[BFD] Blitzkrieg for Dummies - Breakthrough, Encircle, Destroy

[ThunderHawk3]

Diplomacy Phase - Turn 0

Since all slots are now filled, I declare the game has started! You can PM me your deployments - these should be secret. Remember that you all have $200 to spend, except Rovsea who has $300.

I have several questions: 1.) Are roads build-able without Engineers, for instance in the initial deployment stage?
2.) If I have a unit sitting on a supply depot, will that be visible to an enemy even if it's not on a border?
3.) If I land on a minefield, then use a Blitzkrieg card, does that count as an additional turn in which to move my unit out of the minefield hex?

1.) Oh yes. Absolutely!
2.) Unprotected supply caches (or depos, if you prefer) and protected supply caches both appear as an unknown unit on the map if they have not been revealed. However, enemy players will not be able to tell if there's a unit there or not. Or indeed if it is a supply cache. It will just show up as a big black X on the map regardless.
3.) If one of your units strikes a minefield (attacks or attempts to move through) it instantly suffers the minefield penalty, halving its strength and ending its "turn." Whether or not you end your turn in a minefield is irrelevant. (the only exception being the engineer, which disarms the minefield if it attacks it)

 

[ThunderHawk3]

By the way, here is the symbol reference.

The first row are, in order, militia, a decoy, a garrison, a minefield, and infantry.

The second hex row are, in order, engineers, artillery, airborne, and armor.

The black X is what an unknown unit will look like on the map.

Units that have strengths have their strength appear as a number above them. EDIT: I mistakenly gave the engineers 15 strength, so presumably this is an elite engineer unit.

 

[Rovsea]

Diplomacy Phase - Turn 0

Since all slots are now filled, I declare the game has started! You can PM me your deployments - these should be secret. Remember that you all have $200 to spend, except Rovsea who has $300.



1.) Oh yes. Absolutely!
2.) Unprotected supply caches (or depos, if you prefer) and protected supply caches both appear as an unknown unit on the map if they have not been revealed. However, enemy players will not be able to tell if there's a unit there or not. Or indeed if it is a supply cache. It will just show up as a big black X on the map regardless.
3.) If one of your units strikes a minefield (attacks or attempts to move through) it instantly suffers the minefield penalty, halving its strength and ending its "turn." Whether or not you end your turn in a minefield is irrelevant. (the only exception being the engineer, which disarms the minefield if it attacks it)

More questions time!
1.) I'm not sure you understood what I was saying. If a unit lands on a minefield, it's turn is over. If I then use a Blitzkrieg card, does it gain another turn, enabling it to move on?
2.) Can I move units through other units? For instance, if I have an artillery and a tank, the artillery is in front of the tank to soften up the enemy, before I move my tank in to hit the enemy. Can the tank move through the Artillery?

 

[Haresus]

Questions:
1. If artillery attacks a unit, does the attacked unit retreat?
2. If I attack with two different units on one enemy, what happens? Do I get to decide in which order they attack?

 

[ThunderHawk3]

1. Artillery never causes retreats. Sorry for the ambiguity.
2. Yes - you get to in, and in fact have to, decide the order in which you take actions. You can't launch a simultaneous attack with two units on one other unit, they have to have an order.

 

[ThunderHawk3]

More questions time!
1.) I'm not sure you understood what I was saying. If a unit lands on a minefield, it's turn is over. If I then use a Blitzkrieg card, does it gain another turn, enabling it to move on?
2.) Can I move units through other units? For instance, if I have an artillery and a tank, the artillery is in front of the tank to soften up the enemy, before I move my tank in to hit the enemy. Can the tank move through the Artillery?

1. Oh yes, absolutely.
2. Yes, as long as they don't end the turn on the same hex. (You can't move through enemy units, obviously) -- I may have to revise this if glitches occur during gameplay.

 

[Raulazo]

One question!

What is the limit to build supply depot and their range is infinite to provide supplies for my trops?

 

[ThunderHawk3]

One question!

What is the limit to build supply depot and their range is infinite to provide supplies for my trops?

