Defending The Westwall : An End Of Series Review

[Matt W]

Vince,

Wonderful summary. I have played this one through scenario 7 and have many of the same comments. I did, however, try the penny packet defense in some cases in order to delay the Americans. Warning, it doesn't work for beans. The penny packets can be dealt with by a portion of the American force while the remainder, which is generally more than enough moves on towards the objectives. The trailing forces typically arrive in time to provide the final boost to the attack on the objectives.

The American player needs to be acutely aware of the potential for losses. While they have overwhelming force in many cases, the Germans can, and will, dish out plenty of punishment if you expose that force foolishly. Tons of inferior armor merely make for high loss totals if it doesn't use effective cover and work for crossfire.

As to the OBA. Most of the "Invasion of Germany" scenarios reinforce the idea that the German army in that campaign and others on the western front faced a vastly different threat than on the eastern front. While they were certainly outnumbered by the western allies it was the tremendous superiority of artillery that made for the greatest difficulty. The Allies were not as willing as the Soviets to accept high losses through assault and would be happy to pummel a position into dust prior to trying to take it. Unfortunately for the Germans they were on the receiving end of this. Their ability to stand up to this bombardment and continue to fight is the story of the campaign for me. These scenarios clearly illustrate that aspect of the fighting.

I believe that writeups like this help immensely in giving some "feel" to the products. Each game or supplement tells a story to the players. Certainly Daniel and I came away with a greater understanding of the Peruvian-Ecuadorian conflict with War on the Equator and I can tell you tons of stories about the Razakar militia of Hyderabad now that we are 7 scenarios into Indian Unity. These aren't just collections of scenarios, they are campaigns and the veterans, in writing up summaries such as this, provide the community a look into the product that goes beyond the scenario summaries on the AVP website. Thanks Vince. And here's hoping that others jump on the bandwagon.

BTW, Vince, that ribbon looks good on you.