Doug Murphy - 06:13pm Sep 30, 1999 PST (#1448 of 1463) Correct as usual, King Friday! I'm soon to start playtesting Command's upcoming "The Old Contemptibles: The Battle of Mons, 1914" - the kit looks v. interesting. Operational level. German is the attecker. BEF on defensive, trying to block terrain objectives and escape off map. 123 counters (mostly regt. & batt.), 34 x 22 inch map. Looks like the German's 3 corps rush on map over a few turns and try to take all six bridges over the Conde Canal which stretches across most of the 'upper' map by turn 7. If he fails, he has until Turn 14 to do 2 of the following: try to take Bavai (near map bottom), kill at least 20 Brits or keep exiting Brit units under 9. We'll be testing / concentrating on these secondary vict. conditions. I've already puzzled out a strategy to try to untangle the Brits. The most interesting thing about the rules is the Brit side has the choice of move/fight, fight/move, move/move or fight/fight in his turn. The map is also most interesting, seeing that the kit map is the 'standard' rectangle but without the 'fourth' corner which is considerably lopped off. Got to get out of my books a map of this territory to see why. I'll post more as we get into it. ------------------------- Ty Bomba - 02:26pm Oct 4, 1999 PST (#1462 of 1463) [ Mark ] ((What follows is the first playtest report from Doug Murphy, which I received earlier today.)) We managed to play through 1 and a half games this weekend. Here is our first report. Unless otherwise noted, all comments refer to things that happened in both outings. In both games, it took 2 turns for the German turn 1 spearheads (1 regt and 1 cav or arty) to reach the outskirts of Mons and the other built up areas in front of the Conde. The first turn in march mode brought the Germans just up to the built up areas and turn 2 saw them move to the attack. This 2 turn timing allowed the British to successfully shuffle their forces to the east (towards Mons) in a Move / Move sequence and meet their opponents in the built up areas ahead of the canal crossings. Anticipating the Turn 4 spearheads, the Brits left units guarding the Conde crossings in front of them. Query: are there six or seven Conde crossings? Victory conditions mention the Germans' having to hold six. We counted seven but we may be misinterpreting a map feature. Are the red bridges on the maps 'railbridges' or some other crossings? We said yes - one has crossings at roads and these 'separate' crossing points. The negative roll modifers for bombardment and melee in built up areas generally hurt the Germans and helped the British. Also, the limit against div. cooperating in attacks / bombardments in the early game hurt the Germans. One spearhead (17 div) went through Maisieres and attempted to cross the river into the built up areas past that town: 3 regts crossed at 4707, 4506 and 4606 and attacked a Brit stack (at its limit) in 4607 and a smaller stack in 4608.. Bombardment was ineffective and Brit defensive fire crippled two regt. (both lost both steps). This drop in combat power was telling. The other (18 div) went straight in toward the river crossing and actually put a single cav unit across before the Brits could close the gap. But Brit units at stack limts surrounded the cav and eliminated it in their turn during combat in turn 3. Bombardment did take out a few Brit units here. In the next two turns, the German inf. units crossed the bridge at 4305 and faced the maelstrom - getting reduced against the Brit stacks in 4206, 4306 and 4406. The 4206 and 4406 stacks were slowly reduced due to bombardments, but it didn't go fast enough to help 18 div. The 6 div spearhead took the road into Mons from the west, entering the built up areas. They successfully blew away the unit guarding 4207 and crossed over. While Brit units closed around this unit, they were hurt by bombardment and by turn six, the Brits had used a Move/Move to evacuate Mons and move south. The 5 div spearhead attacked from 3208 against a Brit stack at stacking limits and got decimated by DRMs in melee. Turn 4 and 5 saw continued German attacks. In game 1, German die rolling was initially very abysmal - three out of four attacks saw results below 1 due to DRMs. Two questions that came up and are answered in the rules - were results below 1 = 1; and are terrain combat modifiers cumulatives? We said yes to both. The Brits are pretty fragile in the attack in this game (only initiated one attack against the cav unit in 4305). In both games, Brits didn't attack - only took up blocking positions and used defensive fire. After being outflanked, they fell back. Bad defensive fire rolls in the early game generally ended up killing Brit units, as they left them facing powerful (relatively) Germans. The Turn 4 spearheads attacked at 2707 and 1708. Div 8 crossed at 1608 and sent units to cross at 1610. In Game 1, the Brit did not leave enough units to cover this and retreated towarde Quieverehain. In Game 2, the Brits blocked these crossings with the mobile arty units (1511, 1610 and around Conde). However in Game 2, the German div 8 spearhead screened Conde and simply extended the line southwared toward Valenciennes. In our hot-washup to game 2, we figured this flank was the key. The Germans should threaten Mons, and tie up Brits there - while using the Turn 4 units to move toward Valenciennes and outflank the Brits. In Game 2, this movement unnerved the Brit player. We discussed trying in our next game to hold the Brits in the built up areas, if outflanked on this side of the map, even to the point of conceding Bavai to force the Germans to come after the Brits to gain the crossings, kill units. In neither game did the Germans come close to taking all the crossings by turn 7. In both games, the Brits still held the crossings 'in the middle' while bending at Mons and Conde. In turn 8, the remaining Brit units used a Move/ Move to scamper south out of the way. We absolutely loved the wide openness that this sequencing flexibility gave the Brits in this game. One could literally pull rabbits out of hats, or rather, hold until almost surrounded and then get successfully away - though candidly, the German march mode could be devastating - we forgot to use it to best effect on the Conde-side flanking move in both games. In Game one, the Brit strategy worked - hold the crossings against all comers until the end of turn seven, then run like hell for the exit hexes. We reasoned if more than 8 units move off and less than 14 or so are left to be killed, the Brits win. So in Game one, by turn 11, the Germans had killed 6 Brits, but everyone else - 14+ units exited - I can't find my notes about exactly how many. We figured Germans lost. In Game two, the Germans swept south - trying to cut off the exit hexes and there was some nasty open fighting around Bavai when we had to end game by turn 10. -------------- Answers from Ty Bomba below ------- Conde Crossing hexes: There's one crossing hex, 3308, that has a road bridge and a rail bridge in it. But that makes no difference for the first day victory conditions. Note I said the German must only control the "south bank hex" of each such crossing. Thus, for victory condition purposes, the two bridges in that one hex count only as one hex. The two rule interpretations you answered "yes" to yourself are correct: both are answered as "yes. In a well-played game the German really shouldn't have much of a chance to win with the day-one victory conditions. They're there simply to prevent the British player from bugging out starting right with Game Turn 1. (After all, on that first day the British commanders on the spot didn't know what was going to be overall strategy, that the "great retreat" was about to begin to be followed by the "miracle on the Marne," etc. etc. The decision to abandon the Conde canal line wasn't taken until a command conference was held that night after the first day's action. British fragility on the attack: Both sides are relatively fragile when attacking, because, of course, this period was when the first demonstrations occurred of how much defensive firepower had pulled ahead of offensive tactics. If the British try an offensive strategy, though, it'll hurt them first because they start with the smaller army. It sounds to me like all is going well. Please press forward with more tests as your schedule permits. Ty Bomba