Valor & Victory

Well, got through my first little fight in "Market Garden" and want to say I am pleased.
ATM it is a nice little "beer & pretzels" game, but I can see that dramatically changing
when I start to play the much larger fights. So, it looks like it is kind of two games in one.
I'd forgotten how the best part of table top war games was rolling the dice and the
anticipation of what number was coming up. Well, this game has a LOT of die rolling and
you can even turn on the die animation if you like...and I do. As a result I sometimes forget
I'm playing a pc game.
I may have gotten this game and "Lock 'n' Load confused. They are very similar. Other than
some players whining about the die rolls too favorable to the AI there aren't really any problems
with the game that I can see. Yeah, small sample size, but...
This has a lot going for it for the price.
 
Never was a great fan of either V&V or L'nL. Bit too light for my taste, plus there are some game mechanics that I really dislike.

But if you're looking for an ASL PC game, I highly recommend Second Front.
It's not quite ASL, but neither is it hard to see where they drew inspiration from.
Think of it as Tigers on the Hunt, without the cludgy UI, and sporting a decent AI.
Personally, I'm not wild about the art-style, but that's just personal preference.
Currently it sports the US, Russia and Germany, with a planned expansion for the Brits and the desert.
Single-player only unfortunately (at least for the time being), but it comes with a ton of scenarios, plus people are busy in the Steam workshop converting scenarios, so I don't see any shortage of gaming any time soon.

Current asking price is probably a bit steep though.
So maybe wait for a sale.
 
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Not much by way of an AAR.
I'm playing the Arnhem scenarios. There are 6 of them and I assume in increasing size and complexity.
I simply cannot beat scenario #2 as the German side.
Frost's forces are equal in numbers to mine and maybe even a bit larger. The Brits are on defense and are
defending 3 adjacent 2-story building There are woods across the street from the buildings, but if I move
my men into those woods to get ready to fight they will likely get shot to pieces by Allied defensive fire. The
the buildings provide better cover so even if I survive that they have better odds in the subsequent straight
up fire fight.
I have no smoke, arty or AFVs.
I've tried attacking the flanks and the result was better, but not much. I have some squads that have better
range, but there are few hexes I can get to to use it as LOS is restricted. So I can only bring limited fire using
my range advantage. And if I do that I am unable to inflict enough casualties before time expires.
I will not move to the next scenario before I figure this out.
At least for now. :unsure:
 
Watched a few You Tube videos where the players got stomped as the Germans so feel just a little bit better.
I'd say there's a reason the German attack historically failed as they just underestimated the Brit paras' strength.
One guy did win with a novel approach of getting some his forces down the western side of the defenders and
then getting some VERY lucky RGN numbers, taking down the last of the defenders on the last turn, again w/a lucky
die roll for a ugly melee fight.
Several complaints about how unbalanced this scenario so don't feel bad about moving on and fighting a battle
that is a little more entertaining.
Did you guys know you can play this pbem?
Haven't tried it out, but if someone gets the game....
 
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Ok then. Moved onto the 3rd scenario and this looks like a lot more fun.
However, it still looks like the defender paras have a numerical advantage. Another superior defending force? Hmm.
I think my German forces are coming into town from the north. They consist of some combined units from the 10th and
11th SS Pz divisions. Counters have that black look goin' for 'em so that's cool.
Germans have 16 inf squads, but the Brits have 24. The Germans do have 4 AFVs including a Tiger I, a Panther and 2 Pz IVs.
I don't believe the Allies have anything that can put holes in the Tiger or the Panther. If I am careful my armor should be able
to win the day. Allies only have a couple of "door knockers" and some inf anti-tank weapons. They do have a couple of Vickers
MGs with a range of 8. This will make it tough on my inf small arms w/only a range of 5-6.
It will probably all come down to the clock which I don't like much, but there it is.
For some reason my app for screen prints doesn't work, nor does the in game hot key for pictures <P>. If anyone figures it out...
 
