Sword & Sails

Here's a quick one for AAR Central. I had expected to put a post together for something a little different, but while I was in Jersey earlier this month, I ended up putting the most time into a six-player game of Sword & Sail. It played like a medieval era version of Twilight Imperium. 

In our game, I took the French by random draw. The other players took England, the HRE, the Vikings, the Kievan Rus', and the Byzantines, while North Africa was out of play. We had a few house rules in play to dictate control of the minor factions, but they don't really need any explanation. The important rule to note though is that movement is simultaneous. Everyone plots the movement of their armies and fleets and then moves simultaneously.

I did not want the French for security reasons, but I felt better than having the HRE. In the early game, I managed to secure the bordering territories through lucky marriages. My first army stayed north to deter an invasion from the English while the majority of my armies drove south to invade Spain. By a stroke of luck, I managed to properly guess the location of Joe's (England's) invasion. I moved the first army into Normandy just as his second army crossed the channel. In the ensuing combat, my army outnumbered his, but his heavy cavalry wrecked havoc on my forces. Luckily, I managed to eliminate his knights and cavalry to the man just as he defeated my army. They perished on French soil, but Normandy remained under my control.

While I busied myself conquering northern Spain, the Vikings harassed England from the sea, the Byzantines engaged the Bulgarians in a losing war, and the Kievan Rus' kept absorbing more steppe. 

To weaken the empires in Spain, I allied with the Kingdom of Leon and had them invade Qurtuba. The invasion wrecked havoc on both armies, but the troops from Leon retreated before all forces were knocked out. Fearing invasion from England again (who allied with Mike's HRE forces), I sailed Leon's troops to northern France to sit on my borders and free up more of my armies. 

Joe described the ensuing political changes as follows: disappointed by the political abuse from the French who treated their troops like cannon fodder, the Kingdom of Leon flipped sides and joined the English, just as their troops landed in Northern France. This just about threw my lead in jeopardy. Thanks to my stockpile of political cards, though, I canceled Joe's attempt to flip the Kingdom of Leon. As a result, I managed to retain control of my Spanish Allies, just as the Vikings invaded England. To consolidate my lead, I spent most of my income on building up cities for VPs and on the final turn, I thwarted an invasion by HRE troops in Lower Lorraine. At the end of turn 5 (Spring 1001 AD), I was poised to win the game with 36 VPs and I had the money to get me to 40 and the victory. With that, we called it a game. It was a great experience, and I'll likely get my own copy sometime soon. And to top it off, I had a rare victory to claim on my visit to New Jersey.

The Whole Front in Flames -- The Battle for Caen

It's been quiet on AAR Central, but it's been busy elsewhere in my life of late. I've been gaming, to be sure, but I haven't had much time to either finish a game or post any updates on what I've been up to since September. In October and November, I went out to California to pay a visit to the fine folks at Decision Games. I got to do some acceptance testing and play testing on the next series of magazine games slated to come out in 2026 and 2027. Talk about a highlight on the year. Since much of that process is internal only to DG, though, that's all I will say for now. And therefore, no pictures to go with that. 

Since I had the chance to pick the brain of Doug Johnson (who has developed the Grand Operational Simulation Series for the last ten years), I decided to break out my copy of Atlantic Wall and play the first scenario: The Whole Front in Flames.

The first scenario in Atlantic Wall starts with the Canadians holding the northern part of Caen and the German 272nd Division holding the southern part of the city, with the Orne river flowing between the two. East of the city, out in flats, are a motley assortment of German defenders from the 21st Panzer Division, 16th Luftwaffe Division, and various other corps elements (notably heavy AA and heavy AT emplacements). Opposite these defenders and their emplacements were the British 11th Armoured Division and 3rd Infantry. The Guards Armoured Division was also in place behind the tanks of the 11th (but they ultimately factored in very little in the game).  

The battle opened with the famous carpet bombing of German positions. In Caen, there is no effect. The 272nd remains emplaced on the south side of the river, two Canadian divisions and one armored brigade facing them. To the east, though, the bombing wrought havoc and blasted a hole through the German line. The loss of the only King Tigers on the field to the heavy bombing caught me by surprise. But, die rolls are die rolls. 

And with those die rolls rolled the tanks of the 11th armoured. The scenario goes for nine turns, and on turn one, the British plunged into the gap (pictured left). The Canadians for their part attacked the 272nd in Caen. For the British, it was a cake walk on turns one and two, for the Canadians, anything but. Now I may have cheated a bit by deploying all of the divisional artillery for the Commonwealth forces onto the field without doing the same for the Germans (I only realized that error in turn two), but it lent no benefit to the Canadians. The Canadian 2nd division struck out on turn one with huge losses trying to make a crossing in the city. The 3rd fared slightly better, and over the course of the next seven turns, the 3rd Canadians slowly made headway into the city from the north east. They had the benefit of fighting on the near side of the Orne, though; the 2nd had to keep making crossing attempts, which they abandoned by turn 4. 

The German 21st Panzer put up a delaying action against the British 3rd Infantry and 11th Armoured Divisions, but they were spread too thin. By the end of the first day, they vacated Troarn and fell back south on the village of Cagny to establish new defensive lines. The presence of German Tigers from the 501st and 503rd Schw. Pz. Abt. helped keep the British infantry at bay. The Germans were still spread too thin, though, and by mid-scenario, the arrival of the 12th SS couldn't change the situation. Even still, the SS reinforcements arrived in time to plug gaps in the crumbling line held by the 21st Panzer and on the far east edge of the front. 

The British received their reinforcements with the 7th Armoured. With the front clogged behind the 11th and Guards Armoured divisions plunging south, I assigned the 7th to the Canadians' sector to take Caen. In all honesty, I couldn't tell if that wasn't allowed with the parent formation rules. But, I did it anyway. Oh well. The Canadian 3rd, supported by the 7th, slowly chipped away at the last of the 272nd's positions. Their grenadiers still held fast to the ground around Caen and what fortified sectors they still had left, but the deteriorating situation to their south made holding the city untenable.

The Canadian third and British armor east of the city made short work of the German positions that were left, even as SS reinforcements continued to trickle onto the field. As a result, by scenario end, the 272nd abandoned what positions were left in Caen and threw a complete victory to the British.

Including ARVEs (which give two combat shifts) was I think the most consequential part of the British victory for this scenario. Even with the added artillery and possible rule-breaking deployment of the 7th Armoured Division, I think the ARVEs contributed the most to the British victory. With four steps, it was easy to assign British losses to the tanks that otherwise didn't suffer any negative combat effects. Next up, Hill 112.

Poland Defiant

It's been radio silence for almost a full month. Have I been playing board games? Absolutely, but primarily games that I don't feel like posting about. I've been playtesting for Decision Games the past several months and focusing most of my die rolling on a magazine game about the Polish-Soviet war. It's been a great learning experience, but (understandably) repetitive. And since the game is still in play testing, I haven't posted anything or taken notes for AAR Central.

Instead, having found the time for something else, I've finally put a finished Revolution Games title up on the table (and not surprisingly, I could notice some similarities with the game I've been playtesting). Today, we're all in on a superb title dealing with the German invasion of Poland in 1939 (code named Case White): Poland Defiant.

This game features plenty of armored trains, ill-coordinated blitzkrieg attacks, and copious of amounts of command and control dilemmas. That's just my sort of game. And, importantly, SLOVAKIANS! Poland Defiant includes the Slovak divisions of Field Army Bernolák in this game. For over a decade, I have been a fan of any history concerning Slovak cooperation with the Axis powers in the 2nd World War. They didn't do much in this game, but their token contribution to the Axis invasion of Poland were more than enough as far as gameplay is concerned.

A view of Army Group South (looking west to east from bottom to top of the image).

The game starts on December 1 and goes through December 10. The German Army Group South (AG South) faced off against the Polish military districts of Poznan, Lodz, and Krakow. To the north, The German breakout from East Prussia fell to the 3rd Army, with link-up support coming from the 4th Army.

At game start, 3rd and 4th Armies struggled to reduce Danzig and the Pomorskie district defenders. Pomorskie HQ conducted a brilliant fighting withdrawal against the German 4th Army. For several days, the Germans were burdened by command over forces far beyond the controlling range of the army HQs assigned to AG North. The delays this caused were to the benefits of the Polish defenders north of the Bug river. Danzig held for three days before eventually falling to the concerted efforts of the German 4th Army. With the German 4th preoccupied with the corridor to East Prussia, HQ Pomorskie withdrew to Torun and Włocławek, all while keeping the 3rd Army at Bay (with support from the Modlin district). While the Pomorskie divisions didn't succeed escaping to the Warsaw perimeter, their early successes against AG North kept 3rd and 4th Armies out of the game. The 3rd never had the strength to force a crossing of the Bug River against the Modlin defenders and the 4th had to contend with the Pomorskie pocket. That left all possible routes for victory with AG South.

The delayed reduction of Danzig meant the survival of Army District Pomorskie.

AG North's two assault formations were the 10th and 14th Armies. The 10th was assinged Lodz, the 14th Krakow. The German 8th Army was assigned mopping up for Polish formations caught behind the advancing Panzers of the 10th and 14th, while to the far south, Field Army Bernolak was assigned harassing duties and security objectives against the Polish mountain divisions in the Carpathians. The Slovaks served well, securing a critical VP, but their combat record was lackluster; they failed 3 times to evict a Polish division surrounded and out of supply from the town they were dug into.

