Morris vs Plaid (Allies surrender)

[Plaid]

Chapter IV - 1942 campaign

Here it starts (up to date turn by the way, I have no idea what will happen next)

Major german offencive on the east, mostly Moscow area.





Also counterattack on the west. Right decision for axis - attack right away when our landed troops have low readiness. Some damage taken, but we have more.



Using tricky moves we managed to land handful of troops (and destroy half a dozen of italian units) paying only 1 invasion port.



On the east things are tough. We go for tank but got bad rolls.





Drafted lots of corps this turn. I have little choice - try to entrench in cities and various bad terrain and give Morris chance to self-harass his armoured troops (have quite good stats on soviet infantry - 4 ground defence and 2 AT).

I risk to lose soviet union totally. Its like pre-GS, feels oldschool.

[Plaid]

More heavy fighting everywhere. (this is true for next few posts aswell, its all-out close combat everywhere in USSR and France)







Our landed troops are hit hard, but still we slowly advance against weak defenders. Air support do its job. Entire US and UK war effort placed here, more and more troops will arrive.

[Plaid]

German armoured formations started to arrive in France. They will not do much good under heavy bomber pressure. Not in this few numbers. Looks like chance to kill few tanks.

Also Morris' eastern push is quite disorganized. I keep losing units, but I also have no problem to destroy separate assualt units. Germans have manpower problems and my soviet troops have even/superiour tech (maybe partly because Morris is lazy to upgrade his troops/have no money to do it/ sold his labs to build more troops/whatever)
Its late to run away, we will hold the lines.

[Plaid]

This type of warfare on the east is totally new for me. Morris just push forward, without caring about his own troops safety at all, neither he tries to maintain frontline.
I see we both lose lots of troops and I can only hope that axis offencive will stuck before I lose all.



War on the west is more traditional. Slowly breaking through weak troops. Germans are few and I concentrate airpower on them, looks like waste of good units. If Morris want me out of France, he should bring in more troops.

[Crazygunner1]

Dont worrie...if you keep up the pressure on all fronts, Axis will soon run out of steem. On the eastern front he is on the verge of a total colaps....to bad that you dont have just a few more shock troops to make one proper push. He will have a tough winter and an even tougher 43. Keep up the good work

[Plaid]

Note Italian 2nd manpower penalty by the way.

[Plaid]

[Plaid]

Now here is major disaster.



In one turn I lost both Stalingrad and supply of Moscow group. And looke like will lose Moscow itself next turn.



We restored supply but still, nothing stop germans from capturing Moscow right away.





Now I feel like it cant end good. Cherbourgh fortress also holds forever and I am going to spend winter without any port avaliable, which probably means destruction of all landed troops in france.

[Cybvep]

Damn, you really got your ass kicked there. Morris' aggressiveness worked out in his favour this time.

[richardsd]

the Morris strategy is actually quite hard to manage as the allies as you likely have never played someone who grinds forward regardless of losses

I think the west is where you need to win, Russia will look after itself for a few months, but you really need Brest as you know.

basically you are in three way race against the weather, can you take brest before the bad wether hits you in France, and can you hold off in France long enough to take brest before the Axis focus really turns to the west when bad weather hits in Russia

good luck

[TotalerKrieg]

Thanks for posting this Plaid, I didn't really understand the Morris strategy until this AAR. A key component of his strategy seems to be baiting his opponent into invading France and holding the Western Allies off until he gets around to dealing with them. In the meantime, if he manages this, he can go toe-to-toe with the Soviets, just enough to prevail (at least at this point in the war). An interesting strategy but very high stakes.

I think you would have been better off going for Cherbourg since it isn't a fortress. But you probably figured that out already...

[Plaid]

the Morris strategy is actually quite hard to manage as the allies as you likely have never played someone who grinds forward regardless of losses

I think the west is where you need to win, Russia will look after itself for a few months, but you really need Brest as you know.

basically you are in three way race against the weather, can you take brest before the bad wether hits you in France, and can you hold off in France long enough to take brest before the Axis focus really turns to the west when bad weather hits in Russia

good luck

I tryed to get Brest and failed there. Morris suicided his german corps there, made local breakthrough and railed mech instead. Will take years to smoke it out.
To be honest I did not expect this fine tactical moves from Morris at all - until now all his operations were pretty crude on tactical level, it was all about strategy, so I was quite relaxed and unprepaired.

[richardsd]

the Morris strategy is actually quite hard to manage as the allies as you likely have never played someone who grinds forward regardless of losses

I think the west is where you need to win, Russia will look after itself for a few months, but you really need Brest as you know.

basically you are in three way race against the weather, can you take brest before the bad wether hits you in France, and can you hold off in France long enough to take brest before the Axis focus really turns to the west when bad weather hits in Russia

good luck

I tryed to get Brest and failed there. Morris suicided his german corps there, made local breakthrough and railed mech instead. Will take years to smoke it out.
To be honest I did not expect this fine tactical moves from Morris at all - until now all his operations were pretty crude on tactical level, it was all about strategy, so I was quite relaxed and unprepaired.

