"Winter War - attempting motti tactics" Topic

My attempt of modelling the latter stages of the reduction of a motti.
Rule: Nuts! by Two Hur Wargames

link

Awesome stuff, Jeff, as usual! Very impressive what you've done with the campaign, very meticulous, and your modifications to Nuts! to make it do what you want it to do.

Pretty ambitious victory conditions for the Finns, having to wipe out all the Soviet units, but what a fight! Always good to see Molotov cocktails employed vs armor ;)

How did it work getting a PEF to resolve as a "strafing run"? Is that something you changed?

I'd never seen a BT-2 before, but the big question is: why the heck do you have a field kitchen!!!??? ;)

V/R,
Jack

Awesome stuff, Jeff, as usual! Very impressive what you've done with the campaign, very meticulous, and your modifications to Nuts! to make it do what you want it to do.

Pretty ambitious victory conditions for the Finns, having to wipe out all the Soviet units, but what a fight! Always good to see Molotov cocktails employed vs armor ;)

With the uncertainty of how the PEFs turn out, it can be tough to decide how big do you want your starting force to be? Take too many, and it is kind of a walk over; not enough and it's going to be tough for the good guys. Like Goldilocks, the games are more fun when it is "just right."
Oddly, most of my Patrol scenarios seems end up with more forces involved then Attack or Defense scenarios (ADS). With an ADS, they can often be over quickly if only one of the PEF turs out to be something. However, with Patrol the player has to move and scout out the board in addition to dealing with the PEF. This can take several turns and the more turns you have the more opportunities there are for new PEF and reinforcements.
All this is kind of a long-winded way of saying that I try to come up with ways to make sure my ADS are worth the set-up time. In this instance, I was bringing a good size force with me, so I wanted to make sure that each force had an enemy to deal with.
It would have been kind of boring if I started with 3 PEF and only one of them turned out to be anything. That's fine for a Patrol scenario, but with ADS, I want to make sure it is a challenge.

How did it work getting a PEF to resolve as a "strafing run"? Is that something you changed?

As for the strafing run PEF – that was all Mission Deck (MD). I really like the MD for that reason: reinforcements can be anything. With the standard rules, it was unusual for me to have reinforcements be tanks or off board support – you need to have both a high investment level and a high die roll. Here, it's just the luck of the draw – they can show up anywhere, any time. And I REALLY like that.

I'd never seen a BT-2 before, but the big question is: why the heck do you have a field kitchen!!!??? ;)

The BT-2 kind of came about by accident. I was looking for a 3D printed BT5 on Ectsy and found that. Did some research and found out they were used in the Winter War. And I couldn't resist such a fun and unusual vehicle.
The protection or destruction of field kitchens in mottis was actually a big deal. The Finns kept track and reported the number they destroyed. After Suomussalmi, one of the Soviet generals who had fled the motti was later executed for, officially, losing 55 field kitchens.
So I figured the field kitchen would be central to their position.

Jeff,

" With the uncertainty of how the PEFs turn out, it can be tough to decide how big do you want your starting force to be?"
Yes, I know what you mean, it's a bit tougher with games where you figure out was the opposition is as your playing. I don't mind the games where it turns out I was overmatched, that's how heroes are made ;) As you mentioned, I hate the games where there's nothing there, doesn't warrant all the time and work to set it up!

Thanks for explaining the Mission Deck, I wasn't familiar with it, but now I see it's right there on their website. Pretty cool. And that's pretty wild about the field kitchens, I had no idea! Executed for losing 55 of them? Further proof of the old adage about amateurs and tactics/professionals and logistics ;)

V/R,
Jack

Here's the thing about the Mission Deck. There's something like 54 cards, printed on both sides, so 108 possibilities.
Unlike soem other card driven games I have played, it is simply impossible to "count cards."
I have played games where off-board support occurrs a couple of times – and many where they don't appear at all.
Same with tanks. Occasionally they will appear twice, many times not at all. No way to tell.