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[BFD] Blitzkrieg for Dummies, Game 16 - Fortress Europe

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ThunderHawk3

ThunderHawk3

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Aug 4, 2011
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Hello all and welcome to BFD Game 16 - Fortress Europe, so called because we're introducing the Fortress Europe rules set this game. (I passed over plenty of other perfectly good WWII-themed names, like Maginot Line or Atlantic Wall for Fortress Europe for some reason.)

As before, we'll do sign-ups before I post the map, so sign-ups are now open. If you want to play, please sign up by posting that you want in.

Ex:
In!

Sign-ups will last two days. Then I'll count everyone up. If we have 7 or fewer players, then I'll make one map for everyone. If we have eight or more... uh... look over there! (Runs away)

(As usual, you can't sign up if you're on my banlist.)
 
In!
 
In
 
Blitzkrieg for Dummies - Fortress Europe

PzAWEd3.png
*

While I made this map, I spent most of my time wondering about whether I'd end up in another argument with @Gen. Marshall about hydrology, like the last time I tried to draw a river.

Pick your colors, gentlemen. You're all in the same game today.

And here's the usual spiel:

BFD (Blitzkrieg for Dummies) is all about conquering the map with very limited resources and very little time to do so - through clever diplomacy or good strategy, whichever you can use to your advantage.

The Rules post will follow. The gist of it is that there's a diplomacy and deployment phase, where you position units, followed by the battle phase. Then you have just five turns to defeat your opponents.

Everyone starts with $250 this game.

I set up an IRC channel on Coldfront at #BFD_Main. It'll probably help communication, to the extent that you'll need to communicate with one another. You can go to http://www.coldfront.net/tiramisu/ and type /join #BFD_Main to join.

Rules changes and full rules to follow.
 
Rules changes:

Fortress Europe has been introduced, including:

  • Rivers, which cost movement to cross
  • Fortifications (defensive lines), which penalize attacks across them in either direction
  • Bridges, ie: roads across rivers
  • Defensive mentality - preventing you from buying or using a blitzkrieg token on the same turn you built a fortification, in either diplomacy or war phase
 
Full Rules

Blitzkrieg for Dummies

Short Rules
  • There are two phases, both of which last only five turns
  • You use money to buy units in the Diplomacy phase
  • You can choose to attack during the diplomacy phase, starting the war phase
  • Every unit has a strength
  • Units deal half their strength in damage to each other when they fight
  • If a unit is attacked by a stronger unit, it retreats
  • Units are destroyed when then run out of strength
  • Units that would retreat but can't (ie: are encircled) are destroyed
  • Units are in supply if they are linked to supply caches by hexes you control
  • If a player runs out of supply caches, that player is defeated
  • The player that controls the most territory at the end of the game wins
  • Defeating another player gives you a powerful blitzkrieg token
  • Blitzkrieg tokens, when played, let you take an extra turn immediately

BFD is separated into halves ("phases"): 1) the Diplomacy phase, during which you do diplomacy and unit deployment and redeployment, and 2) the War phase, during which you try to conquer the map. Each phase lasts a maximum of five turns. Whoever ends the game with the most territory wins.

Diplomacy Phase Rules

During the diplomacy phase, each player starts with $250^ with which they can buy units and place them wherever they please within their own territory. There can only be one unit in any given hex.

^unless otherwise stated in preceding posts

Note that purchase and deployment orders should be PMed to me rather than posted in thread, since the identity of your units not on a border will be unknown to your opponents at the start of the game, and your opponents will not know if you have any tokens.

After the initial deployment, the map will be updated and then we'll start Diplomacy Phase Turn 1. From this point on, every player gets $50 every turn (does not carry over between turns) to spend however they choose. As above, you should make your purchases and deployments in secret, over PM. Instead of purchasing, you may choose to ATTACK! If you choose to attack, the Diplomacy Phase immediately ends and the Battle Phase begins - for all players. Deployments other players made are not carried out. If you chose to attack, you critically become first in the turn order for the battle phase, which can be a big advantage.

If no one chooses to attack after five turns of diplomacy, the battle phase begins automatically.

