Blackcloud's PG Lament

[Blackcloud6]

There was a time when I had a love/hate relationship with PG, some of it due to my not always grasping the firepower superiority concept of the game coupled with the drudgery of assault scenarios of "take the town" or "reduce the entrenchment" type scenarios.  The turn-by-turn die rolling contests that can develop in many scenarios just, to me, get tedious and seem very dependent on luck.  But I overcame most of that through repeated play, but still at times shy away from these types of scenarios.

I've always like this "platoon level" scale of wargaming.  This is probably due to my first wargame being Panzer Blitz.  When PG first came out, I was excited to see new life breathed into the genre and I did like the infantry focus of the game because, WWII was largely an infantry war.  And the command activation system was a good way to interject C2 and show difference in armies, all with a low number of rules.   A friend and I started playing PG together but due to distance and lack of VASSAL in those days, drifted away and went on to ASL because of VASL.  I putzed a bit with PG then set it aside as I went on a six-year binge of nothing but ASL.

With France 1940, I rediscovered PG and decided it will be my go-to "solo" system for WWII tactical gaming.  The systm facilitates solo play very much.  In solo play, imbalance in scenarios don't really matter, I tend to play for the "historical" replication value in solo play anyhow.  Yet I still had trepidation with the bogging down of the dice-rolling assaults.  However, in solo play, one can leave it for bit when it becomes tedious and come back to it later.  However, in scenarios of maneuver, PG shines because the deliberate pace makes it seem realistic and just flying around a battlefield at top speed usually results in quick death.

One other reason why I like PG as a solo game is the rules are not difficult.  There is not a ton to remember like there is in ASL.  I find I can pick up a history book on a battle, start reading it and break out PG and "play along" as I read.  I like doing that.  I've tried ASL solo and SASL (and actual solo system for ASL) and I can tell you, it is too much work to play both sides and do all that you need to do in ASL.  I'll stick to playing others in ASL.

Prior to the PG VASSAL I had just played one or two face-to-face games of PG since dropping off with my buddy 20 years or so ago.  But recently, with VASSAL I was invited to start playing against someone again, and unfortunately, this did not go well.  Now this has nothing to do with my opponent.  He is a great opponent and fun to play against, but we found most of the scenarios to be either unbalanced where one side just gets clobbered and/or it bogs down into the assault dice rolling contest.  I'm finding that I enjoy PG solo much more than playing against someone.  And consider that I play ASL exclusively against others regularly, it is not that I dislike playing others.  I want a game against another person to be exciting, with tension and trepidation.  I've said for some time now, that a good scenario is one where halfway through both sides think they are losing.  

I do loath playing a turn after turn of assault dice rolls and do avoid many of the "take the town" scenarios.  I feel that many of the early PG modules have historically great scenarios but there is so much unbalance and seemingly lack of playtesting that I don't feel comfortable playing them against another person.

How do others feel about these points: solo play, scenario balance, and playing PG against others?  Also, how do others feel about the tedium of assaults?  How do you deal with the tedium, if you think there is tedium?

I'm honestly going back to keeping PG as a solo system.  As you know, there is only so much time...

[plloyd1010]

I've long been a fan of grand tactical games too. Primarily because you can actually see the battle develop. Balance wise, PG has always had a bit of a problem there, especially with the older scenarios.

The scenarios I most dislike are the brittle ones, A mistake or lucky dice roll and the game could be over. I expect that in very small scale games, less so as the scale grows.

I much prefer to play Vassal or FtF. A live opponent won't think what I do, thus the game becomes a dynamic puzzle. The corollary, as our trouble-making friend has experienced, playing solo has a tendency to reinforce one's own errors in rules and tactics. I find occasional correction from the other side of the table refreshing. Admittedly though, the historical aspect of the scenario may not play out as well.

I find drawn out assaults tedious too. What bothers me about them is that you are largely committed for the duration. Being committed also means options have been sacrificed. A book whose title I cannot remember said that once reserves are committed, maneuver will soon cease and the commander must then trust to the luck of the situation which has been created. It is those conditions which make assault combat distasteful to me, not the dice rolling.

