".)

[RMM]

Having just played this H2H for about the first 20min as the Axis, I threw it in completely, because I found the mud-traps at every field entrance and road corner beyond frustrating when I think that this was one of the coldest winters on record at the time, when GI's were complaining that the ground was so hard they couldn't dig proper entrenchments! It just seems designed to not allow the Germans proper field of movement across the terrain which is just beyond anything I would think realistic for the conditions at the time and more of a game design annoyance to somehow funnel the GE player into certain avenues or approaches! Having spent a significant amount of time tracing out extremely lengthy paths, and micro-managing them around all those mud traps, my armoured column almost, immediately lost a Panther to permanent bog before even cresting the first rise. This, after I'd already had issues with those traps from having to traverse from one side of the map to the other in order to try and bring troops up to the front so that they didn't have to route march to exhaustion before even firing a shot, because the setup zones are so restricted and leave the German forces scattered in areas I would never position them in RL for this attack given the vast areas of US target-range that they are left to traverse without any cover whatsoever under the current disposition. BTW, which is supposed to be the isolated German force?

Maybe I just missed some critical elements or issues about how to launch this attack, but why is there a GE Engineer unit off by itself, completely removed from the main area of action? Why is the armour similarly displaced to where it has to drive across the entire map to support the main thrust towards Verdenne instead of (at least partially) entering on that same road? It makes a combined arms effort more of an exercise in logistics and transport than 'combat'. Otherwise, I can only strongly recommend that the all the mud traps be removed and both the GE and US setup zones be expanded. The GE zone should really be across the entire 'eastern' half of the map so that those forces can be placed up in the woods and along a more realistic jumping off line, roughly just behind the road running 'north'-'south'. The US setup zone around Verdenne should be expanded into the surrounding woods so that that player is not also rushing around his units to create a proper defense perimeter that would have been setup long before this action started. Like I say, maybe I just misunderstood or misread the whole map and avenues of approach, but after some 20min, was vexed to the point of "Forget it!"

I'd be curious to hear other's AAR's about this battle, in particular the first 30min or so of setting up and approaches, coordinating arty, etc., and maybe that'll give me some insight into things I might have missed or not understood. Please do forgive the rant, and I really would like to hear what other's did about these issues, but this is the first of any CM I've played that I've just reached a point of "Oh, sod it!" let alone before hardly, even getting started!

[Lt Bull]

On 7/3/2016 at 6:09 PM, Combatintman said:

I'll declare an interest ... I designed this.

But I am intrigued that since this game launched nobody really talks about the content.  Even more surprising is that in in the chat associated with one of ChrisND's TwitchTV feeds somebody asked whether the game featured one of the formations that is included in this scenario.  Yet no comment .... 

When I look at the release (based on threads) people dived into the German campaign and that is pretty much it .... shame really because the US Courage Conquers Campaign and the US Aachen mini-campaign have lots to recommend them.

Thoughts? 

 

Hey @Combatintman,

I played this scenario (actual name "To Verdenne and Victory!") H2H PBEM as Germans and got a Tactical Victory.  I really enjoyed the map and the battle.  I think it was well designed. Germans were able to hold the isolated NE Crossroads while completely occupying the Verdenne objective.  Happy to provide any other feedback you might be looking for.