The German 10th Army caught its break outside Lodz when on turn 4 it overran the Lodz HQ. In a quick turn of events, the Lodz defenders were left without an HQ to activate them, and the city fell two turns later once the independent defenders in the city were forced out. The 14th Army took its sweet time reducing the Krakow defenders. By far the most heavily entrenched military district in Poland, the Krakow defenders kept the panzers and grenadiers of the 14th Army far too busy in this game. 

Game End: at the gates of Warsaw.

By game end, the 10th Army had pushed to the gates of Warsaw, the 8th and mopped up Poznan, and the 14th had finally reduced Krakow, but their distraction with pressing onto Warsaw came at the price of the German historical victory. At game end, I was 1 VP away from a German historical victory. The Modlin defenders, along with sizeable remnants of the Carpathian defenders under the Malopolska HQ supported by the last of the Prusy, Lodz, and Krakow defenders held a cordon against the advancing Germans. I would have won had I sent more panzers around the Polish flanks to secure city VPs, but I neglected this strategy. Maybe I'll remember it next time.

In hindsight, this is a great game. I came out with a Polish victory, blood on the chevrons of my Slovak cardboard infantry, and a better appreciation for the opening days of the 2nd World War.

More games to come, as always. Until then.

Blitzkrieg and Encirclements -- Ted Racier's The Dark Valley

Last week, I finished my first campaign playthrough of Ted Racier's The Dark Valley. I've seen this one described as a mini-monster, and it certainly feels that way based on the counter density at times, but in truth this plays much faster than some of the other mini-monsters that I've had out on my table before. 

I'm on a mission to play all three of Ted Racier's Dark Games, and this was entry number two on my list. I've already worked my way through the Dark Summer (Normandy 1944), recorded in two parts (here and here). For this AAR, I've honed in on the German invasion of the Soviet Union with the original game in the series, The Dark Valley; this game covers the entirety of the conflict on the Eastern Front for 1941-1945 (bar the fighting north of Leningrad on the Finnish front). For what it's worth mentioning, this AAR is also for the deluxe edition of The Dark Valley. Eventually, when I have a little more space, I'll break out the Dark Sands, covering the fighting in North Africa from 1940-1943. 

This time around, I've decided to deviate from my usual AAR format. With so many units on either side of the board in The Dark Valley, I figured it futile to try and dedicate a granular review of the campaign at the scale that I wanted. So, instead of trying to go into a detailed review of each and every sector with every roll of the die, I decided on an alternative method. At game start, I selected three units per side to follow for the duration of the campaign, one German and Soviet unit apiece for each of the three main fronts (North, Center, and South). On the Northern Front, I selected the German 1st Panzer Division and the Soviet 22nd NKVD Division; for the Central Front, I selected the German 10th Motorized Division and the Soviet 51st Army (arriving turn 2 as a reinforcement); and along the Southern Front, I selected the Slovak Corps for the Axis and the Soviet 18th Mechanized Corps. It is these six units that I will cover below in detail, with broader background for the entire campaign provided as a backdrop.

While The Dark Valley is loosely part of a similar series with The Dark Summer, it plays very differently. The time scale and rules governing combat, supply, weather, and so on are very different (in part because of the difference of scale and time-covered). That being said, the games are based on an established system that uses a chit-pull activation mechanic. In short, even for a game that was easy to learn, I found the gameplay wildly different in The Dark Valley.

Anyway, onto the AAR.

Let those Panzers roll ...

*****

June 1941

A view of the reinforcements schedule (Black Units are SS, Red units are Soviet Guards).

The campaign opened with a surprise German combat round and move action. All along the line, the Germans launched attacks against the Soviets. From Memel in the north to the Caucasus Mountains, four German Panzer HQs coordinated precision strikes against the Russian positions: 1st Panzer Army in the South, 2nd and 3rd Panzer Armies in the Center, and 4th Panzer Army in the North. 

The image above gives a view of the field at campaign start. The Soviets fielded a front line held by rifle divisions along a fortified border with the Germans. Punching through the Baltics and into Ukraine was easy, but breaking through the forests north of Brest-Litovsk was a tough nut to crack for German Army Group Center in June.

The 10th Motorized wasn't too hard-pressed to break through the Soviets' hard crust defense on turn one, though. Outside Warsaw and in support of two Panzer Divisions, the 10th Motorized Division walloped and overran the 13th Russian Rifle Division. In Lithuania, the 1st Panzer Division sped out of Memel with the Totenkopf and 8th Panzer Divisions. At the head of four more divisions, the 1st led a lighting strike to take Riga. In the path of fate and fortune, the 22nd NKVD Division found itself surprised and on the defense in Riga as the Germans of 4th Panzer Army approached. The 22nd held the line, but only barely. Charged with holding the city, the commander of the 22nd ordered a counter-assault by the Mech. Corp assigned to defend the city against the approaching German tanks, including the 1st Panzer Division. It's a disastrous affair. In short order, the German tanks and supporting infantry managed to eliminate the bulk of the Soviet armor. With no armor left, and only the 22nd to hold the city, there was no escape route left for the Russian divisions assigned to defend Lithuania and the western half of Latvia.

In Ukraine, the 18th Mechanized Corps displaced from its assembly area to Vinnitsa. South of the Pripyat Marshes, the Soviets began a heavy concentration of the mobile forces to fend off against the 1st Panzer Army.

Southern Front, June 1941

At the end of June, the Soviets fell back to a line of defense in central Latvia, central Belarus, and central Ukraine. The Slovaks still held the line in the Caucasus in Hungary and the 51st was just being mustered to arms in Smolensk.

July 1941

In Latvia, the 10th Motorized Division briefly advanced north into command range of 4th Panzer Army to skirt around the hastily-raised Soviet roadblocks outside of Minsk. On the road to Dvinsk, the 10th Motorized joined advance armor units in routing the 21st Mechanized Corps. 

Not too far away, the 1st Panzer Division persisted in its assaults against the 22nd NKVD. In their dogged defense of the city, the Soviets of the 22nd dealt a death blow to the 36th Motorized Division assigned to 4th Panzer Army. Their defense was short-lived, though, and the 1st Panzer made short work of them in little time. With that, the first of my six units was annihilated!

With Minsk taken in short order, the Soviets along the central front continued their retreat to the eastern reaches of the Pripyat Marshes. The city of Gomel was the anchor for the Soviet defense at this point. From Gomel, reinforcements could arrive at the eastern border of the marshes and either rush north to reinforce the central front or south to Kiev, demarking the 2nd line of defense for the southern front. With Minsk gone, the central approach to Gomel was threatened at Orsha-Mogilev. As the 10th skirted north over the Drina river with 3rd Panzer Army, seven frontline divisions with 2nd Panzer Army moved on to take Orsha and threaten Mogilev.

This was the position that the 51st Army encountered when it entered the line just north of Mogilev, on the outskirts of Orsha, saving the embattled 16th Army from being overrun. With the 51st in line, the Germans of 2nd Panzer Army couldn't drive onto Smolensk. For that, they had to rely on the armor in 3rd Panzer Army (led by the 10th Motorized Division) to take it from above, via Vitebsk. 

Farther north, 4th Panzer Army charged out of Riga north on the road to Tallinn with the goal to cut off the defenders at Pskov on the way to Leningrad. The 6th Panzer lead the charge, with the main force close behind by route of Tartu. While the 6th suffered heavy losses in its attempt to cut off the Estonian capitol, the 1st Panzer Division similarly suffered unfortunate losses by trying to bash its way through the 1st Mechanized Corps holding Tartu. While the 1st managed to overrun a supporting rifle division thanks to the close support of the Totenkopf division, the Soviet Mechanized troops hanged tough and refused to give their ground. 

While the Soviets managed to ward off the worst of the calamities in the Baltics and Belarus, they struck disaster in Ukraine, and partly of their own design. The 1st Panzer Army up until this point had not managed to pull off any large-scale encirclements. A handful of rifle divisions were caught between the advancing armor and the follow-up infantry from the Caucasus, including the Slovak Expeditionary troops, but thanks to a heavy concentration of armored units, including the 18th Mechanized Corps, in and around Vinnitsa, the Germans had not yet achieved any catastrophic breakthroughs for the Soviets. Stalin's demands for immediate counterattacks, however, created a gap in the Soviet line just south of the city. And in response, 1st Panzer Army flooded in and around the city and made it all the way to the outskirts of Kiev. In short order, without so much as a shot being fired, the 18th Mechanized Corps found a stream of retreating units flooding into the city, panic-stricken and defeated with not so much as a casualty to show for it among them. In short order, the 1st Panzer Army encircled one army, seven mechanized corps, and six rifle divisions to boot between Vinnitsa and Kiev. Thus, with the coming of August, the 18th Mechanized Corps found itself trapped in a bottle, with not so much as a shell expended in anger, by them or against them.

August:

Following the 1st Panzer Army's breakthrough out and around Vinnitsa, Stavka relocated its HQ out of Gomel and moved to Kiev to rally what forces were left to muster there. The 18th Mechanized still held its ground, but there was little chance for escape. Directly to their front, the 18th faced the 5th SS and 11th Panzer Divisions. All the while, more mobile reinforcements and infantry corps slipped through the armored cordon to the gates of Kiev. 

