Solo Theatre of War Campaign: the Aftermath

Map After First Battle
Originally uploaded by The Gonk

So, what exactly happens to these poor Deutschen Volk after losing this battle? We need to figure out the Battle Points for both the American and the German sides. This is done by a formula using the Army Morale Points (see discussion below) and the Victory Points won during this battle.

Victory Points are only scored for the Objectives held when the battle ended. Obviously, since the poor Germans had NO TROOPS LEFT when the battle ended, they get a big fat goose egg. The Americans, however, held a 10 point hill, a 7 point hill (both on the German right, by American companies that hardly moved from set up), and the hard won 26 point bocage. Left on the table were the 8 point rough hill in the German left flank area, the 8 point crossroads, and the 3 point hill the Shermans left to finish off the last PaK 40 battery.


The Germans started with 18 Army Morale Points, and the Americans with 11. However, I used Piquet's Field of Battle: WW2. FoB uses a different morale point system than what ToW expects with Point of Attack: Blitzkrieg. ToW and POA:B have been around for ten years, while FoB is relatively new. Some adjustments have to be made. If this were a POA:B game, the traditional Piquet concept of "Morale Chips" would have been generated by draws from the Army Characterization Deck, one draw per three units. So the Americans would have had four draws, and the Germans six. The ACD is basically a poker deck, with the face cards indicating special stratagems in the battle. We'll ignore that, say the average draw is a 5, and the Americans would have had on the order of 20 chips, and the Germans 30. Looks like the FoB:WW2 AMPs are about half what ToW is expecting, and I will use that rule of thumb.

Giving the Americans an adjusted 22 chips, and the Germans 36 chips, when both ended with 0 chips, that gives us the following:

American Battle Points = (36 - 22) + (0 - 0) + 43 VPs = 56 BPs

German Battle Points = (22 - 36) + (0 - 0) + 0 VPs = -14 BPs

Doesn't sound very good for the Germans, does it? And they started the campaign with almost half the National Will Points of the Americans. They needed quite a different result.

There are three types of victory in ToW: Marginal, Decisive and Crushing. Since the Americans Battle Points (56) exceed their estimated starting chip count (36), they have won a Crushing Victory. They may 1) move their Battlegroup 1 territory on the campaign map in any direction, 2) 30% of the units in the next battle for this battlegroup will get a unit quality upgrade, and 3) they add the Campaign Point value of the territory (4) to their National Will Points. The American battlegroup stays where they are, since it is a four point territory, and battlegroup I was intended to be their striking force anyway.

The Germans suffer a Crushing Loss. They 1) retreat their battlegroup 2 territories as specified by the Americans, and all other battlegroups one territory of their choice, 2) 30% of the units in this battlegroup will suffer a quality penalty in their next battle, and 3) lose National Will Points according to a table: 30 points for a Crushing Loss + a d10 for having a 3 Strength battlegroup + a d12 for a 4 Value territory-- the Germans lose 30 + 6 + 4, or a whopping 40 points! Folks, that leaves the poor Germans with a grand total of 5 National Will Points! Yikes! The Yanks might just be home in time for Independence Day!