1914 Valour - FWWC Tournament Round 5

[ComradeP]

The cropping of the map and the placement of the exit objectives make this frustrating to play for the Central Powers.  I guess after the frustration in previous rounds for the Entente/Allied player, that might be fair.

Due to the point where the map cuts off, any forces outflanking the Russians need to cross two streams to reach the exit objective. Slightly to the north, they'd only need to cross a single stream. This feels too constrained. There were, as far as I can determine, barely any Russian forces north of here up to the 26th Infantry Division at Glowno (according to Buttar, the 43rd Infantry Division moved there as well, but the military map used by Volcano Man shows the division moving into the Lodz salient and it's present in this scenario).

This is also one of those scenarios where there was a lack of coordination to a lesser (Germans) and greater (Russians) extent historically, whereas the Russians can use all their forces to good effect to delay the Germans. That the Russians only need to hold 15 hexes to win, with 4.5 divisions also doesn't help. There's no incentive for them to close in on the pocket, preventing the Germans from exiting will nearly always result in a minor victory unless they lose a lot of units.

The Russian cavalry isolated my forces for 7 turns, but that wasn't too much of a problem. Aside from the field guns, the Caucasus Cavalry Division was eliminated after that.

My lead unit was 2 hexes from one of the exit hexes at the start of day 3, but chewing through stacks of Russians simply wasn't possible in 6 turns with the forces at hand. I'm surprised I nearly got a Draw. 1004 points on my turn, 984 points by the end of the Russian turn. My losses went up sharply on the final day as 50. RD tried to push back the Russians. Russian losses were even worse.

Well played by my opponent, it's unfortunate that we both felt the scenario was a bit too gimmicky.