"Operational Game with ..er "Op 14"" Topic

After too many months taking about it, here is an AAR of our recent late 1918 British Corps level attack, using the legendary Op14 rules:

Part 1: link

Part 2: link

Good stuff. I've used OP14 for a few 1918 games and it works very well. I added some tweaks for gas and lengthy (days/weeks) preparatory bombardments. 1918 era strafing aircraft need toning down or they work more like Tornados with tactical nuclear weapons.

Those half brigade defence points should be getting something like 5 dice (deployed, dug in, wire, permanent defences) albeit only hitting on 1-2 AND they save half their losses. So quite hard to crack,unless you unfairly use tanks:)

The tanks negate the MG, which takes you down to 2 dice, then the rules also say "-1 or -2 die attacked by Arm'd Cars/Tanks", so they end up with no dice.

It's quite nasty therefore if you're expecting to attack with tanks and they don't turn up.

Be interested in the changes you have made.

You are double counting the tank modifier. The -1 for armoured cars is them 'suppressing the MGs', the -2 for tanks is them suppressing the MGs and crushing the wire. Richard just rolled the described effects in the text into the modifiers. Tanks aren't wonder weapons, but they certainly make life easier.

The alternative is you need to outflank the enemy positions or put in full divisional assaults (to get +1 for each supporting brigade). This doesn't work if the defensive positions have flank support of course.

Dropping a ton of artillery on them helps too, but you need lots and lots of hits against permanent trenches to stand a chance of doing any real damage. Remember units with 1 step left are removed though, which makes the 2 step half brigades relatively vulnerable.

I ran the German assault towards Peronne during the Kaiserschlacht, and they didn't have any tanks at all but did OK in overunning the British (although Goughs positions were very extended).

Thanks. That's about where I'd got to. We had a lot of supporting brigades in the attacks as well. You need those extra dice to get a hit as attackers lose draws.

So where does one find the latest version of OP14? I have the first one printed in the Nugget. Is that good enough?

My version is dated March 2010. Don't think there's been any major changes since then.