Unprotected VP locations and cavalry raid(France'14)

[Hoplite]

Mostly in 1914_0906_03s: Foch Stands Firm and only a single time in 1914_0919_01s: A Dagger to the Heart scenarios my opponents  did make deep cavalry raid on my victory point locations without any garrisons. Is it WAD?  Should it be gamey just for opinion.

[Mr Grumpy]

Unfortunately gamey means different things to different people, if you are unhappy with your opponents tactics you can either discuss them and come to an agreement for future games or don't play your opponent again.

[jim pfleck]

in our current game I slowly pushed moved through the woods and grabbed one vp hex and kept going--the second one I hoped to keep (my infantry will be there in a few turns as you can see), but you pushed me back. I have been running cav on the roads all game to see if you were pushing troops that direction.

[Hoplite]

Oh ok. I just wonder if house rule should be necessary, for an opinion. I learn tactics, improve my gameplay. Scenarios great fun. 

[jim pfleck]

I am not sure. I use cavalry on my flanks and, often, in the last 2 or 3 turns if I am attacking to try and seize VP hexes. I also stack them with artillery and HQ's behind the line to help protect from surprise melee and to plug in the front line as a last reserve..

What do you have in mind for rules?

What do other players think?

[Mr Grumpy]

Having house rules that cover all eventualities can be difficult as well, some players wish to play these games as historical representations while other players wish to play them a pure games where any tactic allowed by the game system is OK, I have long argued for VP locations to have some kind of defence value to prevent small mobile units from moving around and converting them all.

This is a topic that has been raising its head even since S41 was released in 1999, at that time people complained about German players using mobile Flak and AT units to rush behind Russian lines and isolate groups of units, people said these units would not have been used in this way historically, other said if the game allows it then it is OK, in reality it is impossible to come to any hard and fast conclusions on this subject as players opinions have always varied wildly. 

[jonnymacbrown]

Mostly in 1914_0906_03s: Foch Stands Firm and only a single time in 1914_0919_01s: A Dagger to the Heart scenarios my opponents  did make deep cavalry raid on my victory point locations without any garrisons. Is it WAD?  Should it be gamey just for opinion.

Simply put players need to garrison VP hexes. They call it "friction" in the attack.  A player should not leave rear areas undefended and if a player, in WWI scenarios, scoops them up with cavalry good for him and sorrow for the enemy! On the other hand in WWII, using Flak and AT units to probe flanks and operate as cavalry does; seems to me like gamy tactics.   jonny

[Mr Grumpy]

Mostly in 1914_0906_03s: Foch Stands Firm and only a single time in 1914_0919_01s: A Dagger to the Heart scenarios my opponents  did make deep cavalry raid on my victory point locations without any garrisons. Is it WAD?  Should it be gamey just for opinion.

Simply put players need to garrison VP hexes. They call it "friction" in the attack.  A player should not leave rear areas undefended and if a player, in WWI scenarios, scoops them up with cavalry good for him and sorrow for the enemy! On the other hand in WWII, using Flak and AT units to probe flanks and operate as cavalry does; seems to me like gamy tactics.   jonny

That might work for certain smaller scenarios, but for scenarios with bigger maps with multiple vp hex's in rear areas it might not be possible to garrison them all without fatally weakening your front line units?

Another possibility is to have a "security force" of cavalry that patrols your rear areas to catch and destroy such units and to convert the VP hex's back, but again not every scenarios force mix will allow you to do this.

As I said a difficult problem to solve as everyone has a different take on this...........