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August 21st, 2007
Lutzen Allied Pre and Post Game Thoughts
Allied Pre Game Thoughts/Strategy:
"What!? I'm supposed to have a strategy?"
I had spent some time looking at the map and came up with a very simple and high level strategy for the game. The plan was two fold:
1) Attack and capture the
four towns in the center
2) Create a defensive line that ran from the towns south all the way to the
C1/D1 table edge and also from the towns east along the river to the E5 table
edge.
Knowing that I had a huge advantage in combined arms, I figured that if I could set up in a nice defensive position and already be in possession of the four center towns, I could then hold off any attacks by the French. With the four towns in my control I would have more than enough Victory Points to win even if I ended up suffering high casualties.
My only worry was the Guard Corps. That one Corps was the only French Combined arms force Joe and Casey had. And on top of that, it was very high quality. My fear was that they would use their infantry to pin/tie up my left flank and force the Guard down the middle. I knew I wouldn’t be able to capture Starsiedel and had my doubts about Lutzen (and even if I did capture Lutzen it was only worth 24 points total). If Joe and Casey could just capture two of the center towns or even contest them, then I would be sunk.
So that was it. Crush the measly III Corps French Provisional Infantry with their one little puny cavalry unit, take the four towns and sit tight. What could be easier…?
Post Game Thoughts
Ahem…er…well, that didn’t go like I thought it would. For starters, the disaster early on in the game against Casey’s Provisional Infantry cost me dearly. Not only was I unable to capture all four towns, I spent valuable time and men trying recapture two of the three I had! So instead of setting up my first defensive lines in advance of the towns I had to fight tooth and nail just to hold the three.
After that, I thought everything would still be fine. If I hold three towns, I should still be able to win…assuming that our casualties are about equal.
I'm sure I made many mistakes throughout the game, but these were offset by the huge combined arms advantage I enjoyed. My biggest regret is the large force I deployed on my left.
Fearing a great push on my left, I kept a large force strung out all the way to the left side of the table edge. While this discouraged Joe from making any kind of attack here, in the end I realized it wouldn’t have mattered if he did. The game would be won in the center (4 towns area) and I could have used a much smaller force to screen my left and had the rest of the forces in the middle as a reserve. I guess it could be argued that by having that large force on my left, it prevented Joe from moving his VI and IV Corps towards the center towns. The reason being that he was afraid I might make a big push on Starsiedel? I'm not sure if this was the case or not and hopefully he will elaborate on his thought process in the French write-up.
Scenario Thoughts
“Hind Sight is
20/20”
Its easy for me to say the scenario is balanced since I won, but I truly think the French can win this scenario. Having played it once, I'm sure the guys would do a lot of things different (as would I!). The biggest problem for the French is their lousy force mix. Lots of poor to average infantry and hardly any cavalry or artillery. Even the IV Corps which on paper comes close to a combined arms force is still severely handicapped. One division alone has two Cavalry and three infantry brigades. No freedom for the Cavalry and still no artillery. The Guard Corps is the one exception to this.
The allies on the other hand had a great force mix with an abundance of cavalry and artillery. I could keep the French infantry in square or at least cautious all day long. While I didn’t have as much infantry I did have a ton of Grenadier/Guard units that could soak up a lot of firepower.
When the French Guard Corps came on, my big fear came to life..."They're going to hit the joint of my defenses". Had Joe and Casey pushed the Guard Corps down the center instead of the right flank, I'm not sure I would have had enough to stop them from taking an additional town. It would have been a race to reposition my forces on the left while still holding off Joe’s VI and IV Corps facing me there and even then, I doubt I could have stopped a combined arms attack from the Guard Corps. As it was, the flank move almost worked (and scared the crap out of me for half the game!). I had to scramble to get enough troops over to my right to fend off the Guard/XI Corps attack. Only the rivers and time saved me on the right and thus the game.
Although Casey and Joe later admitted to feeling that they had lost around 16:00/16:30, I was nervous until the last turn and in my book that makes a great game. I would play this game again with my only caveat being that I have to have someone help me push models around. Running the entire Allied forces was a daunting task for someone as slow as me.
One thing we all agreed on was if we were to play this again, we would use the Liar’s Reserve. That rule makes it much more interesting for both players as you don’t know where the enemy is coming from until a turn or two in advance. This prevents you from planning your deployment based on knowing that an enemy corps will come on at “that” table edge in 6 turns.
As I said in the Photographic Battle Report, the game was a blast and as always I enjoyed playing with Joe and Casey!