In the center, Zhukov's HQ held the Smolensk line. 10th Motorized Division's advance out of Orsha was a non-starter though, not as long as the 51st and compliment held the flank at Mogilev that could strike 2nd Panzer Army's underbelly. The 51st security was itself, perilous, though. Extended at the far edge of the line north of Gomel, the 51st was itself only safe from isolation thanks to the short-term supply lag facing the advance units of 2nd Panzer Army. This prevented the immediate breakout from Orsha and advance to overwhelm Zhukov. 

Farther south, the Slovaks trudged farther into Ukraine as the mechanized spearhead for 1st Panzer Army pushed past Kiev, which the last few Soviets held despite eventual futility. With mopping up duties all along the route of their advance, the Slovaks made slow progress toward the front. 

In the Baltics, 1st Panzer Division reached the gulf of Finland, and skirting around Tallinn, isolated the 48th Army holding the city. The Soviets meanwhile worked to consolidate their defense at Narva on the shores of Lake Peipus. The 1st Airforce (German) out of Riga, smashed the 10th Mechanized Corps in Narva. This opened the route to Leningrad and the Northern Soviets' last line of defense. Wasting no time, the 1st Panzer Division (still bloodied) charged ahead, closely followed by the Totenkopf and 8th Panzer Divisions). 

September:

With the end of summer came poorer weather, and with that an ease up in German operations. In the South, the Slovaks were still assigned to mopping-up duties and contained break-out attempts from a group of trapped rifle divisions outside of Cernauti. Once they had liquidated the Cernauti pocket, the Slovaks and compliment moved to contain a second pocket of five rifle divisions trapped outside of Uman. The 1st Panzer Army all the meanwhile pressed onto the Dniepr. 

In the center, the 10th Motorized partook in an assault on Vitebsk, declared a fortified city by Zhukov. Supported by armor, cutting off the Soviets' 5th Airborne Corps, the assaulting infantry and motorized units quickly overwhelmed and annihilated the 54th Army in the City, which was almost wholly surrounded by this point. With the road open, 3rd Panzer Army capitalized on the loss of the 54th and made an end-around run for Smolensk, nearly trapping Zhukov's army group in the process. Along the Minsk-Smolensk road, the position had nearly become untenable for the Soviets at this juncture.

September: The Germans apply pressure on Smolensk

With Smolensk nearly lost, the 51st Army fell back on Bryansk, unravelling the linkage between the Center and Southern fronts. With the 51st out of position, Gomel was threatened, and with Gomel, the lynchpin holding the Pripyat Marshes as a knife in the side of the German Advance. And with the Pripyat positions undone, all rifle units within it were in danger of being cut off and surrounded. Worse, though, was the danger thus posed to Kiev. With the Pripyat at risk, the northern approaches to the city were evacuated, followed shortly thereafter by the city itself. The position was made simply untenable.

The 10th Motorized capitalized on the unravelling of the Soviet line from Smolensk to the Dnieper. With the Soviet armies fleeing east, the 10th launched flank assaults on the units making helter-skelter still west of Smolensk. 

To the north, in an around Leningrad, the action was less dramatic, yet more consequential. 4th Panzer Army amassed armor and infantry against the Russians defending south of Leningrad to begin erecting a cordon around the city. 1st Panzer Division supported the assault with what tanks it could still field, but the Soviets dug in hard and refused to fallback and further. It was a bloody affair without gain.

The ruins of Vitebsk. (At least so I think/recall. It took me a while to do some digging and find this image, and now I cannot recall if this is indeed Vitebsk or some other Soviet-era city from the war. In any case, you are welcome to do your own fact-checking.)

October

If there is any indication that the German blitzkrieg of Operation Barbarossa had ground to a halt, it came with the onset of October. 

The Southern Front

To the south, the 1st Panzer Army pressed onto the Dnieper. By the end of the month, they had a hold of all cities and towns on its west bank. Stavka took up residence in Kharkov to direct counterattacks all along the southern front. The Slovaks, for their part, were assigned to support the Romanians and the crossings of the Dnieper from Kherson. The rest of the Axis minors (the Italians and Hungarians, held crossings to the north, while the Army's armored spearhead pushed east toward Stalino. 

The Northern Front

Far to the North, the situation was quite different. 4th Panzer Army had reached the far extent of its advance. While the Soviets weathered attacks from the 1st Panzer Division and a dozen other supporting units, they refused to give up any ground. In turn, the 1st Panzer Division held the line as the Soviets regrouped and counterattacked as more and more reinforcing units arrived from the east. Against four Soviet Armies and the first Guards units to arrive at the front, the 1st Panzer Division dug itself in for a long slug-fest. 

Only in the center was there any hope of immediate victory. Zhukov was fighting with finger nails, whitened knuckles, and little more than that against the combined power of the German's 2nd and 3rd Panzer Armies. Moscow was devoid of a garrison. Every available unit had been rushed west to hold the open road on the way to the Soviet Capitol. 10th Motorized, for its part, helped displace the Soviet 31st Army with lead elements of 3rd Panzer Army. Moving north, it took up positions above Vyazma to turn the last Russian flank on the road to Moscow. The going was tough, though, with mud and poor weather conditions straining the mobile capabilities of the German Panzer Armies.

November

November brought with it the last serious attempts to break the Soviets' backs all along the front. The 51st Army suffered the burdened of the 2nd Panzer Army's attention with the onset of the cold. The German 8th Air preceded ground assaults with a major, coordinated bombardment against the river line just north of Bryansk. The air attacks devastated the 51st's positions, but still the army held. Thanks to the not-too-soon arrival of emergency armor reserves out of Orel and the presence of localized close air support, the 51st weathered initial attacks by newly arrived German armor assigned to the 2nd Panzer Army. Against the odds, the 51st held. Their valiant efforts were not sustainable though. Without additional armor reserves, the 51st held its ground against a renewed assault supported by now veteran German units, and this time, the attackers met with success. The 51st Army perished to the man north of Bryansk and was entirely overrun. 

Just north of the 51st's last stand, the German 10th Motorized Division helped secure Vyazma and moved to strike at Zhukov's HQ, stationed at Mozhaisk. Much to their chagrin, though, the Soviet final line of defense in the center held in front of the town, halting the advance of the German 3rd Panzer Army. 

Farther south, the Slovaks supported the Romanian efforts to cross the Dnieper from Kherson. Along with four reserve divisions and the 29th Infantry Corps, the Slovaks were all the Romanians had in support. They were the spearhead charged with taking Crimea while the 1st Panzer Army worked the river farther north. Despite their best efforts though, the Romanians made no headway on the road to Sevastopol. 

To the far north, the 1st Panzer Division helped extend the cordon around Leningrad by knocking the 21st Army out of position. Progress was otherwise slow going, however, and proved unlikely to change.

December

Can you see where this is going? Notice the writing on the wall? 

With the onset of December, the Germans were 1-2 victory points shy of the total needed to maintain their offensive into Russia. Otherwise, come January, it would be game over. Making the most of their efforts, 1st Panzer Army struck across the Dnieper forming a thin bridgehead and to the north, 3rd Panzer Army did its best to circumvent the Soviet roadblocks on the road west of Moscow. Outside Leningrad, there was little more than the Germans could do than to butt heads with the mass of armies to their front. 

1st Panzer Division, battered and understrength, saw no further action. To the very south as well, the Slovaks held their part of the river without pressing farther east. Only the 1st Panzer Army made what headway they could, but even that was not without its cost. Stavka's gradual grasp on their defensive line allowed for a counterattack that hurled the Germans back across the river for loss, and with it one of their VP cities. 

And on the road outside of Moscow, 3rd Panzer Army suffered an even worse setback, sealing the coffin for this run of the Dark Valley. Still with 10th Motorized Division at the front of the line, 3rd Panzer Army bore the brunt of a massive counter attack in the winter snows just outside of Vyazma. Led by the fresh and newly arrived 4th Shock Army, the Soviets attacked the Germans on four sides and wiped them out in their hastily constructed defenses. Seven Russian armies, scattered rifle divisions, and fresh Siberian reserves cut down the last of the 10th Motorized Division's defenders.

Thus, the Germans rang in the new year far behind the line of advance they needed to achieve to stay in the war. As a result, the entire campaign that I had hoped to play through ended with December 1941. An immediate and total Russian victory. No battle at the gates of Moscow. The Soviets weathered this invasion with reserves to spare. 

"What's the point of fighting? I much prefer the fire in a hearth as opposed to over my head. Let's go home."

To conclude this post, I've included the above image which I stumbled upon by accident and which I quite like. It shows combatants from the Italian CSIR and German 1st Mountain Division in Stalino in 1941. Stalino is quite a ways east of the Dnieper, which I never reached in this game. It's at least notable for this game since upon review of the map at game end, I noticed the 1st Mountain Division right alongside the Italian CSIR. Funny how that worked out. 

At any rate, it's safe to say, the Soviets put up a far better defense of their front in this game. Either that, or I'm just dogsh*t on the offensive in this game, which may very well be. And by way of conclusion, I can also announce that of the six units initially covered, only one survived the first year of the Great Patriotic War: the Slovak Expeditionary Army Group! I have a peculiar fascination with the Slovaks in the 2nd World War, but I'll safe that for future posts. Anyway, I'm not quite sure what I'll be posting on next. Very likely it will be a Blast from the Past, so stay tuned. 

And as a final tidbit, I like to reflect on why we never hear the names Stalino or Voroshilovgrad anymore (which are near to each other on the map). Give those two cities a Google. I wonder if the names will ever be changed again. I don't have a stake in that decision one way or the other. It's just interesting to consider, given the world from which I'm writing these days.

