This article discusses Allied strategy in the forthcoming design, Battle Command: The Bulge. For an overview of the game, and the battle it represents, see the first article in the series: An Introduction to Battle Command: The Bulge. We also have an article on German strategy.

Disrupt

In my opinion, the first thing to think about as the Allied player is disruption. The Allied player must create roadblocks on the German route to the Meuse. If properly placed and supported (with field works, for example), a well-placed US division or two can stop a German line of attack cold.

Second, a good Allied player will also threaten the base of any salients the Germans push in behind their lines. As discussed in the article on German strategy, the quickest way to lose this game as the Germans is for your panzers to get cut off. If this happens, their mobility will be crippled (limited to one space per turn), they won’t be able to have artillery or combat cards assigned to them, and –  worst of all –  the cut-off units will lose a step at the end of each turn.

Lastly, a good Allied player will make sure the key bridges the Germans need to maintain supply to their lead elements, and eventually the Meuse, are blown. This will force the Germans to either keep engineer cards available in their hand to repair any necessary bridges along the way, or, find a way to bypass these bridges to continue their advance along a different route – which will always be longer, and usually through more difficult terrain.

Delay

Of course, the discussion of disruption above is only relevant if you have the units to spare, and the time to use them. If the Germans advance too quickly for you to act, you will be in deep trouble. Fortunately for you, one of the Allies’ great advantages is that they have plenty of small mechanized units, perfectly suited to relocating to key spaces, blowing the bridge, and setting up fieldworks. Given enough time, your more powerful units can then come in to take charge of the defense.

This is where the second use of your small, Regimental-sized units comes in –  delay. You will only have enough time to set your defences if you can delay the Germans. Some of this will come down to luck. Early on you will probably lack combat cards to shore up your defences. Unfortunately, you will have to rely on factors like terrain, rivers, and – yes – the luck of the dice to see where your lines hold firm. This, in turn, will shape your next moves.

Until your reinforcements arrive in force late in the game, you will have three questions to answer each turn: where to hold; where to pull back; and where to set up sacrificial roadblocks.

The roadblocks are your least preferred option. You will be using, and quite probably losing, a unit, to delay the enemy. But there will be times when this is necessary. A reminder of the cruel decisions war forces on commanders, and the crueller fate that awaits soldiers assigned to such a role.

A good German player will therefore force you to set up a roadblock whenever they can, by advancing too quickly for you to set up your defences properly. Committing to this, and sacrificing a unit to do so, compounds your problems as you will find it harder to set your next line of defence.  Rinse and repeat. The Germans want to set up a virtual circle for themselves, which to you looks like circling the drain.

You must therefore find ways to disrupt this dynamic, and you have two key ways to do so – the classic advantages of the defender. First, you get to pick where you fight. Second, you get to see how they move and where they attack before you take your turn, so you will have plenty of information to inform counterattacks.

Counterattack

The Allied player should consider two types of counterattack: spoiling attacks, and a late-game counteroffensive. The counteroffensive comes as reinforcements flood into the area, and the game transitions quite naturally from one where the Germans are on the attack, to one where they are on the defensive.

The aim of the counteroffensive is to ensure the Allied player has more Victory Points by the end of the game than the German side, achieved by re-taking and holding victory spaces, and removing the enemy’s divisional-strength units from the board. Spoiling attacks require a little more thought, and will likely take the form of feints, or attempts to pin German units in place. Any territory that gets re-taken will be taken with these ends in mind.

The easiest form of counterattack is retaking uncontested spaces on the board. Simply moving in and taking back control of ground previously conceded to the Germans can be enormously effective in constricting their supply route, threatening their advance, and forcing them to fight to secure their flanks. This is especially true when you can re-take areas of difficult terrain astride their advance.

The next type you should look at are feints directed towards – or the actual possibility of – actually cutting the German supply lines. The German player will not be able to ignore these efforts.

Lastly, keep an eye out for points in the German line where you will safely be able to push the frontline back onto their territory.

The aim here is to lock German units in place, possibly even forcing them to commit reinforcements – and this is especially useful if it then opens up another space for a possible counterattack. Pay particular attention to how the frontlines evolve in the north of the map, where you have a higher density of units and favourable terrain, but Luxembourg City and some of the mountains in the south provide other great places from which you might later spring raids behind enemy lines.

Conclusion

German strategy in Battle Command: Bulge is a balancing act between aggression and consolidation. Allied strategy is one between buying time versus investing in setting up your defensive lines.

Both sides provide players with plenty of tension and difficult decisions, as well as opportunities for pulling off satisfying strategic manoeuvres, but the Allied side is definitely more hair-raising.

As the Allied player, you will be constantly pushed to find the best way to defend against the Germans with too few units to do so in with any great sense of comfort. At least the material balance will shift by Turn 6, and in the long scenario you’ll have the opportunity to try and push the Germans back. But until then – hang on ‘til the cavalry arrive!

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Previous Articles: 

An Introduction to Battle Command: The Bulge

German Strategy in Battle Command: The Bulge