[triangular_cube]

Scenario balance in the series has always been all over the place, with some good scenarios mixed in, probably only by coincidence to be honest. This never concerned me for solo play, but I can't imagine it feels very rewarding to put in the effort to PBEM or Vassal out a game over a few days where one side truly has no shot and they are just left languishing. FTF is a bit better as pace of play tends not be a hurdle. Unfortunately there is no good way to determine a scenario's balance quickly aside from fully reading every scenario in a module, and at times setting them up first too.

Even the ratings here are unfortunately not all that helpful in finding the gems. Extreme example, but look at Hosingen I from BotB. Its almost at a 3 rating and has a victory split of 12-6 which seems weighted to one side but not that bad. The actual scenario of course, is completely broken and a German player setting up basically anywhere on the Southern (IIRC) half of the map can walk through the woods without ever being spotted and "waking up" the Americans. They will cross the map and win unopposed. Somehow the Americans won 6 of our recorded games, and most users didnt even notice the obvious "solution". Grumble grumble grumble.  

I love the system and all its warts for solo though. Its just a very relaxing system that I can spend my time actually playing rather than digging through a rule book and referencing 40 charts and going tick by tick through an order of play. The fact that the system rewards deliberate play, reducing positions, etc. rather than just throwing the two sides together and rolling some dice always felt more rewarding. I always feel like I have to "work" for an offensive victory, so it feels like I did something. 

Assaults are the gamiest thing in the system though, and really fall all over the range. For most armies, especially in towns, it does just bog down. It always struck me that closing with the enemy was typically safer than engaging from 200 yards away. Maybe its just my lay opinion but that always felt very wrong. BUT, that means the defender wants to sludge up your attack by throwing difficult to remove bodies at you. So the attacker must plan arround that and only hit into assault when you have your combined arms death stacks ready to go, and the enemy already reduced.

Early war stuff can get a bit ridiculous with this, as there just isnt enough firepower to actually be lethal on the assault chart. You can plop a single reduced infantry unit down and pin a whole company for basically the whole game if you are in a town. The only practical way to deal with it, is to retreat and then pour adjacent fire into the vacated hex, which again feels counter intuitive but whatever. 

On the other end of the assualt spectrum you have Finnish and Japanese supermen with typical +3 assault modifiers that can just chain assault through anything while being immune to enemy fire as you cant fire into the assaults. If you didnt wipe out the enemy in the first go that is. It just feels a bit like playing 40k with wolf riding spacemarines crushing through squads of tau while the rest of the army just sits there unable to fire. 

Maybe the 4th edition chart rebalanced it a bit, I really dont know because I play with the rules as published with the module I am playing and I'm still working through the old stuff. And of course, those are the extreme ends of it I suppose.

[waynebaumber]

Good post Blackcloud.  I to am an ASL player but only FtF.  PG is possibly the best tactical WW2 to play solo apart from those few game designed to play solitaire.
Scenario imbalance is an issue for FtF play but not so much with solo play. 
I don't totally agree with the moans about assault as  I think it reflects how close combat was in certain situations, units in urban combat were often reluctant to fight so as to avoid casualties therefore assaults taking a long time I can live with though they can get tedious.

[Blackcloud6]

I don't totally agree with the moans about assault as  I think it reflects how close combat was in certain situations, units in urban combat were often reluctant to fight so as to avoid casualties therefore assaults taking a long time I can live with though they can get tedious.

My complaint is not what is being modeled, it is the tediousness of doing them, especially in scenarios the require many towns to be taken.  And, if you play these types of scenarios i one after another, they can seem the same.  I think it takes some scenarios design creativity to make the "take the town" scenario interesting.

[J6A]

I'm excited to see how Phillipe Leonard's new assault system works.  I'll agree with everyone else that they are the most tedious part of the system.

