WBC West - Day 2 - AVD, 5th and Final Turn

Chuck had done a good job of getting into my backfield, and I had done a terrible job of keeping my line intact in the north, and he was able to do enough damage (killing two more Pz units) that I conceded. Those are worth 4 points each, and after conceding it turned out that I didn't even have that many VP in the cup, much less the VP on the board that I was going to struggle to take. There was a big hole in my central line with little opportunity for me to respond to, and with dinner coming up concession was the only real option. If we'd had a little more time I'd have wanted to get into the late game just to see how it worked.

So what did I learn from this game? First, you need to very carefully think about what chits to put in the cup, made more so because you can't coordinate infantry with your panzers as the Germans. Second, be aware in the early game of how you can use Minsk Pocket units to add 9th Army chits to the cup, well worth the points. Third, just because Soviet units are out of command and not a threat, be sure that they aren't blocking critical road areas - I was unable to move my 3rd Pz infantry units up (only four units) as a result, when I should have used a 3rd Pz chit in turn 3 instead of putting in a 9th Army, as I'd forgotten I could have gotten the chit just by pulling another HQ from Minsk (although that would have shorted me in the following turn). I think that perhaps it's a good idea to get two HQs out in the first turn so that you can get the two extra activations in that turn as well.

Like A Victory Lost, this game is surprisingly deep for such a light ruleset. BTW, the rules are all right there, with almost nothing confusing (at least, we found nothing confusing). The only thing that I think we probably didn't check as carefully as we could was retreating units closer to a supply source, even over moving through ZOCs, although I'm not terribly sure about this without checking the rules closely.

The good news is that, much like after playing AVL for the first time, that I feel like I would play significantly better the next time out, and there will be a next time. Great game, and congrats to Chuck for his excellent play.

I'm not quite sure what the evening games will be (I know that Mike lost Friedrich as the Prussians to Eric and Dave). Tex has asked for A Brief History, we'll see if there's a quorum.