long Campaign

[Charles22]

I like to play them with the map 200 hexes high, by like 140 wide. I also like the German starting campaign points to be between 3300-3500pts.

Now I know that sounds radical, but it's a much more fun game that way. This is especially the case when you are defending. What happens is that when you are attacked, you can't possibly cover the whole front very well, so you end up with some areas sparsely defended. You may be able to guard all the VH's pretty well, but not the whole map. If the VH's were scattershot then this is much more difficult. It is a more difficult way to play, on the defensive anyway, but it's that much more rewarding for that reason.

What typically happens is I might have half my force in the middle of the map and the other two quarters responsible for the flanks. Inevitably in almost all defensive battles, you're not strong enough to hold the line, even where you are the strongest often enough. In order to hold, you have to experience what amounts to fire brigade defense. You size up where the greatest threat is and then send some forces from a relatively non-threatened area to shore up. What this often means is that if one of the flanks are being hammered, then the middle sends a good many there, while the other flank probably reinforces the middle. This naturally means that if an attack comes later to the middle or other flank, there is going to be quite a few troops not dug in, but it's a chance you have to take to fight en force and limit casualties.

Another thing this style of gameplay does is it makes your gun range something of great importance. Suppose for an instant that you are playing anywhere between a 60-110 hex map in height. Playing in very good weather, and with no obstacles, you could position even many of the early war tanks and ATG's in the middle and scarcely have to move them. That's just not fun. Even in the attack you run into this problem. I will put 3-4 tank platoons together to have (I maybe have a total of 30-40 core tanks per battle) A reliable strong attack in a sector, but the map is so high that I have to have penny packets in others, and that can get interesting even trying to confront infantry. I do have infantry along with the majority of the tanks, just for spotting if nothing else, but there's nothing like the sensation of one of your precious core platoons that cannot get any armored help for at least 2-4 turns because everything is quite spread out. In these games, there's often no such thing as the middle tanks, in offense or defense, being able to help out the flanks without moving considerably from the middle positions. It really does make the game much more fluid and less dogging.

One important point I haven't brought out, is that it's important also to not use the maximum map width. the reason for that is that it makes the fire brigading much more critical, and it seems to take the AI too long to get to your front with a wider setting. I just can't recall whether I settled for 130 or 140 hexes, but it's in that area where it's pretty sweet. Having a less deep rear also makes the enemy job of finding your on-field artillery less daunting.