Below is an article featuring Holland ’44 insights and first impressions from first time player and InsideGMT contributor David Wiley of Swords and Chit and Cardboard Clash. You can also find this article on David’s blog. Enjoy! -Rachel
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Welcome to Swords and Chit! My aim is to focus on discussing and reviewing wargames. There are two primary reasons I wanted to start blogging about my wargaming experience: as a relatively new wargamer coming from a background of euro games, a lot of things in the wargaming hobby are going to be new to me and I hope to provide a fresh voice for those who might be on a similar journey into this area of gaming. Second, I have a very strong preference for games set in the Medieval period or earlier – although that isn’t where I’ll exclusively play, it is what I will focus on more than anything else. So I am glad you discovered this blog, and I hope you stick around for future posts!
Long. Hard. Exhausting. Those are some of the words that come to mind when I reflect back upon the first play of Holland ‘44. We played it across three different evenings, and that got us through the first 8 turns of the shortened game and, by that point, it was easy to see who the victor was going to be. There are a lot of moving parts going on in the game, something that isn’t necessarily a bad thing but certainly something which is attributed to it taking us roughly an hour per turn in this game, making it feel like even more of a slog to get through than it probably should be. Ultimately, the German forces controlled by Carl did enough to slow down my Allied efforts, boosted by some really crappy weather results in the 3rd day, to lock down a German victory (getting 1.5 points away from an automatic victory, as well as ensuring there was almost no prayer of the Allied forces advancing far enough to get a victory if it lasted through Turn 11).
ZOC Bonds, horrendous terrain for movement, blown bridges, poor attacking odds across bridges…all of those things played a factor in the game’s outcome. Even though it was a really lengthy game, it was engaging the entire time. Was it all fun? That’s up for debate, but since it followed so closely on the heels of The Scheldt Campaign (and I was the stronger attacker in the Allied forces) it didn’t share the same level of misery of that game. It did, however, reinforce how much room I have to grow in my play of operational-level games. Mistakes were made early and often, and eventually those went against me and the outcome. I have a better idea on where to focus my efforts early, and can see things I thought important early that were better left until a later time (which would have possibly allowed me to fare better in the middle of the map. And oh, I would have made especially sure to try and keep open routes for supply, having now seen the ease in which the Germans can cut that off for my entire airborne forces.
And so in we go:
Insight #1: Plan for the failure of supply drops
This is the leading insight, even though it doesn’t happen until the end of the 5th turn of the game. It is that important. I can’t even begin to overstate that point. The Allied forces will need to be able to trace a supply route, via roads without entering an enemy ZOC, all the way back to the “starting” end of the map. Sure, those troops in the 30th will have a good time of that process, but every one of the Airborne divisions went out of supply from that point onward. What’s the big deal, right? Well, perhaps the most important thing would be their attack value getting halved. Suddenly hitting a 4:1, or even a 3:1, on the battle results table is a much bigger challenge than it had been previously. Which means there’s less chance of coming out of an attack unscathed, and more opportunities for your attack to be ineffective against the German forces. And guess what? The Germans are okay with that, as they don’t necessarily need to be aggressive on the offensive. They just need to slow you down enough that the game ends in a futile effort – or your troops end up weakend to the point where you can be picked off for points.
Carl – Note if the quote should be a long quote I’m not sure how be
David has not had as much lecture from a mutual acquaintance of ours on a Slack channel. To quote “supply is everything in an operational game. More than anything you need to be deliberate with what you do. Don’t take unnecessary risks but use your forces to nudge your opponent into situations where you can control the outcome. Setup is important and nothing feels as good as watching things align and dropping the hammer…”
I may have paraphrased a bit. I don’t have a photographic memory (wish I did as there would be fewer rules mistakes).
Insight #2: If a German dies in the forest and no one is there to see it, does it even matter?
