The Ashes of Empire

The designer Harald Topf is working on a rules version workable without dice. Of course Ashes is available through the Gamers.

Origins 2000

UGG will be represented by the Gamers. This year Udo Grebe will not appear personally at the Origins but there is a small chance he can attend the wargame world championship formerly known as Avalon Con in Baltimore.

Cold Days in Hell

A lot of players contacted me that they had problems defeating Poland in the first turn or needed too much supply. Time to discuss the most important concepts.

In order to defeat Poland Germany must gather 5 collapse points.

Warsaw 3 points
Hexcity 1 point
Minor City 1/2 point
Every 5 eliminated land units 1

Defense of Poland

EoA (Empires of Apocalypse) offers a free setup for the Polish troops within Poland. If you stick close to the historic OB, concentrating the mass of the Army along the border trying to defend everything, your forces will fall easy victim to German Blitzkrieg warfare. There is no optimal setup for Poland, but best is to concentrate strong forces in the Warsaw/Lodz area, even if that means leaving some forts at the border unoccupied. The strongest troops should be placed in Warsaw, some in Lodz, and each hex city must have a garrison. The rest of the troops should be placed in order to hinder a German march on Warsaw.

From the western border there are two 4-movement-point paths to Warsaw tracing via hexes U 08 and W 09. All other paths need 5 MP or more. So 1 Inf and one fort each must be placed there, also 1 Inf and 1 fort in the forest hex between them.

The air force should not be concentrated because it could then be held down by one German air base attack. Place one fighter each in Warsaw and Lodz and the bomber in Lwow. Spread your supply; Germany can capture it nearly everywhere. Place 2 points in Warsaw, 1 with the HQ and the rest 1 each in 2 other cities.

German plans

Germany's goal must be to defeat Poland economically. This must not necessarily be done completely in the first turn. Save as much supply and casualties as possible. You can enforce the defeat of Poland in the first turn even without Warsaw by taking Lodz, Danzig, Lwow, maybe Tarnopol and Wilna (if these are unoccupied in the exploitation phase), and eliminating enough Polish land units. This will cost you, however.

Minimum requirements for Germany's first turn.

1) Secure both resource hexes in Poland
2) Destroy the Polish fighters
3) Weaken the Polish Army decisively, so that the bulk of your forces can be transferred to the Western Front next turn.

Germany is second to set up, so depending on the Polish defense Germany could use the Ostpreussen option of placing a 6-4-6 tank corps and the HQ Guderian there.

The Road to Warsaw

The Polish HQ is able to command 2 reserve units. So Germany is to set 3 spearheads against Warsaw. Poland's reserves can counter only 2 of them at best. Group Ostpreussen 1 x 6-4-6 tank and 2 x 4-3-6 Inf. Group U 08 1 x 7-5-6 tank, 1 x 6-5-6 Inf , 1 x 5-4-6 Inf. Group W 09 1 x 7-5-6 tank , 2 x 5-4-6 Inf. Both groups attack exactly there.

One additional group must be committed against Lodz. 1 x 6-4-6 tank , 2 x 5-4-6 Inf either attacking into the forest hex V 08 or from the south. Lodz is not only an objective, but also blocks the path to Warsaw.

There is still one tank corps left to involve the Polish reserves or part of it. Infantry units can be moved in to block the Polish reserves' paths without attacking.

Air Force

6 fighters and 7 bombers are superior to the Polish air force in number and quality. Make sure that the Polish fighters are unlikely to get to your bombers. An easy way is to commit at least one fighter plus one bomber each for an air base attack on Warsaw and Lodz. However, this consumes 2 points of supply.

Your spearheads selected to take Lodz and Warsaw should contain two fighters and two of your strongest bombers. You must decide which of your spearheads is to take Warsaw. The Ostpreussen group is closest; it must go 2 hexes to reach Warsaw. Because of the Weichsel river it could be wise to cross it and attack Warsaw from the west. The tank battle concept enables you to conserve your units' movement points.

In the combat phase, the tanks penetrate the enemy defense lines. After your tank group reaches a city, switch to the infantry as fighting units. Your committed air forces accompany the tank groups all the time.

Poland could use its strongest units for hexes U 08 and W 09. In this case the group Ostpreussen has the best chance to capture Warsaw and should receive the strongest air support. If Poland uses its strongest units to defend Warsaw the two 4-3-6 Inf are most likely too weak, and the group Ostpreussen should be used to fight troops blocking the other groups' path to Warsaw.

Groups U 08 and W 09 have a 4 hex path to Warsaw. Every German unit in the spearheads has 6 movement points, so only one round of tank combat can be fought; otherwise the group cannot make it to Warsaw this turn. So one of the groups is used to clear the path and the other must eliminate the border defense in one combat round and advance to Warsaw by using the rule of temporarily violating the stacking limit (hexes occupied by forces who cleared the path). The two German HQs are superior and have a good chance of providing a +1 modifier to an important battle. One HQ should be saved for Warsaw. The Polish HQ is unlikely to influence a battle positively, but to make sure it cannot be used for Warsaw, Germany should take opportunities to attack it.

There is no 100% way to capture Warsaw in the first turn; all depends on die rolls. The strategy above gives a good chance. As long as Germany attacks with high combat differentials, German casualties should be minimized.