[Fog of War] - Large Scenarios

[Matt W]

I agree with Daniel that the current RAW on FoW favor the defender in large scenarios. There simply aren't enough activations to permit recover of units demoralized or even disrupted "on the march". Previous comments suggesting that it puts a premium on chained command, etc. are certainly appropriate but I find that, in large battles, my battlefield is littered with attacking units that never made it into the fight as they were hit with bombardment and failed a morale check. In smaller battles I find that these units often do recover and end up back in the fight, in large battles they are usually lost for the entire scenario.

While I see these effects in scenarios as small as 125 units, when the scenario exceeds 200 units the issue becomes acute. In playing KSF #5 - Manhandled (I really do have to figure out how to add links) with 242 units I found that the Germans were unable to recover units lost on the march (and there were plenty) or even advance their slightly lower priority weapons.

I rationalized it as the difficulty of having such a large force attacking on a small front but that is only rationalization. On the other hand, I typically was missing the opportunity to move forward by 3-4 activations, however. In that particular scenario, with 242 units all but one turn ended on a FoW roll and I actually had in my notes taht FoW combined with lack of initiative was the limiting issue for the Germans, not the firepower or mass of the attacking force. I should also note, however, that I absolutely loved the scenario as played. Many of the later scenarios are finely defined and depend on FoW to provide for a balance. This is especially true when, as noted upthread, there are multiple objectives to be obtained.

I would suggest, if anything, adding a free activation for every 50 units or portion above 150 before beginning to roll for FoW, so for the scenario above, each side would get 5 free activations before FoW rolls. This will marginally help the defender, however, in my experience even with the limit of 3 free activations the defenders were generally reduced to merely rolling for FoW since they had already used all activations that they wanted to use. The impact on the attacker however, will be significant. I find that the "stragglers" are typically under command and can have multiple recovery attempts and/or reserve movements if they only have that one or two more activations. I will also point out that most larger scenarios have their unit totals vastly altered by hordes of transport units, some allowance for those units is probably required but not at the 1-1 count currently suggested.

This change will not, however, eliminate or even substantially reduce the FoW roll of 17 on the first roll of the turn, so significant and material disruption of plans will still occur with the current frequency. It does permit the attacker to complete more high priority tasks than under the current FoW rules but in scenarios that large it certainly won't permit them all to be completed. The defender in such scenarios also typically has more than 5 or so critical actions and will be similarly hampered in such circumstances.

Having thus presented and discussed the impact of the addition of some free activations, I will now veer terribly away and suggest a wildly variant approach - formation activation. Consider the number of battalions that each player has as a counter for "free" activations. For example the Germans in the scenario I have selected could be considered to have 5-6 battalions. Give each player a minimum of three free activations with additional free activations for each battalion above three in the OOB. The kicker is that the "free" activation must be used by units of that battalion. (Also consider adding one for every 3 or portion of 3 OBA increments). If FoW is rolled before every battalion has used their free activation they may still use it after the roll.

This is merely a thought and I have not tried to flesh it out much yet. It will lead to unbalanced activations for each side and will lead to the number of free activations changing during the turn and will lead to tons of alternate bookkeeping during play, but I think that the impact of FoW on larger scenarios needs to be considered. I am currently starting to look at larger formations (say divisional) battles and trying to get my arms around what would be necessary to design such monsters and the FoW rules will be a substantial issue in that.

So, as usual I have thrown in my two cents and it has probably muddled more than clarified the issue. My apologies but I would be interested in any thoughts along those lines.