Unfair. My Allied forces piled up a body count of the Germans to make Rambo jealous, and that didn’t make a bit of difference beyond reducing his stack potential. Every German death is worth a whopping 0 points. Don’t get me wrong, you still need to make corpses out of the Germans, but being intentional about it is key. Those Germans aren’t strong in attack, so sometimes it is as harmful for them to attack the Allied forces as what they could gain – something to exploit more. Focusing attacks into a few key areas – i.e. VP city spaces and eventual supply routes/bridges rather than hunkering down into meaningless conflicts. As the Allied player, if the Germans are attacking your stacks it is almost always a good sign – buddying up, and crowding together will help keep your defenses strong to where you’ll be okay with the Germans trying to chip away at the forces. That being said…
Carl
This is an important one. As the German side I did a poor job of using my own stats to dictate what to do in the opening turns. I tried to go on the offensive early on but learned slightly earlier than David that the supply lines were going to hurt him. All I had to do was be slightly less aggressive, and more selective, on any combat I initiated.
And there is the key to be successful as the Germans. Do I need to be aggressive? Not early in the game. Getting the attack strength up with the initial units, even with stacking, is going to be hard. As David mentioned the defensive strength of those units is where their importance lies.
Insight #3: ZOC, ZOC, ZOC
His best moments as the German forces were ones that eventually forced my stack to retreat into oblivion. If a retreat is rolled, your force is required to move 2 hexes away from the attacking enemy. If it can’t move, or moves through a ZOC bond, or ends in an enemy ZOC? Eliminated. No matter how strong the stack is, that result will be a kiss of death. His troops pinned mine against a river, a blown bridge at our backs, and forced us into destruction. It saved him half a dozen attacks, at least, to whittle the stack down one hit at a time, and instantly boosted his points since every eliminated Allied unit is worth 0.5 or 1 VP. In a game where low scores are needed (I think he needed 12 in the short game), watching one attack rake in 2-3 VP on a stack that was still relatively strong is a huge, crippling blow. And those darn ZOC Bonds, made with pairs of units in good health across a 1-hex gap, allows a clever player to lay down a net without needing to fill every hex because even a voluntary move through a ZOC Bond would eliminate an enemy force.
Carl
That first ZOCbond moment was one of my proudest moments in gaming. I’m not trying to gloat. Understand that it took work to set up the situation. It really felt like all of the setup had been worth it.
Insight #4: Take Arnheim as fast as possible.
I took a lot of point-value cities and eventually had almost all of them under my control. The bad news? There are 11 VP hexes on the board, and you need to control 10 of them to win as the Allies…and 3 of those are in Arnheim. Which, unfortunately, is on the opposite end of the map from your 30th Division forces working their way across the map, which means reinforcements are likely only coming from Air Drops. Those troops may, or may not, get to enter play based on the weather for the day (and even if they do enter play, they might not enter and be useful or full strength). Push hard for Arnheim from the first turn. I spent time protecting my air drop locations and picking off his scattered starting troops around there first, and by the time I pushed to take Arnheim he had more forces in there, mine were reduced in quality, and then suddenly I had an entire 5-turn span without any prayer of reinforcements (the night turn 5 through morning of 9. Troops can’t drop at night, and turns 6, 7, and 9 all had weather restricting drops. Had we played 10, I would have been able to drop a maximum of 4 guys across the board. It was horrible, and just reemphasized how vital it was to make that early, fierce push to take spots in Arnheim. Far easier to hold them after taking than to try and take them, especially once my troops got out of supply…)
Carl
Thankfully there was a German supply right next to Arnheim. That plus road movement meant ready access for support of the city.
