NATO, WAPA and the indefensibility of LandJut in NGP and D85

[JDR Dragoon]

The first playtest of scenario variant 1 has just been completed.

This one ended on an entirely different note, with NATO scoring a Major Victory. 6th Panzergrenadier gradually and succesfully withdrew across the Kieler Canal, blowing all bridges behind them. The Jutland division contained and gradually wore down the WAPA amphibious and airborne units, destroying them in the proces (a few battalions managed to elope and make it to the exit hexes though). The belgian Parachute Regiment (an ACE Mobile Force unit) landed around Kiel and mostly got destroyed here fending off a polish division. The DECEPTION capable units went into deception mode before being overrun, to great effect. With the arrival of the british infantry brigade and the Jutland Battlegroup, LandJut could present a unified front along the Kieler Canal, with units dug in with minefields. By games end 2 WAPA division had crossed the canal and had begun to make inroads against the Jutland Division, but it was too little too late.

The WAPA player generally pressed hard against the 6th PzG. during the first 24-36 hours, but then the WAPA advance slowed down somewhat, allowing 6th PzG to gradually disengage and withdraw. By the time 6th PzG withdrew across the canal and through the british and danish units there it was at approx. 50% strenght, but had still given better than it got. This lack of WAPA aggression probably cost the WAPA player the game. The lesson here is: Don´t dawdle. The WAPA player has the equivalent of 8 divisions available all told. Losing 1-2 of them is acceptable providing that it breaks NATO in the proces.

Some general observations:

-In order to win this one the WAPA player has to either enciricle and wipe out NATO units wholesale or exit a large number of units through the exit-hexes near the danish border (or a combination of these two). The objecive hexes on this map are only worth about 700 points all told. Nice to have, but not enough to get a victory. The WAPA player must press hard in order to win! The NATO players job is of course the opposite: to gradually withdraw up the peninsula and to preserve the integrity and fighting ability of his units, thereby denying the WAPA player his two possible roads to victory.

-"Artillery Setup" worked fine as a pro-NATO balancing measure. Thanks to Kuriltai (the previous playtester) for suggesting this. You were right :)

-Explicit Supply also worked fine as a pro-NATO balancing measure, but WAPA needs a few more supply trucks in order to even things up. The revisions of the above scenario variants posted here (and in the playtesting forum) will feature this plus better placement of the WAPA supply dumps (enabling advancing WAPA forces to draw supply from the dumps longer).

-Addition of DECEPTION capable units to NATO OOB also worked fine (but might mean that WAPA might need a few more turns in order to compensate. More playtesting will of course follow)

Here is the revised scenario pack with additional WAPA supply trucks and supply dump placement. All four scenario variants have been revised. Included in the pack is also the revised NATO OOB, .pdt and Unit pictures needed to play the scenarios (as outlined in this thread) plus a README file explaining the changes and the reasons behind them (a condensed version of this thread.