Re: Toronto Trek: Success!

Kenneth spake thusly upon matters weighty: 

>	As always, Stargrunt II was a hit (second year running at
Toronto
> Trek).  Six SGII games were run.  Three of the smaller games involved
> platoons of the OUDF (Australians) and PAU (Africans).  Two games
involved
> the Japanese and a Merc platoon.  No clear outcomes were seen between
the
> OUDF and PAU.  The scenarios alternated betwen meeting engagements and
> attack/defense.  Most people picked up early on that This is Not
Warty-40,
> and that marching out in the open and pushing for close combat
translated
> into unacceptably high casualties.  The two games with the Japanese
and
> the Mercs offered no clear-cut victors; both scenarios were recon
> platoon-sized meeting engagements, with both side taking/inflicting
gross
> casualties.  In the end, perhaps the Mercs did better in both games,
but
> that is a shady judgment call.

The problem is usually that if you are playing attack defense, the 
attacker should have at least 2:1 (preferrably 3:1 or more) numeric 
superiority otherwise why launch the attack? But that doesn't make 
for a very fun time and you need REALLY sharp players on the defence. 
But it sounds like fun. 

>	Five turns and five hours later, the defense was getting a rough
> lesson in tactical set-up.  The defenders had placed ALL of their
mines in
> the middle of the table, and a majority of their forces in woods and
hard
> cover scattered throughout their half of the board.

They obviously weren't using the mines to channelize the enemy very 
well (from a map perspective). If you channelize the enemy to the 
wings of your board in a wargame, that really makes it less 
satisfactory as the attacker probably wants to maneovre off the 
board. Channelize him toward the centre, and you form a nice kill 
zone. And not leaving a reserve to reinforce week points (fast moving 
troops! or at least the best you can muster) is a common wargamer 
mistake - the tactical reserve can be very key in any battle plan. 

>	Sadly, had we started the game at 7pm rather than at 8:30pm, we
> could have followed through to the conclusion.  We stopped at 1:30am,
the
> ultimate outcome being obvious to most.

Holy smokes! That's still pretty good. If you'd started this at 5pm, 
I'd have thought you might have got done by 2am. I think you made 
pretty good time all things considered... at least compared to the 
wargamers I've played with. 
									
>	Hope to see you there!

Sounds interesting enough that (if another big battle can be put 
together) it might be worth the journey to TO. I guess if we made a 
bit of PR for the games, then Jon and Co. ought to be happy! :)

Tom.  
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