Re: [GZG] Point Systems

["Eric Foley" <stiltman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: "john tailby" <John_Tailby@xxxxxxxxxx>
> In just about all the later ww2 campaigns the allies had overwhelming 
> numerical superiority. Normandy and Bagration for examples. All the 
> planned battles were about building up overwhelming force so you could 
> defeat the enemy without taking massive losses

Well, yes... but this is all stuff that happened in the later stages of the 
war after earlier battles like the Battle of Britain crippling the 
Luftwaffe, Stalingrad squandering away Germany's best window of opportunity 
to bring about the Soviet Union's collapse, and Kursk's hamstringing of the 
bulk of Germany's remaining ability to launch any further effective 
offensives in the east.  By the time Bagration and particularly Normandy 
happened, Germany was already pretty much a broken nation fighting to the 
bitter end in a war that had already been decided by previous battles where 
most of their best fighting forces were destroyed.

> Actually wargames strive for fairness to try and make it enjoyable for 
> both sides. Some people get enjoyment out of wargaming hopeless situations 
> and these can be fun for scenarios when you have removed all elements of 
> competition from the scenario.

> If you give both player similar objectives, typically kill the enemy, then 
> both players need to have a chance to achieve this so points systems come 
> into effect.

Well, that's basically it.  If you're going to fight a one-off battle, then 
sure, you need to have relatively similar point totals, in order to simulate 
the kinds of battles that happen in wars that are truly in contest. 
However, there are examples like Dunkirk, the Bismarck sinking, and the like 
where one side does indeed have a relatively limited chance to win and the 
real objectives had little to do with "kill the enemy" on the part of the 
losing side.  If you're going to make the players play with uneven sides, 
whoever's got the inferior side needs to have orders that involve something 
other than "kill the enemy" that are achievable with the inferior materiel.

> Wargames also tend to remove any strategic element from the games both 
> sides line up in a roughly linear formation within heavy weapons range 
> with enough models to cover the table from side to side. The choice came 
> down to which unit fired at which, scouting, finding weaknesses in 
> defences, having enough depth to form multiple lines of defence are not 
> things easily replicated on a typical wargames table.

I don't know.  One of the more memorable FT games I've ever played was at a 
con where I directed two other players against another team of opposing 
players, where we were playing a scenario where our opponents had to 
evacuate a secret research team that my side had discovered holed up on a 
strategically vulnerable frontier planet.  I had somewhat superior mobile 
forces, while the opponent had a fairly powerful (but limited aim) "reflex 
gun" that was on one particular point on the planet.  They had to evacuate 
something like three shuttles full of research scientists (which were 
allowed to dock on ships that didn't have fighter bays) and get them off the 
board.  They took a strategy of having their heavy elements try to charge us 
while the lighter ships evacuated the scientists; I took a strategy of 
having a pair of cruiser squadrons (directed by each of my co-players) fly 
pincer movements around the far side of the planet from our arrival point 
while I took the capital ships straight up the middle.  Their heavy 
elements, which were a little weaker than mine in the first place, came at 
us way, way too fast and wound up flying clean off the table after their 
first pass and were unable to return, which left mine completely free to 
neutralize the "reflex gun" and assist the cruiser pincers in annihilating 
the units evacuating the scientists.  Not much linear going, and all because 
we had a real objective we were fighting over.

Also would've made a fairly good anime or science fiction show if somebody 
had been so inclined. :P

E 


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