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Sunday, August 21, 2016

Most Peaceful Wargame Ever

I just had the Most Peaceful Wargame I've ever had. 
The game was PanzerLeader, with a hypothetical Brits v Soviets scenario in May 1945. My Red Army forces rushed (because we're Russian) to the plateau in the center of the board, and took up Wellington-inspired defensive positions. The Brits had no line of sight to most of my units; if they wanted to attack, they would have to come up the slope and over the lip of the plateau, emerging into open ground at point blank range. I also left a few speedbump units to the south and at the crossroads behind me. 
I figured he'd assault, and that would weaken him enough for me to counterattack. My opponent, however, decided that "frontal assault into T34/85s and SU152s" didn't sound wise, so he left enough force to pin me and sent a few units around behind me to try to pick off the crossroads. The flaw in his plan is that his forces were sneaking from tree to rock, to keep me from Opportunity Firing on them; in contrast, when I decided to send reinforcements, I just ran an armor company right down the road from the hilltop to the crossroads, and was generally able to get there without risk of getting shot on the road. (I did offer him an Opportunity Fire shot on a T34/85, but he decided his Daimler Ferret scout car would rather run away instead of chipping my paint as my T34/85 rolled toward him).  Since I could reinforce faster than he could send attackers, he realized he couldn't take the crossroads; and it didn't weaken me quite enough to tempt him into assaulting the hill. This was turn 9, and the time limit was turn 10; there was not enough time for either of us to clear any more objective hexes even if we launched an all out assault, so we called it a draw without playing out the last turn.

Total shots fired: zero.

In a similar scenario on the other side of the room, the Americans sacrificed a few scouts to locate the Russian forces, then used artillery and aggressive armor attacks to break the Russian center for a decisive win.