Incomplete Dispatches from WBC 2025

I attended the 2025 World Boardgaming Championships this summer in Seven Springs, PA and felt that it deserved a post on here. This was my first event of this sort that I've ever attended. Conventions, Tournaments, Conferences, etc. You name it, I haven't been to it. And not just for board games or war games, but anything (video games, books, or so on). In all my life, I've only willingly paid for a ticketed event once (it was a live podcast at DAR Concert Hall in DC). I've never been to a live concert. All of this shapes up to make me sound like a recluse, but it's more so just indicative of what I know and that I have (until now) preferred to spend my time and money elsewhere. For whatever reason, I had very little expectations of actually enjoying myself/the trip since this is a world I'm not exactly all that plugged into, despite keeping up with the communities and different companies online. I am happy to report, though, that I've had my opinion on conventions and tournaments handily upended thanks to WBC 2025, and the people I met while I was there.

I arrived in the middle of the tournament, perhaps three or four days into the week plus of festivities, and I stayed for three days. In that short time, I spent more time (as a proportion of the entire time that I spent there) pushing around cardboard than I have in a good long while, certainly since I've been working on this blog. There wasn't a day that I was there that I didn't end the evening getting back to my tent (I decided to camp) before 10:30 PM. It was a wargame marathon - of sorts - and it turned out to be everything I could've hoped for.

I didn't take very close notes of what was happening or what I was doing while I was there. This was partly since I myself was trying to get a sense for what was happening the entire time that I was in PA, but now that I've got my footing for WBC, I'll be able to take closer notes next year. (Hint: I will definitely be returning).

So, what did I see/what did I play? I spent most of my time in the Winterbury room where they had wargames set up. I made way over to the corner where there was a copy of Where Eagle's Dare and The Devil's Cauldron set up for a joint campaign game of Operation Market Garden. I was instantly hooked, and fortunately enough for yours truly, the two gentlemen running the game (Joe -- the Allied Commander -- and Matt -- the Axis Commander) kindly welcomed me into their game. I arrived shortly after morning of the 2nd day of Operation Market Garden and I stayed near enough to the game to see the entire day go by (over the course of several actual days of gameplay). The system that they put together for moving this game along was ingenious. In particular, it let them progress the game whether there were 5 people pushing around pieces of cardboard or one super-human(Joe) managing the whole process solo.

There were a lot of interesting troop dispositions along the map. I arrived in time to see Kampfgruppe Walther try to interdict movement along the Club Route for XXX Corps (where the Allies get their reinforcements) and ultimately fail in its attempt. 

Nijmegen

Now, curiously, it seems I didn't get a single photo of that action against the British 231st Brigade, but I did manage to get photos of the action around Nijmegen and the showdown at Arnhem. Pictured to the left is the shot of the British Airborne on the south side of the river. The cubes represent British and Axis forces that are located on a blow-up map of the city. Shortly after taking this photo, the cubes were obfuscated by various light and heavy barrage counters. Needless to say that despite the ahistorical landings and placement of forces in this game, it'll be interesting to see how day three of the campaign goes the next time that it's set up. (I'll have to read up on the rules again before attending WBC 2026). With the British AT on the south side of the river and the German defense in depth on the north side of the bridge, it'll be hard to see how this ends up any other way than a blood bath.

But, that was just the great mega-campaign for GTS and Operation Market Garden. I also had the great fortune to play a short game of PanzerBlitz, Versailles 1919 (also with Joe and Matt), and to also sit with a few of the great names with The Gamers who I've known of for years to watch them play Battalion Combat System.

All in all, this was a trip that couldn't be beat. Next time, I'll have more photos and more notes at the ready. Anyway, that's all of this WBC. 

My thanks to everyone who I met who made this a tournament to remember: Callie, Tony, Chip, Mark, Don, Jim, and especially Joe, Matt, & Curtis.

Singapore (1984) - Taking the Crown's Jewel of the Pacific

I purchased my first Strategy & Tactics magazine game in several years, S&T #96, and I was pleasantly surprised with the gameplay. Balance and some of the map design left something to be desired, but overall, if I'm not considering balance between the opposing sides, then this was a great play through.

Prepare yourself for some rare Japanese combined-arm tactics.

I needed a bit of a palette cleanser from my larger games, and that was one of the big motives that made me put this up on the table next. I can only take so many monster wargames before I crave something with less than 4,000 counters; hell, even less than 400 was what I was looking for. I've also had a few marathon-length posts go up in recent weeks, so I'll keep this one short(er) and sweet(er).

Starting set up for Singapore (S&T #96).

The game starts in December, 1941, on the Malaya Peninsula. A motley defensive array of commonwealth battalions (Malaya, Indian, Australian, British, etc.) set up roadblocks to defend Singapore at the tip of the peninsula from a tenacious assault by three Japanese infantry divisions: the 5th, the 18th, and the Imperial Guards Division.

The 5th Division arrived first from off map. Supported by the 18th and a couple regiments of armor, the Japanese infantry begin a lighting strike down the west coast of the Malay peninsula. Until Penang Island was secured (with naval shipping hopefully in tact), the Japanese wouldn't be in a position to utilize amphibious assaults against the other ports on the west coast of the peninsula. 

Penang shipping destroyed.

With the 18th operating in the mountains on the flank, the advance regiments of the Imperial Guards finally arrived, with a regiment of armor, to charge down the eastern edge of the peninsula. Early die rolls favored the Commonwealth defenders, though. Heavy concentrations of armor, infantry, and close air support only got so far in the first few turns. The Imperial Guards twice failed to force a river crossing against the east coast Indian defenders. To the west, the 5th Infantry managed to push back the Malay militia units, but not quick enough to secure the naval shipping on Penang. With the shipping destroyed, the Japanese regulars weren't in a position to leverage the full weight of their numbers on that side of the peninsula.

Hemmed in between the coast road and mountains, the Japanese pursued a rapid succession of sidles and pinning attacks to take advantage of the lack of Malay and Australian numbers on the west. The first major objective on the road to Singapore: Kuala Lumpur. Moving south of Penang, elements of the 18th cut off four brigades of the Malay defenders in the mountains, winning the first major coup for the Japanese. Their losses to attrition quickly followed, putting extra pressure on the advanced Australian brigades.

On the east coast, the first attempt by the Imperial Guards to launch an amphibious assault on a port behind the Indian defenses was intercepted by the Commonwealth's Force Z. The transports were sent back, luckily without loss. Instead, only stepped up air attacks and an exploitation of the terrain permitted an advance by the Imperial Guards. A second attempt was even further mishandled. The assaulting regiment was badly bloodied by Force Z and their supporting armor were also dealt a damaging blow before the assault reached the beaches. As a consolation, though, Japanese interceptors managed to cut off Force Z from its escape and send the task force below for 50 VPs.

On the west side of the peninsula, successive sidles by the 5th on the coast and pinning assaults by the 18th from the front pushed the Commonwealth defenders well below the parallel with the Indian brigades beating back the Imperial Guards. After the fall of Kuala Lumpur, where the 5th was bloodied, the remaining Malay and Aussie brigades fell back on the remaining river lines north of Singapore. The greatest single win for the Japanese on the road to Singapore was the single-handed annihilation of the three, reinforcing British brigades of infantry. With the collapse of Kuala Lumpur thrown into the hot mess, though, defending the east side of the peninsula became untenable for the Indians. This initiated a race to unite the two disparate commonwealth forces before the 18th Japanese infantry cut off the last line of defense. 

For the most part, the Indians managed to reunite with the main Commonwealth line north of Singapore. Only a couple brigades were cut off from the mine line of defense. 

With the Imperial Guards reunited with the 5th and 18th, the last of the commonwealth units made helter skelter for the safety of Singapore Island while fighting rearguard actions.

Arriving on the shores of the Johore Strait, the Japanese launched a coordinated infantry assault with 8 regiments. A full concentration of the last of the offensive fighting force in the 5th, 18th, and Imperial Guards Divisions. The Guards went in first, striking the naval base while crossing the north side of the strait. On the other side, the 18th went in to target the Punjabi and Australian units holding an interdicting line of fire on the causeway. The 5th (the star offensive unit in this campaign) thrust straight down the Causeway, striking the Indian defenders holding its access point to Singapore island. 

Japanese armor stayed behind to support follow-up attacks, support that the Japanese never needed. The Imperial Guards landed a surprisingly swift blow on the Naval Base with the help of Japanese air cover, sending its defenders back into Singapore city. Hot in pursuit, the advance elements of the Guards secured the reservoirs on Singapore Island. The 5th dealt a similarly handy blow to the Indians at the opposite end of the causeway without incident. It was the 18th who suffered greatest, though. All regiments suffered losses in their crossing against the Aussies and Punjabi defenders. They managed to take the opposite bank, but at disproportionate cost. The damage to the Commonwealth, though, was terminal.

The end for Singapore.

On a die roll of six, with the hard-crust defense of Singapore island broken and the reservoirs under control of the Imperial Guards, the British commanding general surrendered immediate control of the Island to the Japanese, thus ending the game.

