Valor & Victory - 1918 (German v. French Megagame)

Okay, so it’s time to finally set up this game and start the trench assault!

The Americans, in summary, have reached and cracked this section of the German trenches.  Their frontal assault came down from the top of the board, and they are also approaching these Germans from off the left side of the board (where their assault has apparently cracked the German trenches).

So the Americans cannot simply mass all their squads in one gigantic phalanx and steamroll through the German trenches.  The scenario specifies that they have to set up and attack from two directions.

Conversely, the Germans are not allowed to simply line up a brick wall of gray uniforms and machine guns and blast away at the Americans.  They have to defend in two directions.

I’m trying out one small special rule … the normal stacking limit for this game is three complete squads plus an officer / leader (usually a full V&V stack is thus a platoon).  For units in a trench, I’m limiting this to two squads and an officer.  I figure the trench is smaller than the entire hex (usually about 30 yards / meters across.

Three units and an officer can occupy a trench counter (it’s not illegal), they just don’t get the benefit of the trench cover (they can’t all fit in the trench realistically).

So here is the American assault and German defense in the northwest quadrant of the overall board.  This is the board being hit from two directions, so there is the most going on here.  Note that some American squads and platoons have already leaped into empty stretches of the German trench.  However, close assaults are going to be declared on German squads and machine gun positions, which are going to cost the Americans dearly.  Even if individual German positions are not being hit, they will get opportunity fire on Americans as they cross the hexes between the edge of the board and their close assault targets.

I haven’t resolved any of this yet, but suffice it to say the first turn on this game will be very very bloody on this map.

The Americans will get the first “swing” with all those light and heavy barrages I mentioned earlier.

Then the Germans will maul the Yanks as they charge down the trenches or across the fields and craters toward the trenches (those craters do give “foxhole” +1 cover bonus, however) …

Then the Germans, who will still likely be badly outnumbered on this board, will be largely wiped out in a series of American close assaults …

But close assaults have a dynamic in V&V that make even successful close assaults very deadly for the attacker as well (casualty points suffered usually = the number of enemy units that were in the hex + any cover bonuses, which the Germans all have being in trenches unless the Americans close assaulted from inside the same trench) …

So yeah, this one will  be proper Great War nasty.

Further south, this is the smaller American attack that’s coming in from the west, essentially from the off-board sector of the German trenches that have already been secured.  Movement for these units naturally limited, and in fact there will likely no NO action on this board this turn unless that minenwerfer trench mortar drops some fire on someone (again, no radios, so only pre-arranged or direct LOS artillery fire allowed, a change from the usual WW2 artillery dynamic in V&V).

The northwest corner of the board, where the Americans are mostly charging straight at the German trenches in the more classic “Great War” model.  Losses here will likely be even higher (proportionately speaking) than on the northwest board, so the bulk of American light and heavy barrages will likely be dropped right here before the attack actually goes in and German MG 08s take all their opportunity fire.