Unit Costs

$5 - Militia
$5 - Decoys (x2)
$5 - Garrison
$5 - Minefield
$10 - Infantry
$10 - Scouts
$15 - Engineers
$15 - Artillery
$20 - Paratroopers (Airborne)
$25 - Veteran Infantry (Assault Pioneers, Stormtroopers, Tank Hunters)
$30 - Armor

x2 cost - Elite unit

$5 - Road (x2)
$10 - Fortification (x3)
$10 - Supply Cache
$10 - Intelligence Token
$20 - Order 227 Token
$50 - Blitzkrieg Token

Unit Descriptors

$5 - Militia - 5 str, 2 moves - ignores supply
$5 - Decoys (x2) - 0 str, 1 moves - destroyed if attacked, cannot capture territory
$5 - Garrison - 10 str, 1 moves - cannot attack, cannot capture territory
$5 - Minefield - Not a unit. A unit that strikes an enemy minefield (attacks or attempts to move through) cannot move or attack for the rest of the turn. The minefield then disappears. Can be cleared by engineers. Your units can pass through your own minefields.
$10 - Infantry - 10 str, 2 moves - the workhorse of any army, no special qualities
$15 - Engineers - 10 str, 2 moves - can clear a minefield or build a road or lay a minefield instead of attacking, can also build fortifications (defensive line segments)
$15 - Artillery - 10 str, 2 moves - attacks from range 3, destroyed instantly if attacked in "melee," support unit, cannot attack if without supply
$10 - Scouts - 0 str, 3 moves - instantly reveals units it is adjacent to, support unit
$20 - Paratroopers (Airborne) - As infantry, except paratroopers are not on the map and act like a token until played. When played, Paratroopers appear instantly at any clear hex you designate. They count as in supply for their first turn after deployment. Otherwise they act like ordinary infantry.
$25 - Assault Pioneers - 15 str, 2 moves - has all engineer abilities, is a veteran infantry unit, does double damage to and takes half damage from garrisons
$25 - Stormtroopers - 15 str, 2 moves - is a veteran infantry unit, does double damage to and takes half damage from infantry, militia, paratroopers, and engineers, does not retreat from any of the same
$25 - Tank Hunters - 15 str, 3 moves - is a veteran infantry unit, does double damage to and takes half damage from tanks, does not retreat from tanks
$30 - Armor (Tanks) - 20 str, 4 moves, 2 attacks - cannot attack if without supply (and only has 1 move if without supply, as normal)

x2 - Elite Unit - elite units half 1.5x starting strength and can move 1 hex further while in supply. Elite units do not retreat.

**You cannot put more than one minefield in a hex.

War Phase Rules

The turn order in the battle phase is partially determined by the diplomacy phase. Players who chose to attack in the last turn of the diplomacy phase get priority placement in the turn order (ie: are placed at the top of the turn order).

Players are then ordered by how many occupied hexes they have, with undefended ICs and roads are not counted as occupied. (Defended ICs are counted as occupied). The players with the fewest occupied hexes go first, and the most occupied hexes go last.

Each player gets to take their turn in order. When every player has taken 5 turns in the battle phase, not counting extra turns due to expenditure of blitzkrieg tokens, the game ends.

During your battle phase you may play tokens, move every one of your units in any order, and play tokens whenever you feel like it. Your orders during this phase are public. You may stop and request a map update at any time. When you're ready to end your turn, tell me so clearly and we'll move on the next player.

You do not know what tokens other players have. Units that start away from the borders between players are covered in the "fog of war" initially. Other players will be able to see there is a unit in that hex but they will not know what kind of unit. Unguarded supply caches will appear as units under the fog of war.

The identities of these units are revealed if they attack, are attacked, or if the controlling player ends his turn with these units on a border.

Combat Rules

Basically here's how combat works in BFD:
Every unit has a numerical strength. When two units fight each other, they do damage to each other equal to half their strength, rounded up. If a unit is attacked by a unit of higher strength, the defender retreats. (Artillery attacks work differently and never cause a retreat.)

IE: Suppose a 10 strength unit attacks an 8 strength unit. The first does 5 damage to the second and the second does 4 damage to the first, leaving them at 6 strength and 3 strength, respectively. The second unit retreats because it was attacked by a stronger unit.

Only one unit can be in a hex in a time. Just because you caused a unit to retreat doesn't mean you must advance to occupy the hex it vacated. Units can occupy the same hexes as minefields, roads, and supply caches, as these are not units.

If you attack into a minefield where there is also an enemy unit, the minefield's effect activates before the battle.

Attacks are not the same as moves. A unit can attack any unit in an adjacent hex. (Except artillery, which can attack units up to three hexes away.) IE: Infantry can move twice then attack. Armor can move four times and attack twice all in the same turns!

Elite units get x1.5 strength and +1 move but cost twice as much as regular units. They do not retreat.