This comment resonated with me.  "Early war stuff can get a bit ridiculous with this, as there just isnt enough firepower to actually be lethal on the assault chart. You can plop a single reduced infantry unit down and pin a whole company for basically the whole game if you are in a town. The only practical way to deal with it, is to retreat and then pour adjacent fire into the vacated hex, which again feels counter intuitive but whatever. "

I was playing a VASSAL game with a friend, and he was having trouble with killing some 1941 Russians in an assault.  He's also new to the system.  He got the troops disrupted, and couldn't kill them.  All of his guys were disrupted.  He basically had these guys surrounded (they were the last holdouts in the town).  It was the start of the turn, and he had a 4 impulse advantage (because 1941 Soviets are bad).  Here's what I would have done.  Have all of the disrupted guys leave the assault hex.  Sure, the Russians get a free shot.  And it was either 4 FP or 6 FP after halving (I don't remember if it was 2 x 4-2 or 1 x 4-2 or 1 x 7-4).  So what if he takes casualties?  He had plenty of more troops.  Then, using 2 more adjacent stacks, shoot the heck out of the defenders from adjacent.  Maybe kill or demoralize them, maybe kill them.  Then, use the 3rd adjacent stack to assault again. 

Gamey?  Maybe a little, and I can see it as the exhausted guys retreating while fresh guys form up.  After short range preparatory fire from supporting troops, they head in for the kill.

[Markm50]

I don't totally agree with the moans about assault as  I think it reflects how close combat was in certain situations, units in urban combat were often reluctant to fight so as to avoid casualties therefore assaults taking a long time I can live with though they can get tedious.

My complaint is not what is being modeled, it is the tediousness of doing them, especially in scenarios the require many towns to be taken.  And, if you play these types of scenarios i one after another, they can seem the same.  I think it takes some scenarios design creativity to make the "take the town" scenario interesting.

I feel this way about it being impossible to dig out guys from entrenchments and towns.  I play a mix of ftf and solo, mostly solo.  I’ve always been impressed by the pacing of the game.  From everything I’ve read taking a strongly defended location was hard, and did take time.  So, the game does this well.  But, it’s a tedious process.  And like you all said, the early war low firepower troops have problems doing it.  So, a friend of mine playing a ftf game suggested we just double the infantry fp in an assault.  Not the MGs, or tanks, just the infantry.  

And it made a difference.  You still take several turns, unless your lucky, but even early war assaults become manageable.

justification?  The way we looked at it, and he is a combat vet, is that most soldiers didn’t fire all that accurately at range, but were much better at close range.  Since PG has ranges of 200 meters, just being able to distinguish someone at say 4-500 meters away could be problematic, especially if they didn’t want to be seen.  But, within 50 meters or so you start to get in range of grenades, satchel charges etc. that PG doesn’t mention.  So, it made since to boost the fp of infantry units engaged in assault.  

Tanks were never that great at close in melee, they needed infantry to support them.  You could argue that MGs should be doubled, but we didn’t do that.  They have plenty of strength, even in early war scenarios. 

I know it’s an unauthorized mod, but, I’ve been playing it that way for years now.  And it cuts both ways, so, no one side gets all that much of an advantage.

[treadasaurusrex]

Doubling infantry unit FP could well be the answer to reducing the tediousness of close assaults. Maybe this should become an optional, or a house rule?

[triangular_cube]

Doesn't IA do something similar to doubling firepower in assault? Having never actually played IA yet, I can't recall.

[Markm50]

Doesn't IA do something similar to doubling firepower in assault? Having never actually played IA yet, I can't recall.

No, but infantry in IA are companies, not platoons.  So, most fire power is in the 4-6 range, so, 2 companies and a leader put you on the 9 to 13 column.  Stacking is usually limited to just 2 companies.  

The column breaks and casualty totals per roll are exactly the same, as are most of the modifications.  IA doesn’t have the AFV mod or the engineer mod, so IA has a few less possible shifts.  But, it still has the -2 for entrenchments and towns.  

I guess this is why PG has yet to venture into street battles, like Stalingrad or Berlin.  But doubling the fire power of infantry will certainly make it bloodier.