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#Post#: 27--------------------------------------------------
E05 Over the Oder
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 12, 2018, 5:42 am
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Date: 16 Mar
Playtester: Elias Nordling
Finished a game of Ovet the Oder, which turned out to be a
complete disaster for the Germans.
Most of the Germans were broken when reaching their intended
target, and they didn't make up for it with good bombing rolls a
measly 3 bombing hits were scored. The Hs129:s were all shot
down before getting near the target.
5 Soviet fighters were lost, to 10 German fighters and 8
Henschels. Score -18. Massive Soviet victory.
The Bf 190K-s took their strafing mission seriously in my
playthrough, the German chances are probably better if they
engage the first set of Soviet fighters.
There was an interesting dynamic to the fighting in that the
Germans made a pass at the target, then turning to fighters,
swinging upwards to engage incoming Soviet fighters. It was an
oddly whirling battle with lots of shifting tallies,
As in Schlachtflieger, the Hs-129:s have "VP FARM" stamped on
them, as they are worth twice as much per kill and are hard to
not get +4 against. I agree with Dave that they can enter one
turn earlier, it increases their chance of reaching the target.
I'm not sure how representative my final score was, take it as
one data point. Even when broken, the Germans should have been
able to score a few more hits. But it IS a bit of a problem that
the Soviets have 16 points of Henschels to collect.
You need to list the flight size of German flights, since
veterans have tactical flexibility.
#Post#: 28--------------------------------------------------
Re: E05 Over the Oder
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 12, 2018, 5:43 am
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Date: 28 Mar
Playtester: Elias Nordling
Did a second playthrough of Over the Oder. This one fit the
historical description pretty well. The Germans suffered
grievous losses, but managed to score double damage on both the
trucks and the supplies.
The Bf109K:s ignored strafing and managed to blunt the first
Soviet wave of fighters somewhat, which in turn allowed for more
bombers to get in before being broken. The Flak is murderous and
it doesn't help that the Germans come piecemeal. Forming up for
a concentrated attack might be viable, but at the cost of being
mostly broken from fighter attacks when going in. The mist sure
doesn't help.
For the Soviets, it is obvious that the HS129s is where the
points are, and the Germans can't really prevent them from
farming them. in this game, only 2 Hs129s survived.
The Soviets lost only 3 fighters to 10 German fighters and 6
Henschels.
The bombing attacks were:
FW 190A attempts to bomb flak. Misses at +0.
FW190F Rocket -2: 10%
FW190F Rocket +2: 50%
FW190F Strafe 0: 25%
FW190F Strafe +3: 100%
Hs129 Strafe +1: 0%
Hs129 Strafe +0: 50%
HS129 bomb: -4: 0%
The final score was 6 points, a Soviet victory by a wide margin,
though to me it certainly felt like a hard earned German win, or
possibly a draw.
The scenario works and provides a good narrative with lots of
options. It is a bit fiddly with the experte special rules and
mist, and combined strafing and bombing to remember, and I'm not
sure the Hs129s can't be gamed. The Russians will slaughter them
and the Germans might be better off aborting them right away.
Their 2 points of hits gained the Germans 10 points in this
game, but they also cost 12 points in losses. Of course, if they
hadn't been there, other Germans would have taken losses.
Dave and I seems to disagree on the scoring here, but I think it
needs to be adjusted downwards a lot. You can judge the bombing
mods for yourself.
#Post#: 29--------------------------------------------------
Re: E05 Over the Oder
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 12, 2018, 5:44 am
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Date: 14 Jul
Playtester: Elias Nordling
Played Over the Oder again, with the revised Haze rules.
As the previous two games, I ha the feeling I had NO IDEA if I
was playing either side optimally, or even well. There is so
many parameters here, making it a fairly complex scenario. Which
is of course a good thing.
It is a big brawl, with the German fighters having to choose
between defending and strafing. As expected, the bombings went
better when the haze didn't negatively affect the bombing roll.