If you attack a supply cache, you gain control of that cache and other benefits (see below). Moving over a revealed supply cache will capture it, but an unrevealed supply cache must be attacked.

When a unit you control moves through a hex, you take control of that hex.

Units that run out of strength are destroyed.

Encirclement - if an encircled unit is attacked by a stronger unit it is automatically destroyed. (Encircled means it has no valid retreat path - that means it can be in a larger pocket, or even blocked by friendly units.)

Support Units

I've declared artillery and scouts "support units." They can overlap with non-support units.

Artillery and scouts will be destroyed if attacked on their own, including by damage due to General Winter, but if they are paired with a regular unit then the regular unit takes the damage instead and they are not destroyed until the regular unit is. If the regular unit is destroyed, they are also destroyed.

Retreating

Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor and cowardice is the better part of discretion.

If a unit is attacked by a stronger unit, it automatically retreats. It tries to retreat into the adjacent, empty hex YOU CONTROL that is furthest from the unit that attacked it. (in the event of a tie, right-handed retreats are preferred) If no such hexes are available, the unit can instead retreat two hexes, "across" a friendly unit.

Units cannot retreat into hexes controlled by another player.

If a unit has no valid retreat paths, it is destroyed under the encirclement rule. That means it can be boxed in by friendly units as well as enemy units.

You can temporarily stop your units from retreating using the Order 227 token. If this token is played, your units will fight to the death instead of retreating until your next turn.

Elite units do not retreat and fight to the death.

Veterancy

It's possible to buy veterans directly but the game as currently designed intends for you to get them by winning battles.

If an infantry unit destroys another unit (other than scouts or artillery) in BFD, it gains veteran status, instantly gaining +5 strength and becoming one of the three types of veteran infantry. (Elite infantry instead gain +8 strength when becoming Elite Veterans)

An infantry unit that destroys a garrison becomes an Assault Pioneer, who I will usually just call pioneer. Assault Pioneers do double damage to garrisons and take half damage from them. They can also use all engineer abilities, including clearing minefields.

An infantry unit that destroys another infantry unit, militia, engineers, or paratroopers becomes a Stormtrooper unit. Stormtroopers deal double damage to and take half damage from these same unit types.

An infantry unit that destroys a tank becomes a Tank Hunter. Tank Hunters deal double damage to tanks and take half damage from them. They also gain +1 movement.

The max strength of all three configurations of veteran infantry is 15. Elite Veterans have a maximum strength of 23 and three movement (or in the case of Elite Tank Hunters, 4 movement).

Supply and Industrial Centers

A unit is in supply if it starts its turn connected by a string of hexes you control to a supply cache you control. If it doesn't, it is without supply.

Units without supply can only move one hex per turn. Armor without supply cannot attack. Units without supply get no advantage from roads.

Capturing enemy supply cache has big advantages. The unit that captures the supply cache is healed to full strength. (This only happens the first time the cache is captured.) If you capture an opponent's final supply cache, you additionally gain a free blitzkrieg token. Capturing a cache counts as an attack.

Industrial centers provide supply like supply caches, but there are a few big differences. First, they are pre-positioned by me (the GM) at the start of the game and you don't get to choose where they are. Second, industrial centers are worth more score. Third, they add $10 to your treasury each turn. Fourth, you can deploy reinforcements on them. Additionally, industrial centers act like roads for movement purposes.

Capturing an industrial center gives no immediate benefit. Industrial centers provide supply like supply caches. You cannot buy industrial centers. Industrial centers start revealed.

If you lose all your supply caches and industrial centers you are defeated, so take care not to lose all of them.

Reinforcements

A newer concept in BFD are reinforcements. Each IC you control gives you $10 at the start of every turn. You can use this money to buy units. Your treasury balance carries over.

Reinforcements deploy from an industrial center you controlled at the start of the turn. You can move reinforcements out of the way and then deploy more, but they have to be deployed in an industrial center hex.

You may if you wish, or if you don't have an industrial center, choose to delay deploying reinforcements to a later turn then they were originally intended for.

Paratroopers can't be bought as reinforcements. Neither can minefields, roads, supply caches, etc.

Roads

I initially planned a much more complicated role for roads in Blitzkrieg for Dummies, but now they just make units move faster. Armor can move for free along roads if they are in supply. Infantry and all other units can move at half-movement cost, so long as they are in supply.

Roads flanking a river count as a "bridge" and remove the movement penalty for crossing the river.

