Escalation League Game Results

[AvogadroTheMole]

Figured I would start a fresh thread to collect these in.

Sean, feel free to dispute if your records disagree:

Player: Matthew Fullmer
Opponent: Mean Saloney
Date: 04 Feb 18
Mission: Key Positions
Mission Result: Stalin smiles (Win), 2 objectives taken to 1 for Sean
Units destroyed: 3 to 1:
   Sean lost a veteran squad, his HQ squad, and the 80mm mortar (to a BS lucky exceptional damage on the 1st turn of the game).
   Matt lost the flamethrower squad to overwatch from the German heroes of the haus - a squad who heroically sat still in a cabin for nearly the entire game while boldly not getting ranged in on by my mortar the entire time.

Overall Result - Major Win

MVP votes - Speaking for myself, I would vote for my SMG squad that came off of outflank reserves to obliterate Sean's vets and contributed most of the credit to taking out the HQ. 2nd choice are the stoic heroes of the haus, for boldly staying calm under depressingly little fire and then gunning down a helpless team in the open.

Logistics - I had both bought and painted new units in the leadup to this game, but as this is the 1st round, I assume they should not count for these categories.

[AvogadroTheMole]

Opponent: Bob Rioux
Date: 11 Feb 18
Mission: Top Secret
Mission Result: Stalin smiles again (Win), objective successfully extracted from the table
Units destroyed: 6 to 3:

Overall Result - Major Win

MVP votes - We did not discuss choices, but I would have voted for my SMG squad. I suspect Bob would be on board with the choice as they got the drop on one of his GI squads, killing 8 in a hail of fire (and inducing a panic check which they failed) while simultaneously securing the objective. Two turns later they had removed it from the board without taking a single casualty.

Logistics - I had both bought and painted new units in the leadup to this game, so +1 for each of those, if we are going by week, rather than point bracket.

[Mean Saloney]

I've handed in my result to Chris so I'm going from memory here.

I'm not off to a great start, with my loss to you Matt in the first game, and two "losing" draws to Mike.

First game was at you said Matt. My Veteran platoon has not had a good time in these games. They got smoked by your SMGs first game, smoked by an assault from Mike's Commandos in my second game, and I think they just barely escaped annihilation in the third game.

Learned a lot about the game though, and my list is going to adjust pretty heavily for the next round. Need to break some FoW habits too. Six turn limit means you can't really be patient to get into a good position. Also not a big fan of indirect fire so far. Ranging in takes too long I think given the six turn limit.

[bigchris]

Matt, without disclosing scores yet, is definitely ahead.  You, Mike Cunningham, Mike Laporte (TBS), and myself are all tied for second place.  You could switch to a regular Arty piece.  That give you the option of direct fire as well as indirect fire, and most let you add a spotter.

[AvogadroTheMole]

Player: Matthew Fullmer
Opponent: Mike Cunningham
Date: 17 Feb 18
Mission: Demolition
Mission Result: Stalin smiles (Win), Destroyed Mike's objective while preserving my own
Units destroyed: 3 to 2:
   Mike started with 4 dice (2 crazy tricked out vet commando squads, a vet HQ, and a vet sniper. By the end of turn 6, when I had then contacted his objective, he was reduced to a ~75 point sniper squad and a bunch of cooling bodies in silly hats.
   I lost my LMG squad and HQ.

   Lesson to be learned, a small regular LMG squad in a building is insufficient to daunt a squad of crazies commanded by Mike. The HQ was actually a sacrificial diversion to try and persuade Mike into range of my flamethrower (plus several other support units. Mike's HQ squad almost saved the day for him and almost secured at least a draw on its own with a Cunningham-esque bold charge up the board to support the hammered and heavily pinned assault commandos.

Overall Result - Well, now this is a weird one that might be highlighting the weakness in the scoring system. As I understand it, despite losing 160 points worth of troops to Mike's ultimately ~425 and having 6 order dice left in the pool to Mike's 1, this is still a draw because the kill points are only +1 in my favor (3:2). It seems like having tiny super elite forces will sometimes make it hard to win outright if they are too small to have enough activations. But on the flip side, it will be hard to wipe the table against them and still have a 2+ unit killed disparity. So, commandoes for semi-perpetual draws?

