Lawrence Hung  - Sep 18, 2005 1:28 pm (#10808 Total: 10809)  
Now playing Sword of Rome,Devil's Horsemen,Bitter Woods,Alesia,
Empire of the Sun,Blue vs. Gray,Group of Soviet Forces Germany,
ASLSK,For the People II,Thirty Years War,Joan of Arc,To the 
Green Fields Beyond,Empires of the Middle Ages,Fortress Berlin 	 

Clash of Giants AAR

>On the offensive, cav is almost worthless other than for pinning defending cav. 

Since Nels is giving an account on the Western front WW1, I would like
to give my AAR too on Ted's older game Clash of Giants, the campaign
scenario Marne played yesterday. 

We finished the Marne campaign scenario by turn 8 when the German
captured Paris. I am surprised how careless French play could result in
an instant victory to the German. 2 units from Kluck's 1st Army captured
the FCP fort at hex #1613, only to be encircled by the BEF and
eliminated due to unable to retreat. A roll of "6", however, immediately
put the game into a wild swing. Now the 1st Army had a movement
allowance of "8", swinging the attack from the left to the right
crossing the river at hex #1011 near Pointoise. An attack into Paris
city at hex #1314 and captured it as the 3 FCP units there were either
at a step loss or had to retreat as a result of the dieroll difference
between the dieroll result and the TER. 

Cavalry is less effective a unit in the WW1 battlefield than I had
expected. We are also amazed how easy for the German to crack the French
defense and race to the Mane river. The French appears to be having
trouble in choosing to defend at the front at demoralized TER (Tactical
Efficiency Rating) level, or fall back to defend at the river starting
on turn 5 at full efficiency. It's a kind of dilemma for the French. 

We thought that the map should have been extended further to the west of
Paris so that the German is much more possible to encircle Paris from
the right. That way the French would have been more on guard about the
imminent German attack crossing the Marne river from the direction of
Pointoise. 

Several observations out of our curious mind because of our past
readings about WW1: 

# 1) The WW1 Cavalry couldn't charge against the infantry, perhaps,
because of their lance weaponry not effective at all aginst the machine
guns in WW1. 

# 2) The French 5th Army reinforcement would appear at the back of the
German Army from the north. 

# 3) The railroad net has no effect on movement at all, even when
crossing the main river. 

# 4) There is no artillery in the game at all. They are factored into
the unit's strength at divisional level as attachement asset. 

# 5) The movement allowance would only be determined at the operational
phase, and a unit wanting to get replacement has to have a "done" marker
during the reinforcement and replacement phase. In Marne, however, a
unit can only receive replacement when the Army's movement allowance is
determined by a roll of 2 in the operational phase. An errata corrected
this by rolling the replacement in the operational phase. 

The BEF units cannot enter into "FCP", Fortified Camp of Paris, even
when the Germans are at the gate of Paris. In our game, the BEF would
prohibited from entering Paris when the Germans advanced under their
eyes. It appears that the Allied would be hurt from this scripted rule
and would have been obliged by this rule ahistorically.

Despite the above, the game has many subtleties with suprisingly a small
number of effective rules. I particularly like the combat system. Odds
are determined to obtain DRMs. Roll a die for each unit, modified by DRM
and compare it to TER. A less than TER would result in a step loss and a
number of hexes to retreat equal to the difference between the TER and
the dieroll result. Replacement rate is assimilated into the TER and the
movement allowance of the Army. A slower army would receive replacement
for the young boys to catch up the trains to the front. Command problem
is simulated by the pulling of chits from the cup for activation of an
army at a time, and army boundaries that can't be crossed by another
army until 5 days into battle. The lack of a rigid and locking ZOC (no
penalty to enter or leave ZOC.) resulted in a fluid game. Once the
German breaks the initial line, the French plain is just wide open for
the German crossing. Command problems are simulated by a number of ways
in a streamlined fashion, e.g. picking up chits to activate, rolling on
the command table to determine movement allowance of your army, command
restriction between 2 Russian amries, and the stacking prohibition
between the French and the British. 

Overall, a very good gaming and we like to give it a spin more and plan
to play the Tenneberg scenario next time.