There is no range so long as your territory connects your troops to the supply cache (or supply depot, if you prefer).

 

[Raulazo]

There is no range so long as your territory connects your troops to the supply cache (or supply depot, if you prefer).

Thanks

 

[barkardes]

So here is my questions.
1.Garrison can't attack.Can it still occupy land?
2.Can I build a supply cache or militias in a place that has no connection with my mainland?
3.When we take a supply cache is it destroyed or can we use it?
4.Can we deploy units on a supply cache?
5.When will the turn end?
6.Can we have agreements with other players like non agression pacts,alliances etc.

 

[Gen. Marshall]

Blast, I should keep a better eye on the subforum. Sub.

2. Yes, as long as they don't end the turn on the same hex. (You can't move through enemy units, obviously) -- I may have to revise this if glitches occur during gameplay.

Wouldn't it make more sense to have units unable to move through each other? Roads being blocked by advancing friendly units was one of the major challenges facing WW2 armoured units, after all.

 

[ThunderHawk3]

So here is my questions.
1.Garrison can't attack.Can it still occupy land?
2.Can I build a supply cache or militias in a place that has no connection with my mainland?
3.When we take a supply cache is it destroyed or can we use it?
4.Can we deploy units on a supply cache?
5.When will the turn end?
6.Can we have agreements with other players like non agression pacts,alliances etc.

1. Garrisons can occupy land, yes, but they cannot attack (and therefore cannot capture supply caches). Since they can only move 1 hex a turn, they cannot occupy land very quickly either.

2. No. You can only build and place units in your own territory during the diplomacy phase, even if you've allied with another player, for example.

3. You capture the supply cache. It is not destroyed and you can use it.

4. Yes. You can deploy one unit on the same hex as a supply cache.

5. A war-phase turn ends when you declare you've ended your turn. A diplomacy-phase turn ends when I've gotten orders in from all players via PM.

6. You can but these are strictly between yourselves - ie: there are no special rules associated with them.

Wouldn't it make more sense to have units unable to move through each other? Roads being blocked by advancing friendly units was one of the major challenges facing WW2 armoured units, after all.

Since I'm allowing units to retreat through each other (to a certain extent), I think I should allow them to move through each other. While this might not perfectly comport with reality where - yes - units sometimes got into big traffic jams - I don't think I'll ever be able to perfectly model reality in a simple game like this.

Having thought about this a bit, I think I'll say that your units can move through each other but can't "stop" in a hex that already has a unit in it. IE: You cannot attack from an overloaded hex.

 

[barkardes]

Thank you for your answers.
I think you haven't understood my second question well.I mean,I have occupied an enemy land before diplomacy phase but it's out of suply.Can I deploy a supply cache there?In a case that I don't want to use supply cache,can I spawn militias simce they ignore supply?

 

[ThunderHawk3]

Thank you for your answers.
I think you haven't understood my second question well.I mean,I have occupied an enemy land before diplomacy phase but it's out of suply.Can I deploy a supply cache there?In a case that I don't want to use supply cache,can I spawn militias simce they ignore supply?

I still don't think I understand the question. You can't deploy your units in enemy territory before the war phase (militia or otherwise).

Militia ignore supply, meaning that they can move and use roads as if they were always in supply.

 

[Rovsea]

Thank you for your answers.
I think you haven't understood my second question well.I mean,I have occupied an enemy land before diplomacy phase but it's out of suply.Can I deploy a supply cache there?In a case that I don't want to use supply cache,can I spawn militias simce they ignore supply?

As I understand it, the Diplomacy phases run in a row, and then you go to war phase; you cannot occupy enemy land in Diplomacy Phase, as doing so would end the Diplomacy phase.

Here's a question from me: Is it possible for units to heal other than to take a supply cache. If not, then what is the benefit to attacking at all? Theoretically, I should be able to wait until everybody else has wasted strength attacking, and then maul everyone else with my full strength units.

