Jean-Claude Bésida for Vae Victis The French campaign of 1940 (the Fall Gelb of the title) seems to be attracting more attention these days. In the figure market one can get all manner of interesting Dutch, French and Belgian tanks, trucks, APCs and troops, so it is appropriate that Vae Victis should pay a visit. Some of you may remember the GDW Series 120 game on the topic that suffered from a dreadful all units in ZOC must be attacked rule that took us to May 1915 not May 1940. This new game is that topic redone properly. Of course with Vae Victis this means excellent little sprites (Belgian chasseurs, mmmn……). The game covers the area from Groeningen south to Switzerland and from Dieppe to Wiesbaden. The map is very clear with the possible exception of the hex edges. These are littered with all manner of impedimenta. For example, Liege has its own fortification lines, a river, a border and German fortifications in neighbouring Aachen. Add to this a number of varieties of rivers, and of hex contents (Forest, Marsh, Difficult, "Accidenté") and you can find yourself lifting your stacks pretty regularly. At times no attack ever seems to bear any resemblance to its original strength because the rivers halve strength or shift columns (as do the forests). And this is all before we encounter the modifier heavy combat system. The Germans can try for a Brandenburger commando action to cross rivers, the Allies simply suffer from them. The general mess of the Ardennes and the successive Belgian river positions all come through, but I do wonder if the effects are overcooked. Von Kluck did not seem to be quite so concerned when he toured the area in 1914. The counters as mentioned are excessively tasty. So much so that I found Fallschirmjaeger by The Gamers totally dreary after playing Plan Jaune. The counters are not only pretty but also useful in identifying who is what. The Dutch and Belgians stand out well with their flags and uniforms. The motorised troops can easily be identified from the leg troops too. Each counter (airborne troops aside) tends to have three factors: Combat, Quality and Movement. Infantry are slow (3 Movement Points a turn), motorised is not only double that, but gets a half move exploitation move. The average German Corps is a 5-4-3 versus a French 3-3-3. As the combat rules below will show this is a fatal weakness for the French. Unit size is Corps (three steps of combat but two stacking points - except for the last, cadre, step) or division (two steps of combat, but one of stacking). Separate counters represent the German PanzerKorps and the constituent units are kept off map. These units are particularly powerful. The French have two smaller concentrations of this type. The game sequence is very appropriate to its topic and leads much of the flavour. It opens with a joint phase with random events, reinforcements, special operations and Terror raids. The Axis Phase then starts with a supply check and replacements, movement by motorised units only, combat, an Allied reaction move, non-motorised movement, motorised exploitation and finally isolation, railheads and Bridges. The Allied Turn is the same and the Turn completes with a victory check. One can immediately see that in the "close for action" phase of the battle and in any breakout the armour will carry the weight of the combat because the infantry cannot fight unless the enemy chose not to stay next to them. Plan Jaune is a very long game so I have not experimented with a policy of retirement one hex by the Allies. It might work, but their goose is cooked elsewhere already. In movement one pays movement points to leave ZOCs but not to enter them, so it is a "sticky" game, and only motorised units may move from ZOC to ZOC. Exploiting motorised units must be in supply and move half their allowance. In addition each Quartier-General (three a side for Army Groups) can try to activate one reaction stack by rolling the same or lower than its quality. A break-out of armour can be formidably fast. Combat is a slew of modifications. One begins by determining the basic odds, as noted above the Germans will usually have the French at a disadvantage immediately. Combat is not mandatory but if you attack you must attack all adjacent units unless you are motorised (when you can concentrate your punch on your target hex). Having marked the odds one determines the size of combat by counting stacking points. This can mean a very large combat produces three die rolls (as many as nine casualty points and retreats). The two sides then select their assault-unit. It is the Quality of this unit that will modify the dice. It is this unit that will take the first step loss (so the panzer formations can look pretty weak towards the end of the game). One now modifies for terrain, for aircraft and for HQs, which add or subtract combat columns. By this stage the original odds may constitute a very small part of the equation. Losses are expressed in points that can be steps losses or hexes retreated but (and a good idea this) the odd