Blackcloud's PG Lament

[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.