MVP votes - Mike and I did not actually discuss this. Looking back at it, I think the flamethrower is the choice for me. It caused Mike the most vexation in unit activation and movement decisions and ultimately crisped his maneuver squad to cinders over multiple flame attacks. If Mike had won or drawn then I would probably have voted for his bold HQ squad as they would have been the difference.

Logistics - I should count as a +1 in both categories.

[bigchris]

Overall Result - Well, now this is a weird one that might be highlighting the weakness in the scoring system. As I understand it, despite losing 160 points worth of troops to Mike's ultimately ~425 and having 6 order dice left in the pool to Mike's 1, this is still a draw because the kill points are only +1 in my favor (3:2). It seems like having tiny super elite forces will sometimes make it hard to win outright if they are too small to have enough activations. But on the flip side, it will be hard to wipe the table against them and still have a 2+ unit killed disparity. So, commandos for semi-perpetual draws?

Hrmmmm, The first thing is if you actually won the objective, that kinda trumps (phrasing) everything else first.  So scoring starts by seizus honkus of the scenario objective.The squads destroyed is mostly for breaking ties in the league stats.  But they don't really quantify what a minor win vs a major win is.  I will see about clarification on this from BA.

[bigchris]

Ok, so I conferred with other TO's.  The Win/Loss should be used for the Objective scenarios (Top Secret, Demolition, Key Positions, etc)  A margin of 1 in objectives is a minor victory/minor loss.  A margin of 2 or more is a major victory/ major loss.  The margin should probably be used for the force destruction as well.  though that will have to be worked out between the players as some of us *cough*Matt*cough*  have larger forces.  So the margin of win loss can be adjusted by agreement of the players.  So in my one game so far.  I destroyed 5 out of 6 of my opponents squads, while he only destroyed 2 out of the 6 of mine.  a ratio of 2-5 losses gives me a margin for a major victory.  Draws still get you 2 points.  Scoring is something we will be working on as we play more in this league.

[AvogadroTheMole]

I am not sure I followed that. It sounds like we are deciding level of win/loss twice.

Regardless, I do not think it wise to delegate margin of victory determination to the players at game time. That will lead to inconsistent experiences and opens up the door to disagreements - both honest and exploitative. I think it much better if there is a decision made by the powers that be (and/or with modifications as they see fit) and everyone deals with it.

Todos, some of us have anemic little insignificant forces with so few dice you cannot find them in the sack of retrieval (umm, phrasing?). Why should those of us with reasonable platoons be disparaged for their inability to contribute enough dice to require a full hand to count?

More seriously, the disparity between say Mike and my forces is a perfect example of why margin of victory value should not be determined on the fly by the players. Mike will have every incentive to push for one method, probably with a seemingly well founded conviction that he is completely reasonable and in the right. Meanwhile, I will have every incentive to push for the opposite method, also probably with a seemingly well founded conviction that I am completely reasonable and in the right. Even if we do not end up smashing each other's models with our hardcopy rulebooks, if I persuade him to my way of thinking and we are the only ones to play by those rules, I might gain a big advantage in event scoring, which is un-fair to everyone else in the event.

[Michael]

I think my argument would be for wins as the only criteria, with head-to-head as the tie breaker. Margin of victory only seems relevant in the force destruction missions (of which there are two too many )

In any case, I'll be the first to acknowledge your superior skill and tactics.

[AvogadroTheMole]

I think my argument would be for wins as the only criteria, with head-to-head as the tie breaker. Margin of victory only seems relevant in the force destruction missions (of which there are two too many )

In any case, I'll be the first to acknowledge your superior skill and tactics.

I feel margin of victory is entirely relevant. Just like in Flames, not all successes are made the same. In a tournament, once you pass 8 players you risk not settling on a single top-ranked player in a 3-round event. You will also have many ties in the lower tiers. Most of those players will not have played each other. I support having a proportion of forces lost/killed as part of the overall scoring. I do not think anyone would find it controversial to say that a victory where you win with your very last squad limping on its last few men is less decisive than one where you did not lose more than a handful of men scattered across several squads. I was just bringing up a situation(s) where it appeared to be falling short of its goal (especially if it modified a mission win down to a true draw. In a straight kill mission, the 0-1 margin = draw might make sense. But it will still risk struggling with disparate force sizes - much like Flames sometimes did).

I am less worried about beating my chest in superiority as I am in having a sensible system where the whole gamut of force compositions are given a comparable shake in scoring. Ideally, I will never need to think "Hmm, I should really drop this squad to bulk up the other ones" just because I think I will get punished in the soring rather than because I think it will make my platoon better. Likewise, I hope you never need to think "Hmm, I really should break this unit into 2 squads" because of scoring only.