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Have started a multi-player game with HOA and had what amounted to a me (us) problem.
Got everything set, but at the first screen that claimed to be my turn it listed the opponent as
<montarakid>. Hmm. Of course I/we couldn't advance the game from there. It turns out in
the screen just before that it asks you to login or sign in. I'd been selecting login as I've been
playing on the Slitherine server for a couple of years now and didn't think I needed to sign in.
again. Boy, was I dead wrong about that! After signing in everything proceeded to work just fine.
Soo...remember boys & girls. Sign in please.
The UI is just a little wonky as right in the middle of a player's turn there is a "defensive fire" phase.
This means the game saves, and sends it back to your opponent so they can complete their DF.
That accomplished, the game saves again and sends it back to the first player to complete their
turn. That's the only interruption to the turn sequence as far as I can tell, but it could cause a bit
of a slow down unless one checks their mailbox frequently when playing.
I do see where we can make random scenarios by "buying" units, but have not gone that far yet.
Sounds like a potential tournament in there maybe?
:2charge:
 
How do you think it compares to LnL? I've played a few LnL scenarios and to me it felt like, as the defender, it incentivised sitting on objectives and not firing, therefore leaving your units unspotted and unable to be targeted. I had a squad of British paras with an MG and a leader who, despite being completely outnumbered, could just chill out in the stone building they were holding. Making spotting attempts seems to be difficult, and the manual says many players never do it.
 
@TrenchcoatSquirrels I've decided, after a bit more playing including a pbem on the Steam server, that V&V isn't really much
fun.
The multi-player game suffers badly due to the phase sequences. If I am playing my turn I have to stop right in the middle
and send the turn to my opponent so they can play one phase <defense fire>. After that one phase my opponent sends the
turn back to me. That interruption every turn is really irritating, but not as much as the fact when playing pbem you do not
get to see the other players moves or combat. The <r> key allows you to see some arrows denoting movement of units and
where attacks were made, but not the results of the attacks. Unless you have memorized the strength of each of your stacks
of units (and locations in case they get eliminated) you don't know the casualties you sustained! So, pbem is out.
As for the single player game it is...boring. What happens each side stacks as many units in hexes as allowed and then it's just
a matter of die rolling until the battle is over. If your units are caught in the open when moving and take defensive fire they are
likely to get massacred as they have no terrain protection die modifiers and even suffer an additional - modifier. Massacre. So
once units are in a big stack, and under hard cover, that's where they are likely to stay. Then the game sinks into a stagnant
episode of dice rolling turn after turn until somebody wins. This might change if the scenario provides arty as stacks would
probably need to be thinned to avoid massive casualties. That sounds fun doesn't it?
I really thought this was going to be a winner, but I got fooled by how easy it is to play. Yeah, dice rolling is pretty easy to do.
 
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mTk said:
@TrenchcoatSquirrels I've decided, after a bit more playing including a pbem on the Steam server, that V&V isn't really much
fun.
The multi-player game suffers badly due to the phase sequences. If I am playing my turn I have to stop right in the middle
and send the turn to my opponent so they can play one phase <defense fire>. After that one phase my opponent sends the
turn back to me. That interruption every turn is really irritating, but not as much as the fact when playing pbem you do not
get to see the other players moves or combat. The <r> key allows you to see some arrows denoting movement of units and
where attacks were made, but not the results of the attacks. Unless you have memorized the strength of each of your stacks
of units (an d locations in case they get eliminated) you don't know the casualties you sustained! So, pbem is out.
As for the single player game it is...boring. What happens each side stacks as many units in hexes as allowed and then it's just
a matter of die rolling until the battle is over. If your units are caught in the open when moving and take defensive fire they are
likely to get massacred as they have no terrain protection die modifiers and even suffer an additional - modifier. Massacre. So
once units are in a big stack, and under hard cover, that's where they are likely to stay. Then the game sinks into a stagnant
episode of dice rolling turn after turn until somebody wins. This might change if the scenario provides arty as stacks would
probably need to be thinned to avoid massive casualties. That sounds fun doesn't it?
I really thought this was going to be a winner, but I got fooled by how easy it is to play. Yeah, dice rolling is pretty easy to do.
Click to expand...
That's a shame :( The PBEM process sounds annoying too. Can't believe people used to play ASL by snail mail.
 
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