David R. Moody - Jan 31, 2008 1:14 pm (#21691 Total: 21727) Last night, for the first time in a while, I met up with Joe Oppenheimer at Endgame for one of our Wednesday night sessions. We played Totensontag, the first of the Corps Command system of games from Lock 'n' Load. It's a fun and fast little game, covering six days of Operation Crusader, the British attempt to relieve the siege of Tobruk in November 1941. Units are battalions and regiments, grouped by divisions; the Germans get 15th Panzer, 21st Panzer, the Afrika division, and Ariete (Italians), while the Commonwealth have 7th Armoured, 1st South African, and the New Zealand division. Each turn is a day, and each day has four impulses. At the beginning of each impulse, each side rolls a D6 to see what their initiative is for that impulse. The side with the highest initiative gets to go first, but the higher the initiative, the fewer units you can activate. You see, each unit is rated for initiative, from 2 to 5, and you can only activate units with an initiative rating equal to or higher than what you rolled. Thus, when Joe (as the Germans) rolled a 5, he could only activate his panzers (and any panzergrenadiers stacked with them), whereas I could only activate my armoured car units if I rolled a 5. And if you rolled a six for initiative, you can't do anything but adjust stacks! However, you get to choose your initiative roll for the next impulse, and if you rolled a five you can add or subtract one from your initiative roll on the next impulse. Most units in the game are rated 3 or 4 for initiative, with some, like the Italians, South Africans, and Afrika division, only rated a 2. Thus those units don't get to move as often as higher-rated units, and not as fast either, as you get as many MP as your Initiative roll for that impulse, plus one if you are mechanized (which all of my units and most of Joe's were). Combat is simple--each unit has an Attack rating, and you roll 2d6 and add it to that rating, comparing it to the Defense rating of the top unit in the stack you are attacking. Roll equal to or higher than the Defense rating, you score a hit. Most units can take three hits before dying. You can also attempt to recover hits via dieroll during night turns. Armored units can move and attack (called an overrun in the rules) while infantry must start the impulse adjacent to attack. Artillery can never voluntarily move adjacent to the enemy, but can fire bombardments (usually two hex range--the Germans have some big gun units with three hex range) if they have a spotter adjacent to the target and you successfully range in (both sides had a lot of problems doing that last night). Certain terrain features, like Points, give a greater spotting range. To win, the Commonwealth player just needs to earn 1 VP. VP are earned for taking each of three hexes on the map (Gambut, Sidi Rezegh, and El Adem) and for shattering divisions (1 VP each--divisions are shattered after they take a certain amount of losses). VP are lost for shattered Commonwealth divisions (-2 VP for 7th Armoured, -1 for each of the other two divisions). The Commonwealth player also gets VPs for exiting at least 9 units off map toward Tobruk. One bit of weirdness--there doesn't seem to be a penalty for a division being Shattered, other than the VP loss/gain. Thus you have the strange situation where the German player is conservative with Ariete at start, until it gets shattered. Then suddenly, since losses don't matter, the Italians get newfound courage and start running around attacking things. We thought perhaps some sort of attack or recover penalty should be imposed. Anyway, on to the battle. The Commonwealth just gets 7th Armoured on map at start, with the South Africans and Kiwis arriving later. I decided to concentrate on shattering the Italians around Bir El Gubi, hitting them with 7th Armoured, then hooking up with South Africans to drive on the VP hexes beyond. This I did, hammering Ariete and sending my armoured car units to hunt down German armoured car units. Joe responded by shifting panzer assets towards 7th Armoured, stripping his left covering Gambut. I decided to get bold at that point, sending a South African armoured car unit (attached to 7th Armoured) lapping around his left and riding hard for Gambut, with 4th Armoured Brigade's Stuarts right behind, thus drawing off his panzers from the main body at Bir El Gubi. Thanks to some good Initiative rolls, I got the South Africans into Gambut, where they were promptly counterattacked by reinforcing German panzers. But the South Africans resisted heroically, hanging on for the better part of two days as 4th Armoured Brigade tried to fight their way to them. But it was not to be, as the full weight of 15th and 21st Panzer took back Gambut and crushed 4th Armoured. Survivors tried to get away across rough terrain, but the brigade was annihilated save a battalion of Scots Guards who retreated into the hills to await the arrival of the Kiwis. 7th Armoured was now shattered, and my 2 VP lead (I had shattered Ariete by this time) had gone away. But I fought on, for my gamble had had the desired effect: the Panzers were out of position. The South Africans had arrived, and leaving them to mop up what remained of the Italians, I turned to the weak Afrika division, blocking my way to Sidi Rezegh and El Adem. The Kiwis arrived to tie up the Panzers, with my Valentines and Matildas actually starting to do damage to the German tanks. Still, it looked as Joe had the situation well in hand. But then I snuck a South African unit over the hills and got next to El Adem, held by two battered Italian infantry units. With some of my Crusaders hunting down Italian armor (unable to cross the hills), I threw the weight of 7th Armoured and 1st South African at Afrika, shattering it. Epic battles raged at each end of the line, as Joe tried to disengage from my Kiwis, who though shattered managed to fight their way into Gambut, as South Africans and Italians fought over El Adem and heavy fighting surged around Sidi Rezegh. It came down to the last turn of the game, when I finally annihilated Afrika division, and took Sidi Rezegh. I rolled a six on the peninultimate impulse of the game, which meant I could pick my initiative for the last impulse. Joe was in the process of wiping out my Kiwis at Gambut, and the Italians were still hanging on at El Adem; I chose a 4 initiative so I could swing my Crusaders over to drive into El Adem for the win. Which I did--4 VP (two VP hexes, Ariete and Afrika shattered) to 3 (7th Armoured and the Kiwis shattered). Wow. I still can't believe I did it. A hard fought close game, and great fun. I understand Joe wants to try it with Jason next week; I'm interested in hearing how that goes.