In the end, I got a result which certainly looked like the text
on the tin. The Germans managed to cause some significant
damage, but also suffered grieviously. As usual, the HS129s are
a VP farm, but here the bombings score heavily and the Soviets
could beed something to counteract it.
The final score and loss was:
Germans:
Bombing: 34
4 P39
1 La-7
6 Yak 3
Total: 45
Soviet:
5 Bf109k
4 FW190a
2 FW190d
7 FW190f
6 Hs129
Total 30
Final score 15
German victory
My feeling is that this result should perhaps be a draw. The
Germans could have scored even better in bombing while losing
fewer aircraft. They could halso have done worse. I'd like to
see what other playtesters get here.
Other than the point adjustment, I see no further need for
changes.
#Post#: 30--------------------------------------------------
Re: E05 Over the Oder
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 12, 2018, 5:46 am
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Date: 14 Jul
Playtester: Dave Demko
Over the Oder (2 playings)
I ran through these solo before reading anybody else's comments
on the scenario.
First playing: I used Hvy Flak C (wrong) and played to a tie.
The Bf 109Ks carried gun pods but didn't get to do much strafing
because they were intercepted. That may not have been a smart
move on the Soviets's part.
Second playing:
The Bf 109K squadrons were clean, flying in effect a sweep
though assigned to strafing. One of those squadrons tangled with
the P-39s and both broke on turn 2. The Germans tried for but
didn't achieve flak suppression by making the first few attacks
on flak units. On GT 5 the Russians' best squadron (La-7 with
Vet and Experte) broke in its first turn of combat. Also that
turn the Russians lost three fighters to "friendly" flak. (Is
sending their own forces into danger like that a stereotypically
Soviet move?). A successful dogfight against a squadron of Fw
190Fs forced them to jettison their rockets. The other squadron
of Focke Wulf jabos rocketed the Supply target for 3 hits (10
VP). The HS 129s (the scenario's coda, unless the
fighter-bombers circle before running in on their targets) lost
2 planes to fighters and one to flak. The Germans ignored the
bridge, even with bomb-armed squadrons, because there were
easier VPs to be had from the Trucks and Supply.
Results: 10 turns
Russians had 11 VP for kills
Germans had 7 VP for kills, 4 VP against Trucks, 10 VP against
Supply, and 2.5 VP against flak.
Final score: 12.5 = Soviet victory (pretty close)
Recommendations: 1) Maybe let the Hs 129s enter a turn earlier.
They are weak bombers and seem tacked onto the action. Maybe
being better coordinated with the rest of the attack would make
them more interesting. 2) Clarify what's up with the Bf 109K
squadrons: They're assigned to strafe but don't carry bombs.
#Post#: 31--------------------------------------------------
Re: E05 Over the Oder
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 12, 2018, 5:50 am
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The current VP outputs for plays are:
Elias 1st = -18
Elias 2nd = 6
Elias 3rd = 15
Dave 1st = N/A
Dave 2nd = 12.5
Average = 3.8
#Post#: 118--------------------------------------------------
Re: E05 Over the Oder
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 15, 2018, 7:27 am
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After reviewing the feedback, I'm going to make the following
changes:
(1) Drop the VP for Hs 129 losses from 2 VPs to 1 VP, so as to
remove them as a 'VP farm'.
(2) Drop the victory conditions 'draw window' by 2 VP. If we
ignore Elias's first playthrough, this drops the mean VP outputs
into the middle of this new window.
#Post#: 638--------------------------------------------------
Re: E05 Over the Oder
By: Elias Nordling Date: December 1, 2018, 1:26 pm
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V0.5
Player: Elias Nordling (solitaire)
I'm playing the scenarios that are heavily dependent on bombing
again to see if any of them have their balance seriously shifted
by the revisions we've made regards to bombing.