Rivers and Fortifications

Rivers and fortifications don't live in hexes. Rather, they live on the edges of hexes, and their effects are felt when you try to cross them. Forts and rivers are always visible.

Rivers are portrayed on the map as a blue line that runs along a hex edge. Crossing an unbridged river costs 2 moves. Units with less than 2 moves cannot cross rivers. However, rivers can be bridged by building a road on both sides of the river. Moving from road to road across the river is considered moving across a bridge, and counts as normal road movement (ie: 1/2 movement or free for tanks). A road on only one side of the river doesn't help cross the river - trying to move across from this road still costs 2 moves.

You can, of course, scorch bridges to deny them to the enemy and check his advance.

Maybe I will also introduce a weather effect so that rivers "freeze" in cold weather and can be crossed for lower cost... although, that's hardly an advantage in most winter weather, which reduces movement on its own.

There is no penalty for attacking across a river (as yet).

Fortifications, on the other hand, impose a penalty for attacking but no movement penalty. Attacking across a defensive line halves the damage the attacker deals. The defender still deals full damage. Forts work both ways, regardless of who built them.

Non-elite units behind a defensive line (fortifications) will only retreat if attacked by a unit more than twice as strong as themselves.

Assault pioneers ignore the effects of fortifications, as do artillery. You can build defensive lines for $10 for 3 hex edges ($5 seemed too expensive and $5 for 2 too cheap, so this is what I came up with). Engineers can also build them in the field free of cost, but only one hex edge at a time.

If attacked across a defensive line, units that would normally retreat will not retreat unless the attacking unit is more than twice as powerful as the defending.

To help illustrate the points, I made this graphic, after which I'll discuss the Defensive Mentality debuff.

AXvNuGY.png

Defensive Mentality

Because fortifications allow you to defend your strategic centers very easily for cheap, I decided to introduce a "debuff" (penalty) for their use that offsets them. With great power comes current squared times resistance great responsibility. If you build a fortification or defensive line in either the diplomacy or the war phase, you cannot gain or use a Blitzkrieg token until the next turn. (Similarly, you cannot build a fortification after gaining or using a blitzkrieg token). I call this nerf "Defensive Mentality." IE: If you cannot buy both fortifications and blitzkrieg tokens at the start of the deployment phase. You cannot blitz after building a defensive line. If you build a fortification, then defeat another player, you do not gain a blitzkrieg token. The token is forfeited.

Weather

First, the weather won't surprise you. In BFD basically nothing is left to chance and everything is strategy, so I didn't think it was appropriate to roll random weather using dice every turn. Instead, you will receive weather forecasts ahead of time.

The weather advances one season every turn. IE: if it's spring in diplomacy phase turn 2, it's summer in diplomacy phase turn 3. If the game went to the war phase, all five players would get autumn weather on Turn 1 of the war phase, then all five players would get winter weather on Turn 2 of the war phase, and so on. This adds an additional element of strategy revolving around when to start the war as time advances.

There are four seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall (or Autumn for those of you who don't speak 'Murican), and Winter. Generally, weather affects movement, with the best weather coming in the summer and the worst coming in the winter. About half the time, weather will be "normal," and not have any effect. I'll generally determine the weather randomly and not tailor it to a particular map somehow.

I will roll weather conditions ahead of time and you will be informed of the upcoming weather by your mysteriously accurate forecasters at the start of the game.

Spring

Mild Spring (50%): No effect.
Severe Flooding (20%): Roads provide no movement bonus.
Long Winter (10%): All units half movement, rounded up. Artillery range reduced to 2.
Thunderstorms (10%): Paratroopers cannot be dropped. Artillery range reduced to 2.
Fighting Weather (10%): All units +1 movement.

Summer

Mild Summer (50%): No effect.
Fighting Weather (25%): All units +1 movement.
Drought (25%): Blitzkrieg tokens may not be played and all units not in supply at the start of your turn take 5 damage.

Fall

Mild Fall (50%): No effect.
Early Winter (10%): All units half movement, rounded up. Artillery range reduced to 2.
Severe Flooding (20%): Roads provide no movement bonus.
Thunderstorms (10%): Paratroopers cannot be dropped. Artillery range reduced to 2.
Fighting Weather (10%): All units +1 movement.