As you will have seen from my first AAR against Morris - I made a similar mistake, he has to much PP income so can always send a couple of MECH's to France - usually he has an SS one set for the task.

This is one of the reasons I developed my Portugal/Spain strategy, you have ports and high supply - France is tough because even with air dominance his German MECH's are killers

[Plaid]

Actually no Morris reaction to your Spanish campaign at all, inspired me to try France. I thought he also will not deploy serious troops there, but it turned out totally wrong. I had some fun in France anyway - destroyed lots of minor and german tank/mech every turn, but still, did not won.

As you can see Morris' strategy is not completely bad - it can work even against person who basically know what is going on.
(I imagine if someone have no idea what Morris do his moves will be just instant kill)

[richardsd]

Actually no Morris reaction to your Spanish campaign at all, inspired me to try France. I thought he also will not deploy serious troops there, but it turned out totally wrong. I had some fun in France anyway - destroyed lots of minor and german tank/mech every turn, but still, did not won.

As you can see Morris' strategy is not completely bad - it can work even against person who basically know what is going on.
(I imagine if someone have no idea what Morris do his moves will be just instant kill)

yep, Morris strategy has a lot goig for it.

In my game Morris couldn't do anything about Spain, have a look at it, my attack is unstoppable

this is only because I can prepare knowing that there is no Axis SUB's

it can also be interffered with if Axis knows it will happen, but then it was my first attempt and next will be better!

[richardsd]

Thanks for posting this Plaid, I didn't really understand the Morris strategy until this AAR. A key component of his strategy seems to be baiting his opponent into invading France and holding the Western Allies off until he gets around to dealing with them. In the meantime, if he manages this, he can go toe-to-toe with the Soviets, just enough to prevail (at least at this point in the war). An interesting strategy but very high stakes.

I think you would have been better off going for Cherbourg since it isn't a fortress. But you probably figured that out already...

Morris strategy works even better if you don't invade in western Europe

the key against his strategy is the west must do 'enough' to distract him from Russia

without enough distarction Morris will win in Russia! (even if he doesn't take Omsk)

[TotalerKrieg]

I see what you are saying but based on your and other AARs it is even worse to have a failed Overlord, at least IMO. A strong strategic bombing campaign like I believe you did in your second AAR seems like a good idea. Being a pain in the butt in Norway also seems like a good strategy plus a lot of strength threatening Italy since Morris abandons Africa so quickly. I don't pretend that I am good enough to beat Morris but I still think the western allies have to be prudent with their forces. If I am correct, that is a good sign for game balance. There is much to be decided yet in this game though. Who knows, Plaid might still emerge victorious. Be fun to see, I hope this AAR goes to completion.

[zechi]

I don't think your situation in the west is so bad. Even if you do not capture Brest before bad weather hits, it will not be so easy for Morris to destroy the Allied invasion force completely, especially if you got a lot of mud weather. Of course you should be able to bring in new reinforcements as soon as the weather gets better and then quickly capture a city. Furthermore, the Axis will need to bring in reinforcements to France as well as enough air units to contest the Allied air power, if they want to destroy the invaders, which is also not bad for the Allies, especially the Soviets.

However, if you lose the Soviet Army Group near Moscow due to encirclement, then it will be really hard for the Soviets to recover from such a blow.

[richardsd]

I see what you are saying but based on your and other AARs it is even worse to have a failed Overlord, at least IMO. A strong strategic bombing campaign like I believe you did in your second AAR seems like a good idea. Being a pain in the butt in Norway also seems like a good strategy plus a lot of strength threatening Italy since Morris abandons Africa so quickly. I don't pretend that I am good enough to beat Morris but I still think the western allies have to be prudent with their forces. If I am correct, that is a good sign for game balance. There is much to be decided yet in this game though. Who knows, Plaid might still emerge victorious. Be fun to see, I hope this AAR goes to completion.

the trick is to be a successful pain in the butt

[richardsd]

I see what you are saying but based on your and other AARs it is even worse to have a failed Overlord, at least IMO. A strong strategic bombing campaign like I believe you did in your second AAR seems like a good idea. Being a pain in the butt in Norway also seems like a good strategy plus a lot of strength threatening Italy since Morris abandons Africa so quickly. I don't pretend that I am good enough to beat Morris but I still think the western allies have to be prudent with their forces. If I am correct, that is a good sign for game balance. There is much to be decided yet in this game though. Who knows, Plaid might still emerge victorious. Be fun to see, I hope this AAR goes to completion.

I disagree, the west is toast without a port, German MECH's will sweep the field in bad weather as the allied TAC's will be close to useless in bad weather