New Campaign Game for Rzhev '42 Gold

[Indragnir]

One problem (not specific to your variant) is the inherent 'hindsight' problem associated with simulating this campaign. There is little incentive for a Soviet player to recreate the initial historical offensive. He knows the ultimate fate that awaits and he also knows that taking and holding Kharkov is unrealistic. Variable Victory point objectives like those used in Panzer Battles would go a long way to solving this but in their absence I did come up with a house rule to try to recreate this effect. I set up a spreadsheet to record additional 'bonus' Soviet VP's for captured objectives associated with their historical offensive. The longer they held these the more points they accumulated. These points were not lost once a objective was lost. Gives the Soviets a reason to hold them as long as possible and a reason for the Axis to try to prevent this. But I am trying to come up with a more elegant solution as keeping track of these points is a nuisance. Perhaps someone has already come up with something better?  

With your variant, I think the use of the Alternative Direct/Indirect Fire rules also tends to discourage the Soviet player from aggressive action. These rules make it desirable for the Soviets to avoid creating high density stacks. They should be charging forward en masse and assaulting but with these rules they need to advance carefully and wait for their artillery to do enough damage before daring to combine into larger stacks and assault. And even then they need to be cautious due to the Delayed Disruption Reporting rule. While I definitely think this rule should stay, it seems a little too much when combined with the Alternative Fire rules. I wonder if the Alternative Air Strike Resolution rule may be enough, without the  Alternative Direct/Indirect Fire rules, to provide an incentive for the Soviets to stay dispersed where possible. An advantage of this approach would be that it  encourages widespread attacks across the entire front, rather than discouraging it, since there will not be enough air power to deal with every Soviet attack. Of course, for most of the scenario the Soviets are defending, not attacking but the requirement for being dispersed still hurts them more than it does the Germans. Or so it seems to me. It may be simply a reflection on my style of play, so it would be interesting to hear how you see it.  

That is the only feedback I have, apart from saying that I think you have done a really excellent job!

Thank you! I will wait for your list.

This an interesting topic. I really changed my mind about Alternate Fire rules like a dozen times, because I agree with your thougths, however if those rules are not checked in, the germans at Kharkov area would need really higher defense values, higher fatigue recovery (that affects both sides), a lot more of firepower and good replacement rating to try to hold the red tide like they did historicaly.

They did hold the russian attack despite being in severe armor, infantry and artillery inferiority and eventualy managed to trap and destroy a lot of russian formations... with only 1 and a half Panzer Division and with small arriving infantry KG. If you allow massing, the germans cannot withstand the attrition war at Kharkov. Do not think about even using companies to defend locations, in the real battle that was the german did and that was allowed the creation of reserves first then the counterattacks that saved the situation for them.
If you check casualties here you will find the amazing number of casualties the germans did inflict to the russians at Kharkov and above area.

It's not a perfect solution for sure. In the other hand those rules will help the russian at the South, since those gemran 900 men strong btls are going to suffer.

Also in real battles some parts of formations were in reserve, the players usualy employ all forces all turns, so those rules are also aiming for a more realistic force commitment.

However all my scenarios are open for revision as new sources could appear or some rule or value seems wrong. Obviously I have my own ideas and those are in the scenarios.

PS: Variable Victory points sounds well however I don't know very well their working... yet (I need to read about them.)
Also I was considering keeping track with just a last day Strategy option as notification that reward VP to russians if they captured Kharkov even if they lost it.