[bigchris]

It seems the scoring system for the winter league is definitely going to be open to interpretation.  But, I should think, that in an objective driven scenario, for which there are several Mike and more missions in Campaign books , Achieving the goal of the scenario would constitute a Major win in itself.  Unless there are multiple objectives captured by both sides, in which case it comes down to who had the most claimed. That would seem straightforward enough to figure out Major/Minor victory.  In Force destruction scenarios, it becomes harder to determine the winner as the two opposing forces could be different in size while still fielding the same points.  But since it's by squads or teams, 6 squads/teams aside regardless of the actual size of each squad seems, to me, to be a simpler way to count it out.  A four squad, or more, difference between squads players lost would, to me, constitute a major victory/loss.  A three or two squad difference would constitute a minor victory/loss.  A draw is pretty simple.

And Mike, Warlord does encourage players to write scenarios, and even submit them for consideration for future publication.  here's the link;  https://articles.warlordgames.com/how-to-write-your-own-bolt-action-scenarios/

[Michael]

I am less worried about beating my chest in superiority as I am in having a sensible system where the whole gamut of force compositions are given a comparable shake in scoring. Ideally, I will never need to think "Hmm, I should really drop this squad to bulk up the other ones" just because I think I will get punished in the soring rather than because I think it will make my platoon better. Likewise, I hope you never need to think "Hmm, I really should break this unit into 2 squads" because of scoring only.

That's easy enough, just compare loss differential based on the point cost of the minis. If the victor has lost about the same as the loser, then it's a minor victory. If there is a greater differential, then it's a major victory. At 1000 points, the math is very simple. If both sides losses are within about 300 points, then it's a minor win. If the victor won by more than 300, it's a major win.

For force destruction missions, the breakdown could be a bit more nuanced: 100 points or less differential would be a draw, 100 to 300 a minor win, 300+ a major win.

That way losing a light mortar, a sniper, and a medic is about the same as losing a full-strength Commando squad, not three-times more as it is using squad count.   

UPDATE: I was reading through the rules for the missions last night and came across the section for Attrition scoring. It's very similar to what I outlined above, except they set the boundary at 20% of the point limit rather than 30% (e.g. 200 points for 1000 point games). I think it should work very well for tournaments.

[AvogadroTheMole]

Player: Matthew Fullmer
Opponent: Great Scott
Date: 17 Feb 18
Points: 750
Mission: Demolition
Mission Result: Stalin smiles (Win), Destroyed Scott's objective while preserving my own
Units destroyed: 1 to 2:
  Destroyed Scott's smaller tricked out squad of vets. Would have had a great shot at killing 2-3 more if the game had lasted one more turn. But I feel that one should place winning the scenario over fighting against the scoring system, which is what I would have been doing by trying to extend the game to bulk the killed-loss differential
   I lost my HQ. And because I took the objective on turn 3 and my flamethrower failed its 1st reserve roll I understand it to count as lost as well. Still, I feel going for the scenario win outweighs worrying about kill ratio.

Overall Result - Again, won the scenario but drew on kill points. I probably did not actually kill that many more points than I lost. Although, given one more turn I would have been nearly certain to bag Scott's enormous and super tricked out squad (probably 200+ pts on its own) and maybe one of the half-tracks and HQ in return for a decent chance he gets my PTRD and maybe the damaged SMG squad.

MVP votes - We did not discuss this, but my vote would probably go to the T-34 for how much it terrified Scott's half-tracks and for the havoc it wreaked on the squad I killed. Hitting with the HE 2 turns in a row played a big part in dealing with them (maybe next time I will remember to roll for all the hits under the template, too!)

Logistics - Qualify for both.

[bigchris]

Somebody is going to have to try and stop this Soviet Juggernaut.

[AvogadroTheMole]

I do not think "try" is the operative word in there.

Despite my past successes, we are in a brave new world here at 750. Operatives report the Evil British Empire has constructed a technological terror capable of destroying entire buildings in a single shot. Our armour cannot repel such firepower! And to match it would take half a tank corps. What can Stalin do against such reckless hate? We can only hope that small, 2-man, teams might be able to slip past its formidable defenses and deliver attacks to its vulnerable points. Preferably, its thermal exhaust points.