With 269 Victory Points prior to the assault on Singapore Island, the Japanese had secured a solid, substantial victory against the commonwealth. With the losses taken by the 18th Division, however, that total was bumped down to 227, resulting in only a marginal victory. While the Japanese still secured the peninsula and the island, and not a single commonwealth brigade made it out of the battle, their failure to capture Penang shipping, their failure to execute a single amphibious assault during the campaign, and the losses their infantry and guards sustained during their attack were indicative of a less-than-stellar performance to utilize the true strengths of Japanese offensive capabilities. (This is really an indictment of my own strategies when playing as the Japanese). Loggerhead frontal assaults or battles of attrition really don't suit the Japanese too well. And this showed in the final score. In the end, it was a Japanese victory, but knowing how that battle plays out 9 times out of 10, it wasn't much of a stellar performance. Great game, but my tactics need more tweaking.

Anyway, that's that for this week. Next up ... I'm not sure. We'll have to see.

Doing the Math 2 - Logistics and Air to Air Combat in TSWW

Never without a shortage of projects to manage, I think we'll keep Doing the Math around for quite a while. The first post on Doing the Math (found here) was something borne of necessity at the time since I needed more than a pen and paper to make sense of the combat system in TSWW (The Second World War) from Diffraction Entertainment/TKC Games. Now, that being said, and having enjoyed that experience quite a bit, I'm happy to move along to a subject of interest that I find very engaging: logistics! (To round out this rather extended post, I'll move along the the air to air combat (ATAC) system in TSWW as well. For now though, strap yourself in for a discussion of battlefield logistics in the world of wargames).

What follows below is a two-part discussion on logistics. Section I will address in detail the land and air components of logistics and supply in TSWW game series. In Section II, I'll move on to a broader discussion of how logistics and supply are represented in wargames, what I think some systems do well, and what I think some still miss. Section II will address specific games and systems only in passing. My aim is more on how popular systems in general deal with the same problem that all wargames face specific to the topic of logistics and supply: how to represent something very complex, human, and manufactured in the everyday world into the confines of a game that is enjoyable, fun, easy to understand, and fair? Conundrums, conundrums. And finally, to round on this post, I will briefly discuss the air-to-air combat system in TSWW in Section III.

Anyway, onto TSWW.

Section I: Logistics in TSWW

As a rookie in TSWW series, supply and logistics in TSWW approach the mind boggling. But, never to be deterred, we'll approach this topic as a learning experience that, like all other such endeavors, requires us to take it piece by piece, and bit by bit. Again, as with my last Doing the Math, we won't be handling naval supply. I'll include a bit about air supply, but primarily, this will focus on the supply of land forces and airforces via TSWW's Continental Supply system. (Words in italics are terms specific to TSWW game rules. And, just one final note, the rules I reference are specific to the Game Rules as published in 2021 with version 1.6hp [Hakkaa Päälle]).

The game system upon which TSWW has been based approaches something more of a simulation than it does your everyday wargame. It's more simulation than it is game in many ways, and we find this the case with logistics and supply. In all games for the series, both are dependent on proximity to the National Supply Source, which is usually the player country's manufacturing base located in major cities. To account for those bullets being fired on the front lines, Diffraction Entertainment says its's not simple enough to avoid isolation (supply) on the battlefield or stay within communication distance of your HQ, those bullets need to make their way from the factories to the battlefield. Even in the learning scenarios, far as I can tell, bar exceptions that identify X as a supply source or Y as an exception, in every scenario and module, the point of TSWW is to simulate combat, and that doesn't happen without some nod to the National Supply Source. 

Units at the front line must stay in proximity to their supply sources in TSWW, lest they become isolated from their line of supply and/or over extended from their supply sources (in the event they advance too far from their line of communications). Isolation is when units are surrounded or cut off by enemy forces. Over extension is when units are beyond the supply limits originating at the National Supply Source(s). In general terms, this makes sense enough, but recognizing this differentiation in game terms can take a few reads of the rules to fully appreciate. The line of communications, the system connecting the supply sources to the units at the front, is the beast behind the combat system in TSWW. It comes in many shapes, sizes, and confounding configurations. And, as in all other things in TSWW, the weather really throws a wrench into the mix to complicate things.

Railroads are the major source of projecting the line of communications from the national supply source (I can't be bothered to keep capitalizing that term) to units at the front. Unlike other games where a line of contiguous supply must be maintained to a point, with no extensions allowed, daisy-chaining in TSWW is not only a thing, it's critical to extending the base of supply as far forward as possible. We'll discuss other systems of supply below in section II, but in TSWW, eventually, the natural line of communication reaches the extent of it's intrinsic limit and then various logistic and administrative counters/units serve to extend it. The end of the line of communications (LOC) is the LOC head. While the LOC may extend along friendly controlled high capacity railroads an unlimited distance from a national supply source, the length is limited to 20 hexes along low capacity railroads,  and further limited to 10 hexes along roads. As in all things TSWW, this too is further amended by poor weather. From there, the line of supply extends a further distance along the main supply route (MSR) if no other extension can be made. (Caveat: the extent of the MSR is dependent on the chain of supply that it's connected to. HQ MSRs are variable in length, whereas the MSR projected by an LOC head is six hexes in length). Anyway, don't get too hung up on the MSR, the point is that whenever the logistical network reaches the extend toward the front as far as it can to keep units in supply to avoid isolation and over extension, it's the MSR at the very forefront of that network (or the HQ itself). That network is extended, however, by supply terminals, quartermaster units (through extended continental supply), and various headquarters (Corps, Army, etc.). 

Supply terminals act as hubs; they can serve multiple different army groups, armies, and corps. They are necessary for the distribution of supply in hostile territory and the trickledown effect to pass along supply functions much the same way. They're also important because supply terminals are required to process LPs. An army group supplies multiple armies, an army supplies multiple corps, and so on. Quartermaster units help extend the connection between supply hubs and LOC heads to HQs and units at the front lines and are a common feature in overseas supply networks. The effect of this system is to simulate a logistical network that is organized to supply various armies, fronts, and theaters in disparate locations on (and off of) the maps in play, representing a trickle-down system of supply that is most dynamic at the nerve centers (national supply sources) and reaching to the furthest extent possible to supply front line units throughs (through the main supply route). 

Air supply in TSWW is closely linked to this system of continental supply. (Again, there are rules that govern overseas supply, but I will not cover these this time around since land and air combat themselves are a bear to deal with for a rookie to TSWW system.) Airbases need to trace a MSR to a source of supply and remain within stacking limitations to ensure all air wings and squadrons remain supplied. That's it. 

The whole raison d'être for the line of communications (again, as far as continental supply is concerned) in TSWW is to transmit general supply points (GSPs) and logistics points (LPs) to units at the front. Expenditure of GSPs by units' HQs or by the units themselves is how units stay in general supply (if they are beyond the reach of their LOC and MSR) and maintain offensive supply. 

But just where are the German Rollbahnen?

Now, one of my qualms about the logistic system that I have with TSWW, which I will not reserve for section II below, is the purpose of GSPs as far as general supply is concerned. GSPs cannot be transported by road or overland, except by QM units. They can only be transported by rail, air, or by ship. Since the use of QM units is rather limited, far as I understand their usage, in that case, how are GSPs supposed to serve as reliable sources of general supply? Unless low capacity rails far outstrip the utility of a logistics network, such that the LOC and MSR reach as far as they can even if the low capacity railroads extend way beyond them to deliver GSPs, how are units supposed to get supply in the interior of the continents? The inability to generally truck or shuttle GSPs on horse and cart seems like a gross oversight in my view. Sure, these units are represented intrinsically by the extension of the LOC along roads. I don't see, however, how this limitation to transport GSPs by road provides GSPs as a reliable source of flexibility to players except to permit them to put combat units into offensive supply. (Note 1 -- reference for below with regard to the supply system in Der Weltkrieg). 

I suppose there is some historical veracity to limiting the distribution of GSPs in this way, but that being said, I raise this point because in some of the scenarios found in TSWW (see this post here on the Battle of Suomussalmi for example), the scenario begins with GSPs placed in locations that they could not legally get to per the main game rules; in the Suomussalmi scenario, the GSPs are placed on road hexes that seem to have neither 1) any access to QM units or 2) been emplaced in such quantities ostensibly by Soviet transport aircraft given the period of the war and time of year. I'm still perplexed about the GSPs are doing there in that scenario. So, if anything, for a series that is insistent on developing a game system -- the legacy product of, and more mature version of, Europa -- that's designed to recreate all of the battles in World War II from start to finish with a built-in logistics system that can accommodate all of the theaters across which the war was fought, I find myself scratching my head trying to understand how the logistics in TSWW can adequately simulate the fringe cases that are out there. Certainly, as far as the production of supply and its distribution from national supply sources are concerned, TSWW system does a good job presenting an image of trickle-down-supply to the units at the front. This is representative of strategic level wargames that play out operationally; TSWW is not, in my opinion, operational. It is multi-theater, and that goes beyond an operational focus when it comes to logistics. But is it dynamic enough for the task set before it? Does a system that's designed with the minutiae of strategic-level warfare for operational consumption play out as well as it should? Only time will tell as I log more games. Consider this an open question. The system of supply and logistics in TSWW is ambitious and, as one of my undergraduate thesis committee members termed, "burrito-sized". It'll take time to chew through the fat. 

(Take as a final grain of salt that I have zero experience with the QM units in TSWW; where are they in the smaller scenarios. I'll revisit this after a longer campaign some time, and maybe then it'll make sense to me how GSPs can be more dynamically transported, but in the absence of heavy QM usage, I fail to see how TSWW plays out in any substance beyond the existing rail networks printed on the map.)

