Greetings,
I feel that Inclement Weather is not really affecting combat, and the game has almost a full cycle of Summer Season barring Rasputiza time.
Which are the differences of Inclement Weather to Clear Weather?
A) Mobility - to various degrees mobility is affected.
B) CAS rolls - to various degrees CAS rolls are affected. Where CAS rolls are allowed each has still a 50% to give a shift unless planes cannot fly at all.
C) In some cases Overruns are not allowed, in other cases Overruns are harder.
D) Air recovery - that one has to plan around.
My issue is that combat itself is not directly affected unless you are in Rasputiza or other form of weather that converts hexes in Swamp terrain.
The A) point turns moot whereas the front is static (Prime example, in front of Moscow or of another relevant objective that may be held).
The B) point is quite okay - albeit I think CAS is still quite generous.
The C) point in my view is perfectly fine as it is with the No Overruns or the -1 to Overrun rolls.
The D) point is perfectly fine as well.
But as it is now, if 24 Combat factors attack 8 Combat Factors in Clear, that's a 3:1. If that happens in Blizzard / Downpour that's still a 3:1!
Thus bad weather hardly hinders the attacker of turn. (In this case Germans as in '41 games it is the Axis on the offensive but technically late game it will be Soviets. Have yet to get there!)
Someone may say the solution is 'run away' - but Soviets do already that the summer whole, should do that also in winter? (Again coin flips around the table later)
So I came to the conclusion that IF the season is not Summer combat shifts are required.
Rationale:
In Summer a Mud (in September like?) it's a form of 'light mud', it slows you down but should not truly affect combat. So bad weather in Summer should not be very punishing.
In other seasons, where rains and adverse climate may be more prominent and dominant 1 or 2 combat shifts to the left seem necessary. (Ontop of other combat shifts due to Terrain and Trenches).
CAS: CAS can also work worse I feel. Without affecting the system in how it works now, CAS Shifts are halved in specific terrain type, rounding up, unless there are Cards in play granting specific bolts that disregard the weather (In that case you do not halve). -- That means that in Autumn Mud or Winter Mud, if someone has 3 CAS dices, they still roll 3 dices. If they nail all 3 of them, they net 2 (1.5 rounded up) shifts to their favor.
Disclaimer: I understand the game has also major luck swings, if during Summer there are enough DEs rolled by luck or maybe enough EX rolled the whole on map situation can be widely different. No amount of rules can solve that (That would only require some radical change in Combat Tables, possibly using a 2d6 system or something like that) - so some other games can show widely different combination of troops setup and force ratio on the map.
I agree. We just went through the first winter and as the Soviets, I was noticing the strong combat power of the Axis. (Of course, he was also at full strength because of incredibly bad luck on my part and good luck on his,) It took a month or two for us to clue in to the fact that there were only half as many turns so I was still managing to stay even despite the luck. A bigger issue was that there was no reason I could see to choose the Soviet combat cards. It will be interesting to see the results of these with the countdown markers. They certainly have a better feel to them and seem more worthwhile to pick.
Lloyd, that's some great insight into the system!
One factor not being mentioned is time. There are fewer turns per month outside of summer. That makes a huge difference.
You can make a good argument that offensive combat power is halved in months we’re there are just two turns. Mobility and other activity such as repair refit and free stuff actions are also at a low ebb.
On on the other hand production of RPs and the resources represented by Event cards come at the same rate which makes winter a good time to recover materially while under less pressure at the front.
Weather effects just make the season harder for offensive action.
This time telescope reflects natural factors such as reduced daylight as well so it feels like a realistic mechanism to me.
CS is generally less effective during less Clement weather, but there still is some chance for as many Shifts. There are cards that can help with this as well. I am no expert on military history, but I would welcome a rule that would limit net CS Shifts to two outside of Summer, or that only two CS dice may be rolled.
Not following with your logic. 24 Factors vs 8 is 3:1 in Winter and in summer. That is what it should be. Just because it is cold, it doesn't mean the attacker all of the sudden loses his attack strength.
I can make the argument that the Defender loses his defense strength proportionally. So in effect, there should be no change.
What happens is those bonus multipliers (like CAS) become less as the weather gets worse. So collectively, the summer air support is not there any more. In summer, I expect my force multiplier to be there to make that summer 3:1 go to 6:1. In winter or mud, that is harder to do. The game reflects that and I'm okay with it.
Mud is much worse than snow as far as mobility is.
Brian