Part 81: Strategy Post
Strategy PostThis should be called "Strategy as I see it" because I don't have years of experience with the system, but oh well. This post will explain my thought process and decisions in terms of how I have used the forces of both sides, however. First of all, let's see some archetypical units from both sides (and two artillery pieces that I will talk about the significance of in a bit).
The stats of units in this game have quite an effect in terms of how you want to use them and how to engage them within the game. The main match up in the game so far has been between the D 23 Bn and the 5./II./LLSR counters above. At first glance, the numbers don't seem that dissimilar, but they have huge implications.
First of all, the Fire Rating and Assault Rating. The purple fire rating is the one for Light Mortars, and pink values are Small Arms. Light Mortars can be fired during Divisional Activation for no cost of a CP, but in general they do less damage even on a hit than small arms. Let's bring back up the combat chart:
The section we are looking at is on the right (unarmoured targets), comparing Light Mortars and Small Arms. A reminder: this CRT is roll under or equal, with higher rolls being better, hence making higher Fire Rating more devastating. As can be seen, Light Mortars, in comparison to Small Arms, are overall slightly worse, with one more "S?" result at lower Fire Ratings.
Firing against the German fallschirmjager, you will likely be firing at -2, one for their natural defence of -1, and another for them being in an orchard/other terrain. This can be offset by passing your Company Check (which gives a +2), but with TQ of 5 you only roll that 60% of the time, barring any penalties from barrage/cohesion hits/etc. So, most of the times, the Light Mortars will cause "S?" results, with the occassional "C" result when you hit a 0. The Germans, with their Troop Quality of 7, can usually shrug off the "S?" without any effect, without needing to spend a CP to do it, if they don't want.
The summary of all the math above is that most of the time, Light Mortars won't do anything, but eventually they will chip away at the Germans.
The paratrooper Small Arms, on the other hand, require some expenditure (either DPs or CPs) to actually fire, but are slightly more deadly. Added to that, the paratroopers are also more likely to pass their Company Check, meaning that their rating will more than likely be 7 rather than 5. So fewer activations since they don't get to fire "for free", but much more deadly when they do.
The differences are more striking in an assault. The Kiwis get to fire their assault rating of 5 twice, while the Germans get one shot at 5 and one at 6. More telling is the Troop Quality, though. In order to even perform an Assault, you need to pass a Bravery Check, and as mentioned before, the formula for this is Troop Quality + Enemy Defence (including modifiers) - your defence.
So let's have a situation in which I want to charge the paratroopers against the the Kiwis in a clear hex. My roll for Bravery would be 7 + 0 - (-1), so I do a roll-equal-or-under of 8. That is a high as it can ever be, because 9 is always a fail on a roll no matter what. If we reverse the situation, the calculation is 5 + (-1) - 0. I need to roll a 4 or under. That's a 50% chance of falling to charge and losing that action. And even if I can make that charge, the odds in a stand-up fight are against me, and assaults also allow the defenders to fire back before you get to hurt them. And if you try to Charge the Germans, their high TQ means that they are more likely to stand up to the charge instead of surrendering. Against that proposition, just doing a standard attack instead of an assault becomes much more enticing.
The math against the GJR Germans are a little bit better, but still not great overall.
But you aren't going to just have a straight slugging match, right? Infantry are important for taking and holding terrain, but the real difference-maker in this game is artillery. If you look at Artillery (of all kinds) and mortars in the chart above, you can see that they do a lot more damage at the lower dice rolls. As well as that, they place barrage markers (as long as you don't roll a 9), which automatically make your opponents worse in terms of fire/assault/troop quality ratings. They also have a tipping point, in that an unmodified Fire Rating of 6 or more places a Heavy Barrage, which is even more effective. The only two units that can achieve that in the game are the German Heavy Mortar Company, and a single Organic Artillery unit in Heraklion. They have a fire rating of 4, but with a troop quality check, they can get to 6 and place those heavy barrage markers down.
So in order to do a successful attack, ideally you want to have the target suppressed, for them to have a heavy/light barrage, and potentially some cohesion hits as well. This can crater their Fire/Assault ratings by -5, and lowers their TQ by -2/-3. It's at that point when you usually want to Assault, although with the Commonwealth troops you'll still usually face an unfavourable Bravery check just to get in.
In essence, you want to pound an enemy with as much artillery as possible, then assault. The Germans are much better at this two-step approach, due to their combined Troop Quality and low defence rating. The Commonwealth is less effective, so ideally you just want to surround the Germans and just keep plinking away until enough Cohesion Hits build up to start forcing step losses on the Germans.
The tactics in Operation Mercury are kind of constrained by the troops that are present, however. Other GTS games feature tanks much more prominantly, and they have a real effect on how infantry have to interact/engage with them: small arms are kind of bad, and even with elite troops, charging something with -2/-3 defence is very difficult.