Insight #5: Repairing bridges is a painful process
A blown bridge is a painful thing to face. Not only does it remove a path of movement and retreat, it also closes down a supply line route that can be traced. The good news is that most bridges aren’t considered blown until an Allied troop moves adjacent for the Germans to roll for that bridge. The bad news is that it’ll take you two full Bridge Phases to repair said bridge – one to get it under repair and the next to see it finished. That in itself could be tolerable, except there are only a few units capable of repairing the bridge, and they need to be adjacent to the bridge to begin repairing it. And, even worse, the bridge also needs to be free of enemy ZOC on both sides of the bridge. Which is your opening predicament as the Allies, since you need to push across the map to a certain point by the end of the game and, well, only one bridge is open on that side of the map to begin the game. Your mission: to clear enough German forces out of the way on the other side in order to repair a bridge or two so you can move forces across faster. It isn’t a fast process. And, honestly, it sucks getting out of that area anyway because there’s so much stinking Polder that you’re mostly resigned to moving those forces along the single road within their artificial boundaries.
Carl
Every good German soldier needs to know how to kill engineers and bridging crews.
Also, there was a second bridge which may have been available but it needed to be “tested.” There is one known good. There are a few that could possibly be good, and then there were the ferries…
Those only help with the overland part of supply, so only in the vicinity of units near a major river. This may not have helped the British in the north, but it may have helped further south.
Wrap-Up
I’m still not sure I have my head wrapped around the game. I certainly don’t think I have another all-day game session in me at the moment. The game was tense, exciting, and enjoyable yet utterly exhausting. It wrecked my brain in ways that are above and beyond even some of the other operational offerings we played leading up to this one. Maybe I’m just relieved to be treading back into more comfortable territory with revisiting games we’ve already come to enjoy. Either way, while I’m looking forward to a rematch in this one I’m not pushing for it to happen soon. Right now, I’m a fan of a game we can finish in an evening (maybe two. Looking at you, Nevsky) instead of optimistically expecting to need a 4-evening block to get through the short scenario of Holland ‘44 again.
The problem is that we have plenty of additional long games that need to also hit the table at some point, including others in the ‘4X series. And yes, I’m looking forward to trying those out at some point as well. In spite of how it may sound, I did enjoy the game and system and want to play more of them. I’m just not quite ready for that sort of long-term commitment from my Wargames at this point. It becomes easy to look at it and say we could have played an average of 3 Commands & Colors scenarios per evening spent on Holland ‘44. Vastly different experience, of course, but that thought is usually in the back of the mind. So a few weeks playing some of the shorter ones should recalibrate the hunger for a longer game to hit the table again.
In spite of all of this, I did enjoy the game. It was long, yet engaging most of the time. There are a good number of pieces to consider moving, and then at least a handful or two of potential battles to resolve with each and every turn. It gives you plenty to wrap your head around, yet also gives you a little downtime at the start of the opponent’s turn if you need to do something like help your wife for a minute or two while he places reinforcements and considers how to move forces. The game felt overwhelming as I read the rules, ultimately leading to me wanting to push it back or try doing just the playthrough opener. That following of the playbook lasted all of about 5 minutes, and once pieces started moving around, things began to click a little better. Unfortunately, there are still nuances of the game I didn’t capitalize upon – but hey, I don’t need to play a game perfectly the first time. Even if I had several evenings to remember those things upon.
The pleasant surprise, of course, was how mechanically simple and intuitive a lot of the game turned out to be. Sure, things like ZOC Bonds are unique, and there are new ways of thinking about things. The joy of battle shifts appeared here (something we tried recently in Scheldt Campaign and Antony & Cleopatra) which is something I find to be fun and interesting as an approach to combat. And even the idea of pushing across a sprawling map, bogged by pesky German flies in a race against time is appealing. So the more I think about it, the more I do appreciate the game. And who knows, maybe we’ll be fast enough to hit 4 turns in an evening instead of our 3 average, letting us hit the 11-turn short game in 3 weeks instead of 4 the next time it returns to cycle onto the table.
Previous Articles:
A New Wargamer’s Reflections on Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan
A New Wargamer’s Insights and Impressions from Peloponnesian War
A New Wargamer’s Insights and Impressions from Nevsky: Teutons and Rus in Collision, 1240-1242
A New Wargamer’s Insights and Impressions from Pendragon: The Fall of Roman Britain
Author: David Wiley
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