Charkov Campaign play balance Q

[Turner]

Looking at the axis player units, it's a very mixed pot. Some RU units with D morale, some Wehrmacht units with C morale even. Most of it is infantry and at best those are up to B morale. Looking at the numerical advantage especially in tanks that the Soviet player enjoy, I think that playing with QFM and Optional Assault rule on would give a fair balance, just like VM recommend. For the german player it's all a matter of where and when to employ the PzDivisions, and those are the only divisions capable of stopping the Soviet onslaught, or so it seems.
For the Soviet player it's a matter of force concentration. Keep in mind that the Soviet player is free to use his units as he please, meaning regrouping to use force concentration and breakthrough at places the axis player do not expect.

Looking at the scenario I think it's best played using the rules VM recommend it should be played with.

[Volcano Man]

Volcano I am curious how the use of QFM in this scenario would make the game more balanced? In my limited experinece with the the stock version I would think QFM would make it near impossible for a Soviet victory. What have you done with your mod to redress the balance of the scenario with QFM recommended? I am interested as I like to play balanced games. I know you use a different DB for unit values. But I don't know if that would swing the pendulum enough or even in the right direction. :chin:

The only thing I can say is, as RickyB just mentioned, run some solitaire tests with you playing both sides and see if you prefer to use the QFM optional rule, or any other suggested optional rule for that matter. As mentioned, it is completely up to the users to use every other optional rule besides the highlighted AAR optional rule. In reality, it is less to do with the optional rules than to recognize strengths and weakness in the _Alt and playing to the former and avoiding the latter.

Generally speaking, the QFM optional rule has been tested and is desirable to allow a historical advance rate for say, the SS in Kursk '43. Of course the QFM will hurt the soviets in the early battles since they basically have no Guards units, but in many cases this is a historical weakness and the soviets in the _Alt have higher average quality levels in the early battles (no E or F units), but they don't have any more C either, with all *line units* being D quality. On the other hand, the penalty for D quality units are minimal with the real advantage going to the B and A German units. This is absolutely necessary since, in the _Alt, early war German armor is very weak and susceptible to high losses from artillery, air and soviet tanks. If you don't believe that then just open up the two OOBs in the early war titles and compare the _Alt and stock German tank ratings. The early war German infantry assault ratings are also not much to get excited about either, but early war soviet infantry are basically so much fodder that should rely on the assault and artillery to do most of the casualties.

Later in the war, the soviets get Guards units where the QFM optional rule neither helps nor hurts, but their real strength is not in their quality but in their massive amount of, by this point, excellent tanks; artillery; air; and assault infantry; which have some of the highest combat factors in the game (soviet SMG battalions have assault factors of 20+, where the highest German assault factor is ~12). Also keep in mind that the soviets in all _Alt scenarios generally have higher recovery rates than stock (if you find one where it is not higher then let me know).

That said, it is impossible to suggest rules to use and have everyone be happy with it so feel free to experiment.

*edited: corrected some typos*

[Turner]

Thanks for the information Volcano Man!

[FLG]

Quick suggestion, not knowing how much testing VM has done with this specific title and his values. Go ahead and play a few turns, against the AI if you would like, and develop a feel and make a recommendation. That is what I try to do, and if the results are way out there figure out what can help get the results in line. Might take a bit of playing but that is the only way to really know.

Rick

I also am about to start a Kharkov alt campaign and would like to here of your experiences of this.

I suspect Matrix's Disaster on the Donets must have sparked all this interest.:)

[Ricky B]

I played quite a bit of the standard campaign when I first got involved at the Blitz. Based on that, I created a version of the campaign tweaking bits of it and adding in explicit supply, which I have played. But I have never played VM's version, I am sure it is enough different that I wouldn't be able to guess how it will play out, compared to the stock one.

Rick

[Volcano Man]

Also, if we are talking about Kharkov '42 then RickyB graciously agreed to allow me to incorporate some of his changes into the _Alt campaign. I have played through roughly half of the campaign in a H2H test and I thought it was pretty good. That said, the _Alt is a constant evolution from PBEM feedback so everyone is free to propose changes at the vmods.com forum. :)

[Krak]

Thank you for the very informative reply VM.