results must be losses. As I noted a D9 result (possible in a large combat) will result in five losses, nearly two corps destroyed. In addition there are special rules where a blitz attack applies (only motorised units with at least one tank unit and air support). Overruns are possible. To give an idea of the effect of combat let's send Guderian's Panzer Corps (9 factors - 5 Quality) in against Prioux's Light Cavalry Corps (6 factors, 4 Quality). The basic odds are 3:2. Both Corps will add their support factor (and thus cancel each other out). Let's put Prioux behind a river, which will haul down the odds by one column and halve the attackers. The odds are now 1:3. Disaster strikes? Not really for the Germans have a lot of air units (worth two or three columns each) and the French but one unit (worth a column only). If they apply the whole air-fleet of both sides the result will be a 7:1 combat. Prioux will probably suffer two losses. Add in to this the effect of fortifications (no retreats, further halving) and the dice modifers and you can drift furtheraway from what appears the real strengths of the combat. Just the +1 quality modifier can mean a D3 loss in one third of cases at 7:1. Imagine a PanzerKorps hitting an infantry corps with Quality of 3! Reinforcements (with many interesting French forces - the Legion, the Norway Expeditionary Force, Chasseurs alpin etc) turn up in major cities. Replacements are used "out of line" and the motorised replacements are very limited (three Germans and one Allied). One infantry point arrives every other turn. Planes not only bomb the hell out of the enemy but can interdict key hexes (causing movement to halt). In addition they can Terror bomb causing refugees to appear (also gumming up movement) and contributing to Dutch collapse. The Germans can avoid some of the mess of rivers and fortifications by dropping paras or using commandos. These are limited but very important. The game opens with the effect of different War Plans. These Plans limit who can move and fight in early turns. The effect seems historical. The random events can be less so, but the designer has provided notes of the historical random events for those of you who find two Panzer Korps halting on Turn One a little unlikely. The Dutch vanish when four major cities are taken (or terrorised) and the Belgians when all their major towns fall. Victory is determined after 14 turns (two days a turn) by the Axis choice of objectives. These are taking the coast, exiting off the south-edge of the map with six motorised units, isolating the Maginot line, and eliminating the BEF and lots of French armour. The number of these achieved determines victory. The German must get at least two objectives to get a minor victory. There are lots of minor twiddles, notably with exotic French units (what if Italy attacks early etc). Plan Jaune is a well-designed and carefully considered game. The questions that attached to Tobrouk do not apply here. However, it is a game that seems to me to recreate rather than simulate history. The Allied armies form thick lines quickly and are then worn away by a power sander called the German army. Certainly some botched attacks can damage the German armoured units, but the Allies cannot long survive contact with the Germans who advantages of air, Quality and strength are overpowering. Of course terrain can help here, but only on the defensive, the Allied counter-attack is a rare creature. The requirement to attack all adjacent units for infantry means that frequently entire sections of the front are silent and the action is left to the tanks and motorised infantry. We never doubted in our game that the Allies would be seriously weakened by turn 8, and thereafter the reduced front simply made breakouts more likely. The supply rules did not seem to me to encourage the race to the sea, however. One could usually keep a line in operation. This historical determinism (which may be true but leaves the Germans unconcerned in an unhistorical fashion) would not be so bad were it not for the long combat system and number of turns. The result is just too long a game to do what I would have preferred - play it several times to test strategies. There is much of the feel of the campaign, but at a considerable cost in mental arithmetic, counter-shifting and counter-flipping. As such it limits itself to the players of the more pedestrian East Front big game. This is a pity because it has a lot going for it and some very clever tweaks to its rules. Its visual panache is important here. Perhaps the problem comes down to judging whether or not the Allies could have won. The Germans thought they could, and they knew a great deal more than us. Well worth a tinker, but not for the evening session. I recently purchased Ernest May's Strange Victory and shall be interested to see how it compares. Back to Perfidious Albion #103 Table of Contents Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by Charles and Teresa Vasey. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com