Tedious Play - Kicking Down the Door

[Blackcloud6]

I just got done with Patton's Nightmare #2, Kicking Down the Door.

Ugh, it turned into a dice fest and showed why I have a love-hate relationship with PG.  I find that a deliberate attack against a prepared defense scenario to tun into a dice-fest and a lot of what happens is determined by luck.  i think this is for two reasons.  The combat tables are difficult to get enough results on to break a defense and then units with 8 morale can easily rally  so the defender just sits there, take a beating,then activates and rallies.   I've seen this over and over in this games system and it is disheartening.  

I see the tedious play whenever you have to assault towns as well as fixed defense so a lot of PG devolves into constant dice rolling with little action.

I took a long break from the system and came back trying to to make something of it.  It has a lot of nice modules, scenarios and forces but gosh the play can be dreadful.

I'm sad to say, even though I've bought most of PG, I may seriously think of getting out of it.  There's only so much time...

So, any suggestions on how to make this game system fun and not be a tedious dice rolling exercise?  

[Matt W]

Racing to assault any fixed defense can be frustrating. Did you try to reduce the morale of the defenders through fire first? I found that preparation prior to assault can greatly improve the possibilities to move forward. The scenario you picked is one that permits a great deal of fortification for the defender and involves a river crossing as well. Fortified river lines should be hard to break!

If the process of breaking down fixed defenses is too frustrating pick scenarios with fluid situations or rural fighting. With literally thousands of scenarios to choose from there are plenty that don't involve that type of battle. PG-HQ can be helpful as well as you can screen scenarios as to fortifications, etc.

[J6A]

I agree that assault type scenarios can be rather tedious, and there was one I played in Counter Attack recently that was on a small scale, and basically came down to "who can roll better first." I think Matt's suggestion of going after other scenarios that are more fluid makes sense. The next CA scenario I played was very fluid and was a lot of fun. While the outcome was in doubt in the assault scenario, it was in doubt because of the dice. In the mobile scenario, it was in doubt in a "who can get where they need to be faster and more efficiently" manner.

There have been some assault scenarios that are a lot of fun, and I made the comment the other day that PG is not the system I'd use to game Stalingrad. That would be a dice fest. As for those 8 morale guys, they are tough, and often leadership is the bigger issue. If you can whittle down the other guy's leaders, even if a unit rallies quickly, it may not be able to go anywhere.

I think one of the reasons I lean towards the smaller/less unit dense scenarios is to avoid the butting heads type of scenarios.

If you go to the main PG-HQ site, and go to the Library/Battle Types, you can find scenarios of other types. Urban Assault is the most prevalent there (1,353 scenarios), there are 168 meeting engagements, 236 delaying actions, 102 breakout, etc., so I suspect you will find ones that are more enjoyable for you in there.

[Shad]

This is a great argument for adding a NOT to the search criteria. That way you can eliminate urban warfare entirely from your search results.


Apart from that, I recommend generally avoiding infantry-only scenarios. That's when assaults really drag in my experience. With AFVs you get a combined arms bonus and high DF, allowing you to roll far to the right on the chart and almost always inflict losses.

[Matt W]

I have to admit that at times I enjoy the big battles against fixed defenses or urban fights. PG requires a certain patience in preparation that is tough for someone like me with an itchy trigger finger. Bringing up heavy weapons, prepping a hex for assault and having the reserves necessary to ensure the result are all things that I suck at. The 4th Ed. assault table also tends to cloud the waters as it is less bloody at the high columns and more bloody at the low columns meaning that assault is NOT the first thing you should do unless you have plenty of column shifts both for you and against the defender.

[JayTownsend]

That is why, when I design a game, I try to have a nice mix of different types of scenarios, something for everyone.

[plloyd1010]

O chionn fhada, Vince Hughes mused about doing Stalingrad with PG, so I got a map and imposed a correctly scaled hex grid over it. While it didn't look as bad as I expected, still all that I could really think of was: Do you really want to fight in that? Fred's tedium on over(under?)drive.

[zaarin7]

If you either of the three versions of Streets of Stalingrad I suppose you could play any of the scenario's in PG terms. You would probably need to do some terrain conversions.

[Blackcloud6]

Racing to assault any fixed defense can be frustrating.  Did you try to reduce the morale of the defenders through fire first?  I found that preparation prior to assault can greatly improve the possibilities to move forward.  The scenario you picked is one that permits a great deal of fortification for the defender and involves a river crossing as well.  Fortified river lines should be hard to break!

If the process of breaking down fixed defenses is too frustrating pick scenarios with fluid situations or rural fighting.  With literally thousands of scenarios to choose from there are plenty that don't involve that type of battle.  PG-HQ can be helpful as well as you can screen scenarios as to fortifications, etc.

This scenario only had 16 turns in which to breach the river defense and get across to the next board.  And then there is the pressure of massive Soviet reinforcements that can come from turn 3 & 6 on respectively.  And it was night so one had to close with the defense in order to shoot at it to "prep" it to begin to whittle them down.  I fired illum and had massive amounts of firepower to shoot at the defenders.   All the defender had to do was to wait until after the preparatory fires to rally and then waif for the defenders.   This is a problem of the game sequencing.  And it is easier to rally  or pass MCs by 8 morale troops than achieve effects due to the distribution on the combat table since there is usually no effect at the most likely dice rolls.   This is a constant problem with PG, not tactics.   It is not very realistic to hit a hex with artillery, then direct fire and do so a number of times and they don't become suppressed in any fashion.    

The problem is also somewhat scenario design too but it is the system that makes it tough to make these types of scenarios interesting as in my experience they end up being turns of many dice rolls for the shooting the morale checks and the rallying and nothing much else happens.  To say "well, play the more fluid scenarios" is not the answer as many scenarios are of this type, or has these aspects in it and were a larger part of the action of the conflicts depicted.

However, I have a notion I thought of yesterday that maybe could fix this problem of the game system.  I need to test it few times and then I'll ask Dr. B if he would like it for a "daily content" article.

[Hugmenot]

Is your potential solution to play the assault in ASL?