Winter

Mild Winter (25%): No effect.
Normal Winter (20%): All units half movement, rounded up. Artillery range reduced to 2.
Harsh Winter (20%): All units half movement, rounded up, and roads provide no movement bonus. Blitzkrieg tokens cannot be played. Artillery range reduced to 2.
Blizzard (10%): All units half movement, rounded up, and roads provide no movement bonus. Blitzkrieg tokens cannot be played and paratroopers cannot be dropped. Artillery range reduced to 1.
General Winter (25%): All units have exactly 1 movement (except tanks), roads provide no movement bonus. Armor cannot move at all and cannot attack. Units that start your turn out of supply during General Winter take 5 damage. Blitzkrieg tokens cannot be played. Artillery range reduced to 1.

Scorched Earth

Units may now destroy roads and supply caches using an action called "scorching." Scorching a road or a supply cache uses up an attack, unless the unit is an engineer. Engineers can scorch for free. Artillery cannot scorch. A unit must be in the hex of the non-unit it is scorching to destroy it. IE: You cannot scorch a road or supply cache from an adjacent hex and declaring you have attacked it.

You can scorch a fortification if you control both hexes flanking it.

Tokens

There are three powerful tokens in Blitzkrieg for Dummies.

The first is the Order 227 token. Once played, the Order 227 token prevents any of your units from retreating until your next turn. They still take battle damage and can be destroyed as usual, but cannot be destroyed due to encirclement.

The second is the Blitzkrieg token. The Blitzkrieg token allows you to take another turn immediately after finishing your current turn.

The newest is the Intelligence token. You can play this token at any time to instantly reveal the unit and features in one hex on the board. You are given this information in private the targetted player is not aware you used the token.

Victory

The game ends after 5 turns of battle phase or when only one player remains. In the former case, whoever has gained the most territory wins. Hexes with industrial centers are worth 10 hexes.

If a player is defeated, all his remaining units disappear.

Addendums and Clarifications

Black player is not played by anyone.

Engineers' turn ends when they lay a minefield or build a road but not when they clear a minefield.

Minefields do a minimum of five damage in addition to their other effects.

When attacking a unit on a minefield, the minefield triggers and deals its damage before the battle.

Engineers can build minefields and roads during the diplomacy phase, but not on the turn they are purchased.

Minefields, supply caches, and roads are mutually exclusive.

Decoys can overlap with units as if there were a non-unit or with non-units as if they were a unit but not both at once. If the other unit is destroyed, the decoy is also destroyed.

Order 227 tokens may be played during the diplomacy phase, but if war does not break out that turn the token is wasted. (IE: If an order 227 token is played in the 1st turn of the Diplomacy Phase, it only does anything if a player chooses to attack in the 1st turn of the Diplomacy Phase.)

You can only deploy reinforcements from an industrial center you controlled at the start of the turn.

You cannot have elite militia.

General Winter does not reveal units. It shows which units are out of supply, and these units are marked as -5 on my map (assuming they are not destroyed outright). Both units and non-units will be marked as -5, even though non-units do not actually take damage, so as not to give away information about the units in question.

Artillery attacks do not reveal unit identities.

If damage from a minefield destroys a unit that attacked infantry guarding a minefield, the infantry does not promote.

Units with no remaining attacks cannot scorch, except engineers and assault pioneers, which scorch for free.

Engineers/Assault Pioneers can build fortifications for free. [Experimental rule, as of Game 15]
 
Symbol reference:
4JaDqHj.png


From upper left to lower right by rows:
Militia, decoy, garrison, minefield, infantry
Engineers, artillery, paratroopers, armor, scouts
(blank row)
Road, supply cache, unknown unit, industrial center

Note that paratroopers are the same as infantry. Paratroopers act like infantry after they drop. Scouts are lighthouse-lookin' thing on the end of the second row.

6tk8q4p.png


Player Roster:
barkardes
Rovsea
aedan777
jeray2000
Dexander
 
Last edited:
Weather forecast

1. Drought (Blitzkrieg tokens may not be played and all units not in supply at the start of your turn take 5 damage.)
2. Mild Fall
3. General Winter (all kinds of terrible things)
4. Fighting Weather (+1 movement)
5. Mild Summer
6. Mild Fall
7. Harsh Winter (All units half movement, rounded up, and roads provide no movement bonus. Blitzkrieg tokens cannot be played. Artillery range reduced to 2.)
8. Long Winter (All units half movement, rounded up. Artillery range reduced to 2.)
9. Drought (Blitzkrieg tokens may not be played and all units not in supply at the start of your turn take 5 damage.)
10. Fighting Weather (+1 movement)
 
Mark me down as blue.
 
Grey
 
PzAWEd3.png


Diplomacy Phase - Turn 0

As normal, you can all send me your deployments. Everyone starts with $250.
 
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