Aachen-West Wall 1944

[Dan Caviness]

Hello everyone.

Turn 10 REPORT

First I'd like to send a BIG thanks to kernelt and to Von Luck for their work on the version 1 of Aachen West Wall. As noted earlier I had some release problems with it and those are being tested currently in our version 2 team game.

We are 10 turns in and starting to reach the wall, but only just. This game, using bridge builders and other new units available in the 1.04 OOBs, has pointed out a few glitches in the new system. Rather than ask Jason to fix everything, as is my wont, I believe after this test I'll be replacing some of them to fix it by design.

Until such time I ask players to consider not taking advantage of the M29 Weasel's ability to move artillery across blue water.

I also request players to not take advantage of an apparent code glitch (or whatever) that allows you to load some of the Allied heavy and Axis heavy rail artillery for ZERO APs. Take the turn, assume it's 100 APs, as I believe it should cost.

These are only requests, suggested ROEs as it were.

The game moves quickly. A mobile armored cavalry and armored infantry corps for the Allies practically gaurantee the determined Allied player can push hard while still west of the Schill and Scharnhorst Lines. We are fine tuning the Axis release times to insure they won't be able to push through the Lines themselves.

I accidentally added some of the Stuart "Satan" Flame tank variants, and was (thank you dawags) reminded they do not appear in the European Theater. Those are removed.

While the Allies set up nicely for a 2v2 team game with two Corps to divide, the Axis forces are a bit more labyrinthine. I will be adding two fictitious Axis Corps command structures to facilitate 2v2 game play and this may become a seperate scenario designated specifically for team play.

Other tweaks suggested by our team game and originally made by Von Luck/kernelt have been made including some additional cover and a first pass at making the wall more negotiable to the Axis defenders by eliminating some minefields and incorporating some removeable blocks that engineers can choose to remove for access. I do wish to note these difficult passages come in handy later when the Allies are trying to force the lines however. It's a fine line.

Most changes are going to await the completion of our test game and will involve fine tuning releases, morales, smoke and ammo availability.

Chuck and Smed are just now reaching out with the long guns on their Panthers and TD's to start keeping us head down. I've noted the new artillery tables continue to pile up disrupts on armor, but in this case the artillery is mostly heavy or medium weight, and this seems about right to me.

This is not a detailed action report, just a quick Turn 10 assessment.
Really more of an acknowledgement and thank you to the guys who are doing the work.

Regards,

Dan

ps: Those testers would include Von Luck, kernelt, smedley, Chuck10mtn, and dawags.