Heroes of Normandy - Battle of Bloody Gulch

[DeHammer]

Heroes of Normandy - Battle of Bloody Gulch

My brother and I have been playing this scenario over & over trying to figure out if there's any possible way for the US to win this one. So far it's a massive loss each & every time for the US. So much so that it seems wildly unbalanced.

The scenario description suggests that the US forces are expanding their defensive lines, but the setup has them all sitting on the road in the middle of the map. So it's more of a meeting engagement even though the description you'd think the US actually had some defensive lines. The description does refer to the US forces as 'over powered & out numbered' so I would expect that to be the case in the game, and it is; the US forces are indeed badly out numbered and over powered. But worst of all, the description suggests that the Germans historically ran out of time before US reinforcements arrived. While the game gives the Germans 10 full turns, with really no chance of them running out of time before wiping the US forces out.

8 US squads, 2 leaders, 1 medic
14 German squads, 5 leaders, 4 MGs (SS & Fallschirmjäger)

Even if you adjust the game balance slider to fully favor the US, it only takes away 1 German squad and 1 MG.

Regardless of the strategy the US forces take, the Germans have a full 10 turns to hunt them down and wipe them out. If they fall back and make a stand grouped together, they seem to be able to hold out to about turn 8 max. That's assuming you are playing against a German player who's properly taking all of the German advantages and playing a moderately aggressive game.

The fix for this might be shortening the turns to 9 and giving the US a bit more of a fighting chance. Perhaps 1 more leader + 1 more squad.

This scenario seems so unbalanced after several play throughs, trying various strategies, it really felt very much unlike any other scenario we've played in the digital series of games. So I got curious about whether the digital scenario was actually the same as the board game scenario. But it turns out that this scenario doesn't appear in the board game scenarios.

So I have to ask.... what's up with this scenario? Where did it come from, and why does it seem so unbalanced?

 

[Stéphane Tanguay]

This scenario first appeared in LNLT Compendium 1. IIRC, I played it once and find it hard on the American but I don't have more experience than that with it. A few of the 400+ LNLT scenarios appear to be unbalanced. The worst case I've seen so far is Counterattack at Ste-Mere Eglise (HON). Starting one map away, the 8 Germans squads, along with a marder and a Stug, must wrestle control of 16 building hexes in 7 turns from 14 US squads (not taking into account possible reinforcements on both sides, wich are very unlikely for the Germans).

No explanation to offer as to why these exist.

 

[DeHammer]

This scenario first appeared in LNLT Compendium 1. IIRC, I played it once and find it hard on the American but I don't have more experience than that with it. A few of the 400+ LNLT scenarios appear to be unbalanced. The worst case I've seen so far is Counterattack at Ste-Mere Eglise (HON). Starting one map away, the 8 Germans squads, along with a marder and a Stug, must wrestle control of 16 building hexes in 7 turns from 14 US squads (not taking into account possible reinforcements on both sides, wich are very unlikely for the Germans).

No explanation to offer as to why these exist.

Thanks! That's good to know.

Question: With the digital game, is the 'game balance' slider bar configurable from scenario to scenario in terms of how it balances each scenario? In other words, is that data kept with the scenario itself? Or is that functionality algorithm based and part of the core games programming?

It would be nice if there was some ability for LNLP to be able to customize the specific game balance changes on a 'per scenario' basis so that the user can adjust the 'game balance' slider bar to really make a difference for those wildly unbalanced scenario.

In this particular scenario, adjusting the game balance fully to the US side does very little to help the game balance.

 

[Tom Proudfoot]

The slider adds or removes units particular to each scenario, that's the only change. And it's set in the scenario. For Bloody Gulch (you already noted the US alterations) it is:

American Advantage: Germans lose one MG34
American Strong Advantage: Germans lose one MG34 (as before), and a 2-6-4 Squad.
German Advantage: Germans gain one MG34
German Strong Advantage: Germans gain one MG34 (as before), and a 2-6-4 Squad.

For most of the scenarios, the balance changes are quite minor, as the scenarios tend to be pretty closely balanced. The Bloody Gulch balance options are pretty typical; usually the first level adds a support weapon and the second a half squad or squad, so this one's in the ballpark.

But, it's a little more tricky for this scenario because notice the victory conditions: eliminate all US units. So adding US units both makes the US stronger and makes it harder for the Germans to win. (That's probably why I made all the changes only to the German side).

On the third hand, though, if a player is desperate enough to shove that slider all the way over, I suppose adding a US unit or two is not the end of the world.

 

[DeHammer]

The slider adds or removes units particular to each scenario, that's the only change. And it's set in the scenario. For Bloody Gulch (you already noted the US alterations) it is:

American Advantage: Germans lose one MG34
American Strong Advantage: Germans lose one MG34 (as before), and a 2-6-4 Squad.
German Advantage: Germans gain one MG34
German Strong Advantage: Germans gain one MG34 (as before), and a 2-6-4 Squad.

For most of the scenarios, the balance changes are quite minor, as the scenarios tend to be pretty closely balanced. The Bloody Gulch balance options are pretty typical; usually the first level adds a support weapon and the second a half squad or squad, so this one's in the ballpark.

But, it's a little more tricky for this scenario because notice the victory conditions: eliminate all US units. So adding US units both makes the US stronger and makes it harder for the Germans to win. (That's probably why I made all the changes only to the German side).

On the third hand, though, if a player is desperate enough to shove that slider all the way over, I suppose adding a US unit or two is not the end of the world.

Thanks Tom. I feel like in that particular scenario, adding units to the US side would probably be the best way to give the US a fighting chance to win. I suspect even with adding a couple of US units it would still be a real challenge for the US.

I think some of the things that grossly unbalances the scenario as is, is that the Germans have 5 leaders vs 2 US leaders, and the support weapons give the Germans the opportunity to hit the US squads while out of US range. Also, the Germans have all the time needed to easily destroy all US units.

I'd love to hear someone else's thoughts on the scenario after giving it a try.

 

[nelmsm]

Were you playing against the AI or head to head. Against the AI I spread out in cover and absolutely refused to fire until the end unless the Germans became adjacent. If they can't spot you they can't shoot you. I still had 10 units left (2 heroes generated) at the end. HTH I can see where this could be hard to win though

 

[DeHammer]

Were you playing against the AI or head to head. Against the AI I spread out in cover and absolutely refused to fire until the end unless the Germans became adjacent. If they can't spot you they can't shoot you. I still had 10 units left (2 heroes generated) at the end. HTH I can see where this could be hard to win though

Another human player. Against a German player who understands their many advantages in this scenario, there's zero chance of a US win, even with the balance adjusted.

When playing a human player, they can see you within line of sight even with full fog of war, they just don't have you spotted. Also, OP fire opportunities gives away your position to some degree. The German Fallshirmjager are far superior in melee as well, so it's pretty easy for a decent German player to run you down with their overall higher movement capability (5 leaders).

 

[Chris Merchant]

having an official game results database would be very handy for picking the best games to play h2h.

 

[DeHammer]

That reminds me. It's ironic the scenario seems so imbalanced head to head when it originated as a board game scenario.