And as a final tidbit on the supply of air units, the rule concerning their logistics is quite simple. Air units are in supply if their airbase(s) is located within six hexes of an LOC. That's it.

Now, should we at the very least dive into an example of logistics and supply to make sure we've gotten a good grasp on the concepts outlined above? I say let's give it a shot. So, let's take a look at the map of lower and central Finland, pictured below. For the sake of illustrating the challenges of supply, let's pick some points on the map to try and supply from both a defending (Finnish) and attacking (Russian) side. We'll also consider our options under optimal weather conditions as well as awful weather conditions.

Tracing the chain of supply starts with the LOC, originating at a national supply source. The LOC can run an unlimited distance along high capacity rail lines, 20 hexes along low capacity rail lines, and a further 10 hexes along roads (but not tracks). (The limitation along low capacity rails and roads is cut by 50% in freezing weather.) Let's say we want to supply troops in Suomussalmi from Helsinki. We'd trace our LOC to Kuusankowski (4008) and from there 20 hexes along the single tracked rails, north. The low capacity rails bring us to Kontiomaki (4426) and from there, a further four hexes via intrinsic roads to Suomussalmi. The town lies on the LOC (which continues by road north off of the photo's edge). In the case of freezing weather, tracing from Kontiomaki our limited length LOC, we can only trace along the rail line up to Pieksamaki (4017) and then a further five hexes up to the hex in between Iisalmi and Sillinjarvi. With an Army HQ at Pieksamaki (STs cannot be placed at the LOC head because they can only be placed on the rail portion of LOCs), supply can be passed up to a Corps HQ at Kuopio, and a further three hexes from there into Iisalmi itself, one hex beyond the road portion of the LOC head. Rather than drawing supply from either source, though, supply can get farthest through the immediate MSR extending from the LOC head, getting at least as far as Kajaani (4325), still four hexes shy of Suomussalmi. To supply units at Suomussalmi, GSPs need to be transported by rail beyond the LOC. 

Finally, to give an example for the Russians, let's say the Russian commander wants to get his supply as close to Suomussalmi as he can. Starting the LOC from Petrozavodsk (5613) on Lake Onega, the Russian player can freely trace their LOC up to Nadovoitsy (5624), and from there five hexes east along the low capacity rails to Muezerskiy (where a ST may be emplaced) and then a further four hexes along the gravel road to Kostomuksha (4827) on the Finnish border. This is the Russian's LOC head. From here, an Army HQ may extend supply to a Corps HQ, say in Raate. This gets the Russians into supply one hex east of Suomussalmi. From here, a Corps HQ may keep units in general supply in/around Suomussali and also extend them Offensive Supply if available. 

Plenty of other examples abound, but this hopefully gives a satisfactory introduction. 

(Totally unrelated: who's excited for Spaceballs 2?!)

Anyway, moving on.

Section II: Supply and Logistics in Historical Wargames

This is the section that I've been really been itching to write since I sat down for Doing the Math 2.

Logistics and supply go hand-in-hand when it comes to wargames, if they're represented at all. Before you can have logistics, you need to get the concept of supply down for your games. I would say that in many wargames, you have to worry about supply, and insofar as your units don't suffer from isolation, you don't have to worry too much about the mechanics of supplying your troops. The Dark Summer is a good example, since I just finished a play through not too long ago; in Ted Racier's Dark Summer, for a player's combat units to be fully functional, they only need to maintain an continuous line of supply. In game terms, this just means you have to avoid isolation for your units. As the German player, this is the case every turn. For the Allies, it's even simpler; supply is only checked on turns where it's raining or storming. No matter how far the front extends, supply points, depots and hubs, and so on bear no consequence to the game. The entirety of the game's logistics is abstracted in the form of supply determination. At the moment when supply is determined for each unit, players only have to concern themselves with whether or not the units are effectively isolated. That's it. All matters concerning logistics are subsumed in this processes of determining the isolation status, with predictable results if a unit is found to be isolated. Without even referring to the rules at this point, isolation (generally speaking) for systems of supply of this sort has two effects: reduced combat effectiveness and attrition. This is where the key components of logistical consequences rear their heads. With attrition, the isolation status indicates that having been cut off from the main line of supply, combat units are beginning to feel the effects of combat fatigue. Without supplies to sustain them, thanks to their isolation status, combat units are liable to suffer attrition, signaling either the surrender of the unit for want of ammunition, food, medicine, and/or other supplies, the actual death of the unit's combatants (again for want of food, medicine, etc.), and so on. This is of course what we game players should understand to happen. Of course, in game terms where the turns are at one- or two-week intervals, it's hard to appreciate this level of abstraction. If, say, I roll a critical attrition loss of 6 on a single die roll after my first turn being out of supply and isolated, it may feel like I've just lost 10,000 men at the drop of a hat and somehow cheated not only by the dice gods but somehow also by the designer(s). Of course, what I suppose I would have missed with that perspective is that -- to put myself into the conditions on the ground that have been abstracted beyond quick comprehension -- what I've really done is send 10,000 men out on a mission on the far edge of the line, had them hold their position unsupported for 2+ weeks without air cover, enough food, water, or ammunition, and have expected them to last in that position for the better part of a month. It shouldn't be a surprise if, finding them isolated, they don't hold out to the last man. In fact, their loss by attrition is certainly understandable in that case. To bring it full circle then, in games like the Dark Summer, when we abstract logistics to the point that it's subsumed in the system of supply and we're playing at anything other than the most minute tactical scale, we game players only experience the implied extremes; a single die roll is the only thing that can stand between the irrelevance of isolation and counter death, signaling the attrition of 10,000 "at the drop of a hat". 

The more complex games are, the more they approach something akin to a simulation as opposed to a game, and the more that they draw out the systems of supply and logistics, the less that we wargamers experience these extremes. 

Now I think I'm not alone here when I say that as far as historical wargames are concerned, not every game needs to account for logistics in the way that those like the TSWW series does. In many respects, those like the Dark Summer are sufficient in their design. Much like there's a measure of relative complexity and playability between a game on one side of a scale and a simulation on the other side of the scale, the complexity of how supply and logistics are represented in historical wargames is very similar in that respect. On the game side of things -- where everything is gamified, abstracted, adjusted to match playability and so forth -- I'd expect to find the system of supply and logistics simplified in one small section of the rules. Clean, simple, and effective are the guiding rules of design. Then you encounter at the opposite end of the scale something like the system found in TSWW: supply lines and lines of communication that determine whether or not a unit can survive where it's located, totally separate to the provision of munitions and other necessary paraphernalia for executing an offensive. Supply is tied to, yet distinct from, logistics. At least in my view, such is how games, broadly defined, eventually blend into something like simulations when it comes to historical wargames.

Two additional points worth noting here. This is a simple way to think about supply and logistics and how they're represented, but it's not universally applicable. The subject matter itself has a significant bearing on that representation, whether it's more abstract and/or simplified, or more true to real life, and complex. Scale and time period have a lot to say about how a wargame should be designed. Firstly, as far as all historical wargames out there are concerned, the period being represented plays an important part in how supply is represented. It's no surprise to many of the wargamers and grognards out there that warfare in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century and the first half of the Twentieth Century heavily depended on the use of railroads. It features prominently in the provision of supply in OCS and TSWW series and the movement of supply points, GSPs, and LPs in those series. Take a game on the campaigns of Alexander the Great or Europe's conquest of the New World and the issue of representing reality looks very different. Time period has a lot to say about what is represented and how. Scale presents its own problems on top of this. 

And secondly, on the issue of scale, perhaps the games that best distinguish this fact come from The Gamers/MMP. At least to begin with, their games offer a great entry point to this topic. While the design for what (supply and logistics) is represented in their games stays pretty consistent to a particular sort of core rule design, the representation in game terms is still distinctly unique. (You can tell that even across the different series, the design of the core rules is pretty consistent and only deviates based one series complexity and scale). Of the series produced by The Gamers/MMP, the Operational Combat System (OCS) plays very differently from the quartermaster point of view than does the Standard Combat System (SCS). 

A lot of creativity comes with scale as well. The granularity of abstraction in historical wargames offers a lot of flexibility. Some of the highest level games come at the level of theaters. Think World in Flames by Australian Design Group or the Totaler Krieg series of games that has finally culminated with Axis Empires. Not only are the games trying to represent the combat on the ground, but there's entire political economic and social policy spheres that are represented into one singular package. At the far opposite end of the spectrum, we encounter games like Advanced Squad Leader from AH/MMP, where the issue of logistics and supply has very different gameplay effects: the breakdown of weapons as opposed to the breakdown of say an offensive. In ASL, for instance, one of my favorite mechanics has to be the reduction of the breakdown number for support weapons due to not only mechanical frailty or poor design, but a lack of ammunition as well. In the historical modules as well, additional rules govern what the lack of supplies does to the multi-man counters. Having never played any of the HASL modules with those rules though, I won't comment further. 

The point of this entire discussion though is that while there is indeed a scale of complexity for historical wargames and simulations that aligns well with how supply and logistics are represented, there isn't necessarily a one-size-fits-all sort of rule here. While I'll certainly say that there is an ideal sweet spot, it's dependent on multiple factors (including scale and time period, and not just intended complexity). 

