Panzer General: Allied Assault . . . Commence Fire!

Ok so I got three turns of Panzer General: Allied Assault in tonight and spilled a bit of blood.  This was a solo play (the Metz scenario) and the solo rules for the Germans were pretty doggone straightforward.

Movement is exceptionally simple and the size of the map means that there just aren't a lot of opportunities to outsmart the enemy.  This is smash-mouth wargaming -- you need to bring heavy guns to the front and spend them.  Support units are a must to close the deal.  My first attack was on what my buddy calls "Porsche's finest engineering effort" i.e., a King Tiger tank  unit which I softened up with a bomber run first (played a special card) and then went after it with Shermans and support artillery and ground troops.  True to history, I dented the Tigers' front bumper a bit and that was about it.  But their return fire did no damage at all due to some terrain modifiers and a lucky break in the combat card draw, so the Tigers had to retreat.  That was a bit of a surprise.  The crack German troops at the front of the line on either side fared worse, but I went at them pretty doggone hard.

The Metz objective is fairly daunting since you have to move a unit at least seven spaces to win and you have eight turns to do it in.  It sounds like you have one turn to spare, but the thing is . . . there's Germans trying to stop you.  Units can generally move only one space so you can't afford to be slowed down or retreated without losing the battle.  In this particular scenario American morale wanes as the battle progresses, which is essentially the hit points of the system.

The combat calculations were a piece of cake.  My last blog post earlier in the week seemed to pull a few grumblings about the amount of work it required but after the first half of the first encounter I was fully on board.  In fact I was accounting for all the pieces so quickly that I was concerned I'd missed something.  I hadn't.  Unit's attack value, support units' value, terrain value.  That's it.  Add that for each side.  Once that's done you can burn cards to increase your total if you please.  All in all a simple enough task and a trade-off I'll take any day to not have to work out line-of-sight and ranging on a hex map.

I did not see how to bring the supporting German units onto the map for these first few turns as I could not find a rule referring to it in either the general solo rules or the rules specific to this scenario.  Likely an oversight on my part, but I would have been more comfortable if the scenario rules were more clearly laid out.  For this short game the reinforcements wouldn't have mattered as they would not have been able to reach the hot part of the board before I finished up for the evening.  It may be that I needed to draw cards that directed me to place new units and that I just didn't get one in the three turns I played.

I tend to like games that allow for a bit more nuance and creativity.  I like a bit of puzzle in the mix.  As in most WWII games this one isn't providing a lot of that.  It's largely about claiming good ground and dealing damage early -- "firstest and bestest" as an old friend used to say.  The play appears simple, but solid.  Given that it's a solo game that I can play in 90 minutes I'll likely get a bit more time in on it.  If my buddy comes down we may get two games in in an evening.  If two people are adding up for combat they'll likely be done in about ten seconds.

Two players would lessen the setup time too, which may be the games biggest stumbling block.  I was careful to reset all the decks when I cleaned up so I could play this scenario again in short order.

S.