 

[ThunderHawk3]

Here's a question from me: Is it possible for units to heal other than to take a supply cache. If not, then what is the benefit to attacking at all? Theoretically, I should be able to wait until everybody else has wasted strength attacking, and then maul everyone else with my full strength units.

Well, you do get a free blitzkrieg token for defeating another player (taking their final supply cache), and the player who has taken the most territory at the end of the five turns of the battle phase wins. Since time is limited, I would argue that waiting more than a turn to commence hostilities is a risky strategy. However, it is a legitimate strategy, particularly for you (since you are in the central position). However, if you don't go on the offensive eventually you're pretty much guaranteed to lose.

There is no other way to repair units except to take a supply cache. In future iterations of the game, maybe I'll introduce a mechanic whereby some units become elites when you take territory or supply caches, but I'm not going to make that change right now.

 

[Rovsea]

Well, you do get a free blitzkrieg token for defeating another player (taking their final supply cache), and the player who has taken the most territory at the end of the five turns of the battle phase wins. Since time is limited, I would argue that waiting more than a turn to commence hostilities is a risky strategy. However, it is a legitimate strategy, particularly for you (since you are in the central position). However, if you don't go on the offensive eventually you're pretty much guaranteed to lose.

There is no other way to repair units except to take a supply cache. In future iterations of the game, maybe I'll introduce a mechanic whereby some units become elites when you take territory or supply caches, but I'm not going to make that change right now.

OK, seems reasonable enough. How do you feel about the inherit advantage that Yellow has over everybody because they start with the most territory?

 

[ThunderHawk3]

OK, seems reasonable enough. How do you feel about the inherit advantage that Yellow has over everybody because they start with the most territory?

It wasn't possible to make the start perfectly symmetric with five players - because, as I realized after I started making the map, the board is not symmetric. I concentrated instead on giving everyone the same length of border and making the map visually pleasing. In terms of border length, blue has 13, yellow 14, gray 15, green 16, and white 22. I gave white a handicap for this reason. I thought about giving gray and green handicaps because of their slightly longer borders but decided it unbalanced the game rather than balancing it, as the difference is very small.

In terms of absolute territory blue has 48, yellow 55, gray 36, green 44, and white 40. Attempting to give every player 44-45 hexes exactly made the borders wonky. The real advantage of blue and yellow is several hexes greater strategic depth; however, I thought about it for a while and decided this was not such a great advantage after all (I leave why I decided this as an exercise to the reader). I generally agree that gray and green are at slight to moderate disadvantages compared to blue and yellow.

I will count final scores in terms of territory gained rather than just absolute number of hexes, which should balance it out for score purposes. (final-starting hex count=final score)

 

[Rovsea]

It wasn't possible to make the start perfectly symmetric with five players - because, as I realized after I started making the map, the board is not symmetric. I concentrated instead on giving everyone the same length of border and making the map visually pleasing. In terms of border length, blue has 13, yellow 14, gray 15, green 16, and white 22. I gave white a handicap for this reason. I thought about giving gray and green handicaps because of their slightly longer borders but decided it unbalanced the game rather than balancing it, as the difference is very small.

In terms of absolute territory blue has 48, yellow 55, gray 36, green 44, and white 40. Attempting to give every player 44-45 hexes exactly made the borders wonky. The real advantage of blue and yellow is several hexes greater strategic depth; however, I thought about it for a while and decided this was not such a great advantage after all (I leave why I decided this as an exercise to the reader). I generally agree that gray and green are at slight to moderate disadvantages compared to blue and yellow.

I will count final scores in terms of territory gained rather than just absolute number of hexes, which should balance it out for score purposes. (final-starting hex count=final score)

Informative and helpful, thanks.

 

[barkardes]

My question wasn't about this turn.
Well lets give an example.I have armours and I breached the enemy defense in turn 4 of battle phase.Then I entered more into enemy territory but my enemy managed to cut supplies in turn 5.Now diplomacy phase begins.Can I build the supply cache in the place of mine inside the enemy territory?
Or lets think that I have lost my armours but there is some land my enemy was unable to take back.It's out of supply.Can I train militias there?