Over the holiday week I was able to play ToI for the first time in quite a while, so I set this scenario up for solo play. The scenario attracted me because it seemed like it would be a relatively quick play, with only vehicle units and the wide-open desert terrain. As is my habit when playing solo, I like to run a scenario a few times.
Overall, I was less than impressed with it--the concept behind the scenario is fantastic, but the execution is lacking; it has a lot of potential, but comes up short, for reasons I'll outline here.
I played four times. The Brits barely won the first, on the final action of Round 7 (14-13). The Germans handily won the next two (14-2, 12-
, by the end of Round 6. On the fourth iteration, I applied a "gamey" approach further described below, and the Brits won easily (12-2) by the end of Round 4. Here's a little more information for each play-through:
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Game 1: Brits won, 14-13, on the last action of Round 7. They exited all three trucks, but the deciding action was when they heavily damaged one of the Pz III units, giving them the one-point advantage. I was surprised the Brits won, because of the way things went they didn't have initiative after Round 2.
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Game 2: Germans won, 14-2, at the end of Round 6 (the Brits conceded because they couldn't possibly win at that point). Brits couldn't even cross the bridge because the Germans had put-up such an effective defense there long enough for their Pz IVs to wreak havoc from the north; in the end, the Brits exited zero trucks and only destroyed two half tracks.
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Game 3: Germans won, 12-8, at the end of Round 6 (Brits again conceded). This time, the Brits crossed the bridge on Round 2, controlled initiative through Round 6, and exited one truck, but they still lost; the Brits only destroyed three half tracks.
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Game 4: Brits won, 12-2, with the Germans conceding at the end of Round 4. This was possible because the Brits based their approach on rules-as-written.
Rules of Play p. 16 states "A player may not place reinforcements in a hex occupied by enemy units. If all of a nation's reinforcement zone hexes are occupied by enemy units, the player is unable to receive the reinforcements. Even if such hexes are later freed of enemy units, any reinforcements missed in prior game rounds remain lost." The Brits deployed their Round 1 reinforcements in such a way as to allow the Germans to deploy only two Pz IIIs. The Brits then had plenty of firepower to smash-through defensive positions at the bridge and quickly pick-off the Pz IIIs deployed on Round 2, all the while shielding their fragile trucks behind the hill hexes at the north end of the map until it was safe for them to fast-track it to the exit point. The Germans were never able to earn any Command, and so the Brits also controlled Initiative easily while being able to play a couple important Strategy Cards. The possibility of this "gamey" approach occurring is something that other players have noted before (see earlier in this thread).
The foundation of this scenario has a lot of promise--I like that it's vehicle-only (with an option for introducing squads, if desired) and that it encourages a dynamic, mobile approach where both players have to think in terms of offense and defense, concurrently. To address its shortcomings, however, I suggest the following changes:
1)
Operations Card "Panzer IV Ausf. E" (019/038) should be in play. This reflects the fact that the standard Pz IV unit from the base game is broadly based on the Ausf. F2-J variants with long-barreled 75 mm main guns that were much more powerful than the short-barreled, howitzer-like 75 mm guns of the Ausf. D-F1 variants represented by this Operations Card--and the longer-barreled variants did not appear until late 1943. This scenario is set in November 1941.
2)
Come up with a scenario-specific alternative to the reinforcement deployment rule-as-written. I didn't have time to brainstorm multiple options or play-test any possibilities, but the immediate idea I came up with was to allow the German player to deploy reinforcements during the Status Phase of any Round after Round 2, if the British player has blocked one or more reinforcement hexes, rather than lose these reinforcements altogether. Narratively, the rationale could be that those Brit units blocking the reinforcement hexes could be seen as providing a rear-guard screening action that delays the German units--but the Brits can't leave all their units blocking these hexes and still expect to exit any trucks. One might also add a wrinkle that allows the Brits to block these reinforcement hexes for only one or a few rounds, and then must move them. ToI has plenty of scenario-only special rules, so doing this would align with precedent in that regard.
3)
Apply the Next Wave optional rule to disallow trucks from capturing Command Point Objectives. I played this way in all my iterations because I generally agree with both the logic behind it--"most trucks lacked radios, and drivers were not trained to call for artillery. Trucks cannot establish LOS for any purpose, and may only occupy friendly objective markers"--and that allowing trucks to zip across the map using roads and overtake key hexes on their own seems excessively gamey to me--outside of a Hollywood movie, there's no way in the real world a convoy of supply trucks would race behind enemy lines to "capture" key objectives. I also recall reading some discussions on Board Game Geek (or elsewhere) on this topic (though I can't readily find them now), so I know other players agree that trucks should not be able to capture objectives on their own.
4)
If squads are not going to be used, also discard the "Disrupt Food Supplies" card. An existing optional rule in this scenario is for each player to add an equal number of squads. If players do not use this optional scenario rule, then the "Disrupt Food Supplies" card in the German players' Disruption I Strategy Deck should be removed--otherwise, it's useless and a waste of a drawn card.
The designer indicates that the scenario was play-tested, so it's surprising to me that the obvious oversights were not identified--for example, Operations Card 019 was part of the Days of the Fox expansion, and so the designer and play testers should have used it. These oversights also were not addressed in
the January 13, 2009, FAQ and Errata document
.
