Panzer Battles 2 - The Official Teaser Thread

[Strela]

We're lucky you can give us these updates David, no need to apologize when they're a bit late.

As much as I like having a lot of scenarios, really short ones (<10 turns) are not my favorite due to how they can often be manipulated by the defender.

Though I've never played the game, advance to Cristot looks like a case where blocking units in difficult terrain can make it impossible to reach and attack Cristot on time. 6 turns is really not much to move ~12-15 hexes through difficult terrain. Volcano Man would call this speculation, but things like movement costs and the time it takes for an infantry attack to work in difficult terrain as I see it won't be too different from PB: Kursk. It's nearly the same engine, so you can predict likely results without playing a scenario based on an understanding of the system.

The difference between Cristot and Le Hamel looks a bit like State Farm compared to the full day July 10th Prokhorovka scenario: you have more units and in this case also a lot more time to reach more or less the same objectives.

I'd say the lost battalion scenario might be winnable, but the last two on the list look like they might cause "concentrate somewhere and make the attacker run out of time" issues. In Hill 285, there's a single objective for the Americans to hold, and they seem to have two reinforced companies facing two not full strength German PzG companies, so as the Americans you can move all units to the center and pour fire into the Germans, whilst as the Germans the outcome mostly depends on getting disruption rolls against what will be a large stack.

The Mortain Counterattack scenario requires the Germans to move at least 11 hexes against a ~two battalion force that again only need to hold a single objective. There is no incentive in those smaller scenarios for the defender to hold the line they start in: if they hold the one objective and don't take serious losses, they win, so the obvious thing to do is to move everything in the path of the Germans. That's the main problem with the small scenarios: there's usually only 1 or 2 objectives that decide the result, and the defender has no incentive to hold a realistic line. If his entire force ends up isolated in a hedgehog around the important objective(s), he wins.

Later on, I'll post an appeal to reduce the interdiction rate, but I need some more time to phrase it and point out what I see might be the problem with the rate of 15% on this scale.

ComradeP,

You make a couple of perceptive points. Quite a number of the scenarios shown here are new and need further testing. It's a long story on why 'old' scenarios from Glenn are now new, but that will be clearer in a few weeks time.

Let me tackle a few of your comments. Cristot is not long enough. I play tested the longer le Hamel and needed 12 to 14 turns. I will probably up the scenario to 12 turns for the next round of testing. Please note that taking Cristot is not necessary to win - it's score is the difference between a minor and major. It wasn't taken in real life and hence this distinction.

As far as the last two where it essentially rewards ahistorical play, I can see a few things I can do. For example in the Counterattack scenario, if I put a 25 point VP hex on both flanks (and not change the victory requirements) then the Allied player has to leave some defenders to cover them. I'll run a few tests and then get the testers to try.

The main reason Glenn built these short scenarios was that experience showed that players played these much more than the medium to long ones. It's good to include them, we just need to iron some kinks out.

Finally, the 15% air interdiction. I got a few emails from the testing team, commenting that they believed we had it right. What it really does is force you to decide when to risk fast movement and when not to. Some formations don't have a choice like limbered guns, but in the main interdiction rarely comes into play as a player has to weigh up losses vs speed. The impact is exactly as it was, do you as the German risk losses to redeploy quickly or do you use a more measured approach.

Happy to hear your commentary, but the current view is it works.

David