That sounds reasonable enough. Maybe add wargame publishers to the list of worst enemies, though. I label the typical sprawling Paradox game ‘grand strategy’. Hearts of Iron is a wargame on top of that.
In other news, I rate Strategic Command: World War I a 3 (that is, the number of hours I stayed up past when I planned to go to bed). Last night, I fired up the Gallipoli scenario, which takes place here:
If you are, as I was last night, unfamiliar with the Gallipoli campaign, let me draw your attention to a few key points (using the old names from that map): foremost, Krithia, the city near the southwest end of the peninsula. This was the historical high-water mark. After a month of fighting, the Turks had stymied the French and British with a line of trenches, centered on Krithia and running across the peninsula (a line of trenches? Brilliant!). Notice also Sedd el Bahr at the peninsula’s tip, the only good port on the map. These two cities and the area between them are the Helles sector.
Second is Anzac Cove, west of the town of Kojadere through the south end of the Sari Bair heights. Historically, the ANZAC forces landed here and made very little progress, mostly owing to an insufficient sense of urgency on the part of their commanders and well-fought opposition from the Ottomans.
Third, notice Kilid Bahr, Maidos, and Boghali, the latter two objectives for the scenario in Strategic Command, which runs from the initial landings on April 25th until May 31st, by which time the historical fighting had settled down into the trenches.
My landings were, in the main, historical. My ANZAC forces landed at Gaba Tepe rather than just north of it, taking some casualties but securing the town (or fortification or whatever; it’s a valuable source of supply either way) by the 27th.
The landings in the Helles sector were less successful. Since I was learning about supply as I went, the Royal Navy and Marines forces I put ashore at Beach Y were, owing to their lack of headquarters unit and distance from the other beachhead, completely out of supply, only a few squares (yes, not hexes, but I’m not grognard enough to care). Oops. The British landings at Sedd el Bahr weren’t quite as disastrous, but took moderate casualties coming ashore, and failed to capture Sedd el Bahr until the French made their landings and helped out.
With Sedd el Bahr and its port (and source of supply!) captured, British and French reinforcements begin to come ashore in earnest. The relatively heavier ANZAC force in the north in a more aggressive deployment, however, serves to pin a large Turkish force in defense, and the defenders of Krithia go unreinforced and end up falling by the 15th of May, leaving the roads up the coast open for an Allied march on Kilid Bahr and Maidos. Unfortunately, it takes nearly two weeks to march in force up the coast and deploy for battle: off the roads, the terrain alternates between hills, woodland, and mountains, Kilid Bahr and Maidos are both so far from Krithia that I can’t hope for any success on the attack without a headquarters unit to boost supply levels, and headquarters units are slow. Some of the British forces and the French contingent march up toward Anzac Cove and Kojadere, filling in the line there while a detachment from ANZAC marches north around the Sidi Bair heights to capture the town at the north. Their reconnaissance in force reveals a large concentration of Turkish forces in and around Kojadere and Boghali.
Meanwhile, the main body of the British force reaches and captures Kilid Bahr on the 27th of May. They attempt attacks on Maidos, but the headquarters unit there is well-entrenched and not likely to yield to infantry assault. Fortunately, a British heavy artillery battery makes it to firing positions on the 30th of May, and after a heavy bombardment on the 31st, British infantry are able to storm Maidos.
Since I didn’t secure Boghali, the third objective for a tactical victory (as opposed to a major victory), the game declared it a stalemate, which is certainly a realistic result for the First World War (though the historical result was a serious defeat for the Allies). On the other hand, I have a large British force available after the capture of Maidos and Kilid Bahr, and the only thing preventing it from encircling the main part of the Turkish army in Boghali and Kojadere is one entrenched Turkish unit in Eski Keni, which would have yielded to bombardment and infantry assault. The ensuing encirclement probably would have led to an Allied capture of Gallipoli.
I’m hesitant to offer anything final without trying one of the full campaigns, but I’m hesitant to try one of the full campaigns without a week or two to actually play one (I suspect ‘World War I’ is a lot more sprawling than ‘Gallipoli’, even if the scale gets coarser for the former–longer turns, corps instead of brigades for a unit, and so on). So far, though, I think it’s pretty good. Add to the list of pros: works well as an operational wargame. Like in the Command Ops/Airborne Assault games, I got a much better feel for the impact of terrain on a fight than I do in Hearts of Iron, and the whole zone of control/reaction attack/supply thing helps to make a battlefield that’s not just uniformly-strong lines without any gap whatsoever (although you probably get that on the Western Front).
Anyway, I’d call it a buy.
