009 Normandy Farm

009 Normandy Farm

Last week I had the rare-these-days opportunity of playing in-person with two of my greatest friends. One of them is still a newbie to the game, so I played this scenario with him seven times. I've always found it helpful to re-play a given scenario multiple times, particularly with new players, so we all can learn from our mistakes. This compact scenario is great for that, because it's not complex. Strategy Cards can be introduced, but they're not required.

The first two times I played Germany, he the USA. I won both. He thought Germany had the advantage in this scenario because they only needed to defend, so we switched it up.

I then won as USA four times.

For our seventh game, I also played the USA. He played with another friend, who had zero experience with ToI, so they played together. In this game, Germany won.

From this experience, I have a scenario-specific observation that's applicable to ToI as a whole.

For most play-throughs, the German player placed their MG crew in the building hex at the SE corner of map tile 11A. This makes a whole lot of sense, because the Germans need to stall the USA troops from crossing the open ground, getting into the woods hexes in map tile 7A, and pushing for the Victory Objective marker.

With this setup, the scenario hinges on the USA player pinning the German MG squad with the mortar squad. If this doesn't happen early, the USA player ends up losing a lot of squad figures crossing the open ground, or being pinned. So much so that they don't have enough figures or momentum to take the Victory Objective hex.

While playing the USA, I was victorious when I could pin the German MG squad at least two times in four rounds.

The time I lost as the USA, my mortar squads never pinned the German MG in that building hex.

When I extrapolate this across other scenarios, my conclusion is that there are some scenarios in which there is a single point of success or failure. This is probably more true of smaller scenarios than larger ones, but in this one, with the predominant setup described above, if the USA faction is not successful pinning the German MG in that building, then the USA cannot win.

Introducing the Strategy Cards into this scenario should open things up a lot.

wrote:

When I extrapolate this across other scenarios, my conclusion is that there are some scenarios in which there is a single point of success or failure. This is probably more true of smaller scenarios than larger ones, but in this one, with the predominant setup described above, if the USA faction is not successful pinning the German MG in that building, then the USA cannot win.
 

Completely agree with your point of view.
Sometimes a single wrong or unsuccessful move (even during the first few turns of the game) can permanently compromise the game.

JVHillegas-Elting post=790
Introducing the Strategy Cards into this scenario should open things up a lot.

Don't know if cards could be useful for USA.
Don't forget that Germans start with 3CP and USA with 0CP (and the 2CPs are on the hill within easy reach of the MG).

Note that this scenario was indeed intended to be a learning scenario. Back when I designed it, I remember reading on BGG about how several players new to the game struggled with how to best use mortars and MG's. One,  I remember,  complained about his advancing troops being massacred by MG op fire while crossing open terrain, which indeed is never a good idea, including in this scenario. Moreover, to win the scenario, practically all possible activations will have to be used, including fatigueing a squad. So yes, pinning the MG- most likely with the US mortar- is of paramount importance in this scenario,  but it's supposed to be! It's meant as a learning experience that can be played several times in a single session!

Aha! Thanks for your input as a designer, Willem. What you write makes perfect sense. I'm glad to have been able to play this through many times, with different people, so my sample size was large enough to see how the scenario progresses with slightly different placement, and different die results. (I also played this through multiple times a few years ago with a friend.)

From my perspective, this is well-balanced, straightforward scenario, and definitely serves the purpose of helping new players learn the fundamentals.

On a base of 12 games played we now have 58% USA victory rate... quite high value!

It would be interesting to know how the games went.
At least to see how much the dice rolls or the initial disposition of the troops have affected the game.
 

A friend and i just played this as a learning scenario. We bought the original back in 2009 and hadn't played it since like 2016.

We screwed up a couples rules. One being that playing a card takes an activation. That really changed the game.

The German player won but they probably would have any way even if we had gotten the card correct.

I rolled well with my machine gunner at resisting suppressive fire and ended up getting several hits as the American units moved to the forest.

Justin wrote:

I rolled well with my machine gunner at resisting suppressive fire and ended up getting several hits as the American units moved to the forest.

MG units in OP fire while inside cover providing terrain (e.g. buildings) with full range over open ground could be really dedly for the enemies.
Thank your posting your result and report here.

Don't forget you can play it online using the free vassal game module.
I hope you can play TOI more!