At this juncture, I'd like to dive into a few examples to make this as obvious as possible. Operational-level games offer one of the best indications of how the representation of supply and logistics can make or break a game, and it has to do with the supply of armaments, munitions, and miscellaneous other equipment to the units conducting offensives. And the first indication for why these are important concerns at the operational level is located in the distinction between two definitions.

What distinguishes a tactician from a strategist? While a tactician sets out to achieve set (incremental) goals by the means and tools afforded them on the ground, a strategist focuses on the grand-scale achievement of long-term and picture-goals. Insofar as the strategist is concerned with the work of the tactician, the former works to provide the ideal means and the necessary tools to the latter. (If I were sitting in at a corporate board of directors meeting right now, I'd probably boil this down to big-picture thinking versus concern for the minutiae of day-to-day operations.) In other words, one is ultimately much more concerned about the concert of logistics than the other. Care to take a guess which one? 

Tactics depends on supply and logistics, but it's not directly concerned with the provision of either (provided of course the quartermasters and generals are doing their jobs, which is a lot to ask in this day and age). The tactician shouldn't have to worry about whether or not they have enough hand grenades or mortar bombs to accomplish the mission; that's a job for the strategist. I may of course take some flak for this proposition; strategists aren't only concerned with supply and logistics (that's primarily what quartermasters are for I suppose), but supply and logistics -- the provision of both, the strengths they afford armies, or the frailty they can imbue -- certainly play into a strategist's thinking, and their planning. After all, strategists don't only think about their own supply lines, they think about their adversary's supply lines, their own supply strengths and weaknesses, and the best strategies with which to bring them down, or maybe avoid them completely. Strategy involves many things, but if it doesn't involve supply and logistics, then something has gone horribly awry, or is liable to go FUBAR right quick. 

Wargames evoke the tactician and strategist in every player, and without hashing out the various possibilities we get when we come across variation in scale, period, design, and so on, there are games that try to cater to both; there are tactical systems and a grand, strategic scale (like the aptly titled Grand Tactical Series from MMP) and there are operational games that provide a granular view of the field (though much harder to accomplish with cardboard; the video games produced by Eugen Systems like the Wargame and Steel Division franchises give a good indicator of what I mean by operational and still granular). That being said, though, operational games by the necessity of their design (again, take that last part with a grain of salt) force players to put on their strategist cap and confront the challenges of the quartermaster; this is primarily because operations are not infinite. Operations and offensives start and they stop. They are by what armies measure their progress, hopefully in terms of miles and not yards (I've measured my life by kilometers once, and I'll never do it again). And, most importantly, when we talk about logistics, the provision of supplies, shells, and machine gun bullets are most consequential when pulling off an offensive, or repelling one. While fighting may happen year round, it's not a slugfest 24/7 with constant massed bombardments, persistent hand to hand combat, or the movement of millions across continents. When we play theater-level or global-level games (think Uncontional Surrender by GMT Games or World in Flames) or tactical level games (like Combat Commander or Squad Leader), we sometimes don't have the right scale at hand to appreciate this fact. But operational games bring out the best (and worst) in wargame supply and logistics, and that's what we're here to discuss. Hopefully now you at least have an appreciation as to why this is what I've chosen to discuss.

Are you getting winded yet? We're just getting to the good part, I assure you. My briefing isn't over yet, so stay with me.

In my view, the mark of an excellent operational wargame is one that mimics the challenge of maximizing logistical networks and the provision of supply to achieve the objectives of an offensive. Very often, history shows, it's not the training of the men, the quality of the generals, or even the number of gun tubes that matter in the end. Wargame designers have, after all, spent half a century perfecting the abstraction of these qualities in their wargames. Instead, it is very often the lack of munitions (and in particular the right kind of munitions) that matter in the end. Operational wargames that fail to account for this in my view do a disservice to the players.

Anyone who has played the Operational Combat Series by MMP/The Gamers knows that very often, the availability of artillery units is not wanting on the board; it's the supply points needed to expend artillery shells that they often lack. In Tunisia I, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Germans still had plenty of troops, armor, and artillery on the board even though the Afrika Korps was in it's death throes at that point in 1943. I could hold back the British 8th Army with relative ease, if only I had the supply points necessary to maximize the force I had at hand. Throughout that game, I never once brought any of my nebelwerfers or heavy artillery into the fight in defense of the Mareth Line because there weren't enough shells for the gun tubes I had on hand. Take a look at any conflict over the last several centuries and you'll find that very often, the ratio of ordnance to munitions is almost impossible to get right. 

Remember when the United States began to send Javelin anti-tank missiles to the Ukrainians fighting the Russians in 2022/2023? (No? Well, I do). Critical ammunition shortages for the supply of those munitions were readily apparent when news came out that while Ukraine was expending 500 Javelin missiles a day, it took a Lockheed Martin assembly line a whole year to produce just 2,100 of them. (For you fact checkers out there, this is the article I remember reading). See a problem? It doesn't matter if you own the technology, have the right combatants to operate them, or even have enough missile launchers to fire at every Russian clanker trundling down the road at you; if your soldiers don't have the missiles to fire on those tanks, you're going to have a problem. 

How about another example? There's an interesting memoir by a Russian political officer from the Second World War that was published in English some years ago called Through the Maelstrom. The author, Boris Gorbachevsky, if my memory serves me right, started the war off in a mortar platoon, but seeing that there weren't enough mortars for his unit or mortar bombs for what tubes they had, high command converted his unit into an infantry outfit and sent him to the Rhzev front. Serving on the front until the end of the war, he survived long enough to observe that whereas every mortar only had 10 rounds per tube at the start of their war with the Germans, by the war's end, there were more than a hundred rounds available per tube. Here too, the ratio of ordnance to munitions was left wanting. 

Let's have one more example, shall we? There's a great autobiography of a soldier named Joseph Plumb Martin who served in George Washington's army during the American Revolution. Among the many interesting things that Martin discusses, including how they treated illnesses and the more primitive forms of vaccination back then, Martin does make some passing reference to the issue of munition supply at one point early in his narrative. I don't have the book with me, so I can't say during what battle he makes reference to this fact, but somewhere early in the war, Martin says that their cannoneers were hard pressed to lay their hands on enough cannon balls. To help remedy the shortage, Martin and many of his compatriots would run into the open ground, slipping and sliding in the mud to look for intact and expended cannon balls. If they could return any of them back to their lines, they were rewarded a ration of rum for each ball. 

I could go on. Suffice it to say that in many an offensive, stockpiles play a role. It's up to designers 1) if they choose to represent that fact at all and 2) if they do, how they choose to represent that particular challenge of supply. It's not enough to get the troops their soup or hardtack, but they have to be supplied with the munitions to fight a war, and sometimes that means launching offensives that consume more than the otherwise average daily expenditure of munitions. 

I've already mentioned OCS. OCS does an excellent job bringing the gun tubes and not enough munitions. To be sure, too, it's not just heavy ordnance, but even the little things, like machine gun bullets. The consumption of commissary supplies, medical resources, small arms ammunition and heavy ordnance munitions are all covered by the rules governing the movement and expenditure of supply points in OCS. Any newbie to the system will probably tell you that the system is a bear to get a hold of; while it's simple enough (your units cannot survive or fight in many locations on the maps without supply points), understanding where they can survive and how efficiently the combat units can fight is tricky to get a hold of; even so, as far as series rules are concerned, OCS does a nice job putting something together that lets players recreate the operational constraints of different battles/theaters using the same basic rule system. Once you get the knack of shuttling your supply points around, it makes it pretty easy to understand; no, you can't daisy chain HQ units together to throw supply up ahead, etc. Wrapping one's head around those sorts of rules takes a couple of reads. 

TSWW approaches something similar; you've got different types of supply counters that get sent to the front lines and then consumed by combat units. As far as streamlining those rules into effective gameplay mechanics, though, I would certainly say that OCS is much more playable. There's only one type of supply in OCS (supply points) versus multiple kinds in TSWW (LPs and GSPs). Again, on the spectrum between a game and a simulation, OCS feels very much like it's on the game side of things whereas TSWW falls more to the side of a simulation. Then again, this is simply a relative appraisal between the two. To the casual board gamer who thinks the rules to Catan, Root, or Twilight Imperium are needlessly complex, they'd probably offer me a piece of their mind for suggesting OCS doesn't feel like a simulation. And maybe they'd be right -- after all, I've played my fare share of OCS by now; and maybe after another 100 hours with TSWW, I'll feel differently. But that being said, my point is hopefully clear enough; how wargame designers actually design the supply and logistics systems matter a great deal to the playability of operational wargames. Some feel more streamlined, other's clunkier in the name of simulation.

Some systems, frustrating as they can be to play, near perfectly mimic the battles they've been designed to represent. In this category, I'd place SPW's Der Weltkrieg series of games on the Great War. The games produced under the Der Weltkrieg banner are a case-in-point of how offensives live and die by the resources available to the combatants. Especially for the battles of the Great War, SPW does a fantastic job recreating the limited success that many offensives were able to achieve. Attackers, with their stockpiles of precious shells, can move the frontline a few miles this way or that, but with little to no exception, they can forget about achieving some illustrious, war-winning breakthrough. This wasn't the war for that; it's a grind, and Der Weltkrieg replicates that grind of men and materiel well. I won't speak for the campaign game in Der Weltkrieg; I haven't played it, but the individual scenarios use a simplified supply system that requires players to expend supply points for divisions to fight at their full fighting strength. When done right, attacks can achieve local breakthroughs and a shift in the general line this way or that, but by design, most scenarios prevent players from doing more than what their logistical limitations will allow. I've seen reviews by players saying this is a disappointment in gameplay terms because without their precious supply points, offensives grind to a halt. This is not a point to be deducted from Der Weltkrieg if you think about it, but rather a very nice plus in favor of the system's merits. It adds color to the strategic picture of an operational wargame; combat tactics aren't the only conundrum thrust upon the players. They also have to confront the challenge of supply. In my view, that's what makes a great wargame. Never mind the fact that the designer decided to make the maps compatible with a WW2 series of games that as of this date hasn't been published ...

