Hexsides and Hand Grenades

After playing around with scenario 1 in Aegean Strike, I decided to take the training wheels off and give a scenario that uses the whole map a spin.  I don't have time these days to write a really detailed AAR but I'll update occasionally as I play.  I can't stress enough that this is the first time I've played this game and I really don't know what I'm doing in terms of strategy. In the second scenario, World War III has begun and the game focuses on Warsaw Pact operations in the southeast European theater of operations. One of the interesting things about Aegean Strike is that war doesn't necessarily begin on the first turn of the game.  There's an indeterminate pre-war phase where players need to mobilize their forces and they can move around the map and shift units around.  A die roll at the beginning of each turn during the Global Political Stage determines whether or not war starts (a "10" begins the war) so there's a certain amou

Before we get started, each naval unit gets a single detection roll. 1.) The SSN nearest Italy in AS-03 detects the US carrier group in AR-03. 2.) The Soviet surface fleet in AV-06 is detected by the American SSN in AV-05.  In turn, the SSN is also detected. 3.) The Soviet SSGN near the coast of Egypt in AX-07 is not detected nor is the American SSN in the adjacent hex to the north AX-06. Turn 1 begins! First Action Stage First Naval Movement Determination Phase: The USA and USSR roll for Naval Movement Points for the phase.  The US player gets 3 NMPs and the USSR gets 4 NMPs. First Movement Phase First Initiative Segment: The USSR starts off with some sub hunting.  Launching 3 Ka-25s from the Soviet CVH and CGH, the USSR player manages 2 hits on the American SSN in the AV-06 hex. Next, the Tu-22 and the MiG-23 in Benghazi take off and head towards the American carrier group.  They are detected by the E-2 circling above the carrier and an F-14 on CAP inte

In my previous post, I set up the Soviet ships for the first scenario of Aegean Strike called "The Battle for North Africa".  The Soviets tried to lock out the US surface ships out of the area around the Egypt/Libya coastline.  After the Soviets set up, it's time to get the American ships on the map.  Here's a short post on how and why I did it in a little write-up I call "Justify Your Setup".  Here goes: US (red) has set up prior to start of play. Since I'm playing solitaire, I simply rolled a d10 to determine if the US player would set up to the northwest (near Italy) of the conflict area or down south nearer to the Suez Canal.  The die result was the first option so I put my entire surface ships together in one stack (CV-69, DD, BB, and LHA) just north of Naples in AR-03.  This was pretty much the only spot on the map where I wasn't dangerously close to two Soviet submarines at the same time.  It doesn't keep me out of range of Soviet bo

Scenario 1 of Victory Games' 1986 "Aegean Strike" is called "The Battle for North Africa".  It features an air and naval battle between the US and Soviets as the Egyptians (US allies) and Libyans (USSR allies) duke it out on the ground. Okay, so this scenario only takes place on the Strategic Map (much like Scenario 5 of Gulf Strike).  There are no actual ground units anywhere on the map but there is a marker called FEBA (Forward Edge of the Battle Area) that represents the frontline between Egypt and Libya in the ground war.  The FEBA marker starts off in AV-07, halfway between Benghazi and Cairo, and it can be moved east or west by one of the major powers scoring five more hits on it than the other.  If the marker gets to Cairo, the USSR player wins.  If it reaches Benghazi, the US player wins. Here's a look at the map before we start: That's it!  It's a huge change from Gulf Strike's strategic map, which covered most of the Indian