I found that the increased disr/broken mods didn't have a great
effect on the scenario, but the change in when fighter-bombers
can start spending up to 4 MP:s did, as it allowed the
FW190F-fighters to attack one turn earlier. This also gave the
Soviets very little time to reach and attack them before they
bombed, so as compensation, I'd suggest moving the Soviet
fighters up one or two squares.
The Germans had a really rough start, with both BF109K:s
breaking early without achieving anything except taking losses.
At one time, the Germans had taken 8 losses without a single
Soviet loss.
Despite this, the bombings did fairly well, wich I think you can
expect thanks to the easy targets. The supply dump took 3x hits
and the truck 1x hits, which actually felt a bit on the low
side, they could have scored even more.
Score:
German:
34 pts bombing + 8 Sov ftrs
Sov:
5 Bf109K, 3 FW190A, 5 FW190D, 4 FW190F, 5 HS129: 22
Total: 20.
German victory.
It felt like a loss or possibly a draw. After all, the Germans
took 40% losses! If that is not enough for a loss, I don't know
what the Soviets will have to do to win. After all, the Germans
only need a single good hit with rockets and strafing to score
30 points for the dump, so I think you more or less have to
assume the Germans get those points. I see my older me doesn't
necessarily agree, but I think dropping the HS129 to 1 point and
haze not having an effect on bombing makes quite some
difference.
#Post#: 641--------------------------------------------------
Re: E05 Over the Oder
By: pilotofficerprune Date: December 2, 2018, 4:31 am
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Okay, I have recalculated the results based on the current
scoring:
Elias 1: Bombing 8; Soviet a/c 5; German a/c 18 = -5 (perception
= Soviet win)
Elias 2: Bombing 25; Soviet a/c 3; German a/c 16 = 12
(perception = German win or draw)
Elias 3: Bombing 34; Soviet a/c 11; German a/c 24 = 21
(perception = draw)
Dave 2: Bombing 17; Soviet a/c 7; German a/c 11 = 13
Elias 4: Bombing 34; Soviet a/c 8; German a/c 22 = 20
(perception = German loss or draw)
This gives a mean VP of: 12.2
This has increased the mean by around 5 VP, which is the top end
of our draw window. If I was to take out the outlier negative
result of the first playtest, we get a mean of 16.5.
Let’s break each of these scores down in turn:
Bombing VPs: Average is 23.6, with a median of 25, though taking
out Elias’s first play outlier the mean is a more consistent
27.5
Soviet a/c: Average is 6.8 with a median of 7
German a/c: Average is 18.2 with a median of 18
It’s interesting that we have two playings where a VP result of
20 or 21 was perceived as a draw. We also have a VP 12 percieved
as a draw. In the only out-and-out Soviet win, the Germans
bombed really badly, and that was back in the day when Haze
levied a bombing tax of a -1 modifier.
Without the Hs 129s acting as a farm, the Soviets are
consistently getting +11 VP from the exchange of aircraft, with
a low of +4 and a high of +14. Average aside, the Soviets get
consistent results of +13 VP for aircraft losses in 3 of 5
playthroughs.
So this means that ALL the variation in the scenario is in
bombing. The best bombing results we have seen (in 2 from 5
tests) is 34. And on one of those the perceived result was even
a loss, given the casualties the Soviets inflicted.
This suggests that to give the Soviets a chance, the draw window
needs to be lifted.
I’m currently leaning towards an upper draw window of 19 and a
lower of 16. This would mean that if the Soviets behaved
consistently, the Germans would need to achieve 29 bombing VP to
get a draw and 32 bombing VP for the win.
#Post#: 643--------------------------------------------------
Re: E05 Over the Oder
By: Elias Nordling Date: December 2, 2018, 10:28 am
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Good anslysis! Perception is very difficult in this scenario, as
the Germans usually farm a lot of points for bombing, making it
feel like a victory, yet suffer terrible losses, making it feel
like a pyrrhic victory. You certainly get the historical
outcome!
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