Heroes of the Soviet Union Playthrough

[plloyd1010]

I'm not a competitive gamer and I like to play both sides, not to win, but just to see what happens and let the dice tell a story.

Shared play here is not very "competitive". The best way to understanding the story is to play each side, not both sides. When I play play solo, both sides have too much information on the other. I've noticed that many solo players, myself included, believe they have (or had) the mental discipline to play each side independent of the other. Shared play breaks that fallacy with in a few turns. The best way is to play once, switch sides and play again.
 

I'd be really curious to know how Beyond Normandy handled it. Do you think you could post a reply here when you have a moment to look up the morale rules in that game?

I'd be quite happy to share the Beyond Normandy game special rules with you in our next game.

[triangular_cube]

Oh no, sorry, I don't play online. I prefer solo, although I occasionally game with my kids.

The "force morale" thing is a house rule I was playtesting, not a mechanic in the rules as written. The idea would be that as casualties mount across the entire force (battalion, regiment or whatever), command and control breaks down and that chaos causes lower-level commanders and platoons to panic or withdraw, assuming the battle is lost or unable to operate effectively without a consistent line of communication to the headquarters. It could generally represent the loss of runners, the breaking of communication lines, the depletion of ammunition or simply command confusion as well.

The system experimented with something similar to that in Beyond Normandy. It ultimately didnt get picked up in any other modules that I recall. My copies are buried right now or I'd dig up the details on it to compare.

I'd be really curious to know how Beyond Normandy handled it. Do you think you could post a reply here when you have a moment to look up the morale rules in that game?

Formation Morale:

The morale of the units belonging to a formation is affected by losses. Each step loss or leader lost counts as a step. All units of the formation have their morale reduced as follows when the losses equal the noted number.

Step Losses: Morale Reduction
8: -1/-
15: -1/-1
23: -2/-1

Units affected by formation morale will be noted in the special rules of a scenario and their starting total value designated. Thus a British Regiment that began a scenario with a morale of 8/7 would be reduced to a morale of 7/7 when step and leader losses totaled 8, to 7/6 when step and leader losses totaled 15, and 6/6 when step and leader losses totaled 23. Leader morale values are unaffected.

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IIRC without flipping through the whole booklet these applied to the Brits only, and the scenarios tended to be very large with many formations. Each having their own morale led to a lot of book keeping, which I suspect was in part why it was not continued in the series. There were also limitations on activating more than one formation at once and such. I suspect a direct port into another module would be pretty clunky. Balance aside you would probably have to tweak the loss levels in the chart.

Truth be told I really don't know how it actually played. Beyond Normandy has the busiest maps in the series, all with large footprints, and notoriously paper thin counters; so it never really made its way onto my play space back in the day. Hope to rectify that with Vassal one of these days and it always seemed interesting.

Peter, I'm guessing we have the alt colored symbols available for denoting formations as existed in the physical game on Vassal? Never messed around with those late war Brit extensions.

[plloyd1010]

Peter, I'm guessing we have the alt colored symbols available for denoting formations as existed in the physical game on Vassal? Never messed around with those late war Brit extensions.

I never made any. Partly because creating counter overlays gets messy. A couple of players who were playing the campaign game from C&C: Kings Officers worked up something. I think I have a copy of it.

[cjsiam]

Thanks. To be honest, I've become more anti-social in the COVID era and can't really imagine playing against real opponents anymore (outside of my family, that is). I'm not a competitive gamer and I like to play both sides, not to win, but just to see what happens and let the dice tell a story. I also like the quiet time solo gaming gives me, and the chance to play at my own pace or in weird corners of free time I have.

Luckily, I think I understand the rules fine. Panzer Grenadier really is quite a straightforward game... I had trouble with it over twenty years ago only because it was my very first hex-and-counter wargame and I wasn't used to the common conventions of such games. I read the rulebook now, with the benefit of decades of more experience, and am surprised I ever had any difficulty with it.

In any case, I think I've played through all of the small-ish scenarios in Heroes of the Soviet Union now (at least the ones that I can play with just that boxed set). I've got the original Panzer Grenadier coming in the mail, which should "unlock" the last 12 scenarios of HotSU as well as provide more fodder for gaming. When that arrives, I may continue these battle reports if there is any interest in them.

Grumm---VASSAL still might be interesting even for Solo play as you can set up very large games, and just spend time with them "when you have a moment"...
you can also set up multiple games.....and you can (if you save at end of every turn) go back in time and try a different strategy during a game, or to 
rework a "rule screw-up" you discover later....
So, VASSAL is a great tool for exploring these games and trying lots of interesting variants....

Good Luck, enjoy!

[Tony M]

I know this is an old thread, but I must say that I found Grumm's AARs to be very entertaining and very educational. He discusses tactics, and the way each force hopes to shape the battlefield, and I find such discussion to be much more fun than, and at least as useful as, a discussion of game rules. For me, the best reason to play these games is to immerse oneself in these historical events that took place so long ago. I'm fine with imbalanced scenarios--the story being told is what matters most.