Let's collect ourselves for a moment here and think about the three systems I've just discussed (in varying degrees of comprehensiveness): TSWW, OCS, and Der Weltkrieg. I've listed them in descending order of complexity. TSWW is the most complex; OCS probably has the largest cult following, and Der Weltkrieg has the simplest rules and system of the three. Despite the varying degrees of complexity, each game affords their players a finite view of the options available to them when it comes to expending supply points. The expenditure of resources and munitions using the supply and logistics rules in each game is calculable. Some scenarios/campaigns have variable supply level rules (like some OCS scenarios/campaigns), but for the most part, players watch their supplies trickle down, or occasionally trickle up.

Occasionally, however, there are supply and logistical systems for tracking munitions that are based more on variability than a system for distributing supply point chits to different HQs across the board (as in OCS). In my opinion, the model system in this category is the Grand Operational Simulation Series by Decision Games. In GOSS, artillery units are always on the verge of ammo depletion thanks to an ingenious system that abstracts the supply of munitions between the opposing sides. Rather than expend supply without regard for the potential for waste (where's the X-inefficiency values?), GOSS has players roll for ammo depletion every time their artillery units fire. The ammo depletion number serves two purposes. First, it's reduced occasionally to replenish ammo; second, it's used to check for possible depletion. If players pass the check against their depletion number, the artillery fires without penalty; if it fails, it's marked as ammo depleted. Once depleted, batteries can't be fired until players refresh the supplies. To do so, they have to diminish the ammo depletion number by 1, thereby making future rolls riskier. Players strategically have to decide if they want to replenish their ammunition stocks early to bring as many guns to bear in bombardment, or they can delay and fire with what units haven't been marked as depleted to conserve their depletion value.

In my experience, with the luck of die rolls, I've had several sections of the front lose artillery support in GOSS thanks to this system. Wanting to conserve my ammunition in the other sectors, I willingly went without support in certain sectors to retain a higher depletion rate in the others. This system offers a different way to deal with the issue of supply and logistics, and it makes game play a little smoother in my opinion compared to shuttling around SPs, even if I do enjoy that aspect of certain games.

To be sure, though, supply and logistics isn't just about blowing things up; it's more than just munitions. An important part of the equation is rolling stock and the movement of troops, trucks, and tanks. Sometimes that means horses, sometimes that means trains, and sometimes that means trucks or cargo planes. In the most complicated of games, you get all of those. The ones that streamline it and make you forget about pesky rules, though, are the rare few that thread the needle well and produce something magnificent, as opposed to the bloated, clunky, and unnecessarily complicated. 

Here too, I've got an example for you all. In Ernst Kern's War Diary, Kern chronicles the four years that he spent as a mountain trooper on the Eastern Front in the German army during WW2. At one point, I recall a passage where he talks about retreating across the Soviet Union when his unit came across transport trucks very close to the frontline that should have been much farther in the rear. In his surprise at seeing the trucks so close to the front, he determined that somewhere there must have been a "colossal mess," as he put it. Even in war, the management of transportation plays a strategic role, and I suppose in Kern's case, someone had clearly overlooked where those trucks were supposed to be.

Better yet, even, where are the games that mimic the movement of trains as in Heinrich Böll's Der Zug war pünktlich (The Train was on time)? Trains going to the rear were always slow in arriving, but the ones returning to the front were always punctual, always on time. Again, this is just food for thought. Not all railways are the same, but I don't know that many wargames out there need to take that into account.

Similar to how ammo depletion is held in GOSS, a mirrored system of abstraction for mobilizing foot units in that series of games governs the use of transport points. Unlike GOSS, by comparison, OCS provides truck point counters for this purpose to shuttle both supply points and troops (if my memory serves me right) around the map. 

At risk of perpetuating this discussion ad nauseum, I'll just offer by way of conclusion a couple of thoughts. First, supply and logistics should be a serious design consideration in wargames, especially the more complex and strategic they become. But, unless the designer has a simulation in mind as opposed to a game, the mechanics of the system of supply and logistics should empower players to harness their penchant for strategy and not inhibit them. That's not to say the more abstract the better; on the contrary, some of the best games out there require careful tracking of resources and supplies. It's all about threading the needle between complexity, realism, scale, era, and mechanism. 

And lastly, a word on the Campaign for North Africa (the famous 1979 simulation?/game? designed by Richard Berg). Talking about supply and logistics, I'd be remiss not to mention this one; not because I want to discuss the intricacies of its design or because I am a member of the cult following. I am not. What I hope to dispel is any thought that there's something that needs to be discussed about CNA in this post. The game is a wonderous feat from the design perspective; its genius is not in playability, but what it allowed wargamers to do in 1979. Before us wargamers had the computing power and resources of the computer and information age available to us, all of the complexity involved in calculation had to be done by hand. We simply didn't have a way to streamline computation. Richard Berg's CNA is the game par excellence that presaged the age of computerized wargames, whether it was something like the Steel Panthers franchise or the mammoth productions by Gary Grigsby (War in the East, War in the West, and War in the East 2). CNA is a genius feat because it found a way to employ that level of detail into something that was, ostensibly, playable. It's the simulation if there ever was one, but it's clear that it was an important step on the long winding road of wargame design. That being said though, you'd be crazy to think we need another one like that. In my opinion, we don't need another CNA, but we needed it then. The challenge today is threading that needle between complexity, realism, scale, era, and mechanism. There are still many designs to be tested in that regard, and many that have come out wonderfully so far. 

Anyway, let's get moving on, shall we?

Section III: Air-to-Air Combat in TSWW

To conclude this second post on Doing the Math, I'd like to take a final few moments to discuss the air-to-air combat procedure in TSWW. For a game that goes to great lengths to simulate the ground combat of the Second World War, the aerial combat that accompanies the ground combat is surprisingly abstract. As far as I can tell, without any exceptions, air units are treated either as squadrons (reduced strength counters of around 20 aircraft) or wings (full strength counters of around 40 aircraft). Counters fly to assigned destinations for whatever missions they've been assigned to (more on that below), perform air-to-air combat against any aircraft that oppose them, resolve anti-aircraft fire (if any), and then resolve their mission assignment. 

Now the missions themselves, and the flight of wings and squadrons to fulfill those missions, approach -- I would say -- the closest thing to a simulation of air roles for the air forces of the Second World War. Flight distance and mission type have an impact on the performance of aircraft and the effect that those units have on the battles raging on the ground (and/or at sea). I won't go into an in-depth discussion here on the variety of missions available to players of TSWW; but it would seem to me that by comparison with the level of thought and detail that went into designing the various air missions that one can assign to air forces in TSWW, air-to-air combat is itself abstracted to the extent that it's only meant to facilitate combat between air units that matter at a operational-strategic/theater level, whereas the missions those aircraft are performing are really the more consequential component to conflict on the ground/at sea. In other words, air-to-air combat is not going to be simulated the same way that ground combat is. Maybe I'm wrong in this assessment, but to me, it would seem to make sense that for TSWW, it's the air missions that don't involve air-to-air combat that matter more for gameplay's sake than the actual engagement of aircraft v. aircraft. 

There are two mechanisms that determine air-to-air combat outcomes in TSWW. The first is the Air CEV (which is an abstraction of factors like unit cohesion, training, leadership, and so on at a national level). The second is a material rating between the offensive armament and features of the aircraft engaging in combat and the defensive armament and features of the aircraft. The difference in Air CEVs between both sides is calculated as a die roll modifier for the combat and then the difference between the offensive & defensive capabilities of the aircraft involved are calculated as a differential that's used to determine the column on which combat is rolled for each aircraft. 

For example, if Player A attacks Player B's bomber (Attack 1, Defense 2) with a fighter (Attack 4, defense 3) and Player A has an Air CEV of 2 versus Player B's Air CEV of 3, the combat is calculated as follows: Player A receives a -1 DRM for his/her combat (2-3) and Player B receives a +1 DRM for his/her combat (3-2). Then, Player A rolls for the attack against the bomber on the differential column of +2 (Attack 4 - Defense 2, assuming no other modifiers), with the -1 DRM. Then, Player B does the same (his/her bomber "attacks" in kind in response to the fighter: Attack 1 - Defense 3, assuming no other modifiers), with a +1 DRM. Assuming a die roll of 5 on the +2 Differential column, modified to 4, Player A would effect an "R" result against Player B's bomber. For Player B's part, in response, assuming Player B rolls a 5 on the -2 differential column, modified to a 6, the result would also be an "R" result. 

After a little practice, this is quite an easy system to grasp and get a hold of. The result is a system for combat in the air that doesn't feel as involved as it does for ground combat. In part, this is result of scale for the type of combat, and it also has to do with the objective envisaged for air units in TSWW in the first place.

By way of conclusion, hopefully this gives a good impression of how logistics and air-to-air combat factor into the gameplay of TSWW.