Connoisseurs of the early war period and devotees of the TFL "1940 Blitzkrieg 1940 Handbook" will doubtless be aware of the scenario Blitzkrieg! and it's rather confusing victory conditions and support qualifications.
I caveat this statement with the fact that I found it confusing, it may be crystal clear to many but to me I was playing it the wrong way for several sessions until a post on the CoC Facebook page led me to take a second look at it.
In the spirit of sharing my thinking and hopefully helping others to understand the scenario I thought I would share my thinking and explanation. I do not claim to understand Rich's design thinking, this is my interpretation of the logic behind the scenario and how to play it on the table.
So let us start with the source of my confusion, in the Objective for the Blitzkrieg! scenario:
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| The Blitzkrieg! Objective and source of confusion! |
So I interpreted this as:
- Defender choses their Support choices
- Defender may not deploy any of their Support choices until they have played two full Chain of Command dice
- Attacker can use their Chain of Command dice to delay this by spending three points
- Attacker wins if they get two units off the table
This inevitably led to discussions around would some of the defender's Support choices appear before two CoC dice were played? Think of "Pre-Game Barrage", "Roadblock" or "Minefield" - do these not appear until two CoC dice are played by the defender, that doesn't seem to make sense as they are present at the start of the game usually?
Usually this resulted in some of fudge and a feeling of something not being quite quite right. Players would eye each other nervously and agree to never play this scenario again!
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| Top minds at work on deciphering the true meaning |
However, the scales fell from my eyes when I took another look at the scenario and it all became clear to me, well, at least, I think it has!
Let us look at the narrative behind the scenario, this is Blitzkreig! The enemy, usually German, is pushing aggressively forward and seeking to breach enemy lines, to exploit weakness and push further on in to the rear areas of the defender. The defender seeks to delay them and stymy the advance until they can call upon their reserves to plug the gap, halt the blitzkrieg and prevent the break through.
In this context, let us take another look at the mission Objective.
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| With context this time |
The objective of the attacker is clear - push on aggressively and exploit the advance and get two units off the defender's table edge. Time is the key here, push on fast and drive deep in to the rear echelons of the enemy before they can organise a defence. Drive fast and drive hard and don't let the defender's get the chance to recover. The playing of their own Chain of Command points represent the delay to the defender's attempt to reorganise.
For the defender this is a different story. They need to marshal their resources and try and halt the blitzkrieg until their rear echelons can organise and block the enemy thrust. This is represented by their playing of two full Chain of Command dice.
Unlike the "Swift to Support" scenario, which explicitly states that the defender cannot deploy support until Turn 2, the Blitzkrieg! scenario has no such restriction. The phrase "call up support" in this scenario refers to a specific narrative victory trigger.
The defender wins the game instantly if they can successfully play two full Chain of Command dice before the attacker exits two units from the table. In effect, the playing of two full CoC dice represents the defender successfully alerting higher headquarters and bringing the "main body" of their force into the area, effectively ending the attacker's chance for a rapid breakthrough via blitzkrieg.
The attacker can delay this by using one of their own full Chain of Command dice to reduce the defender's accrued Chain of Command points by three.
So the defender can deploy their support choices from the beginning of the game, with a sort of "ticking clock" mechanism of two CoC dice being played for their victory which the attacker can blunt and delay by using their own dice while racing to get two units off the table.
I hope this helps those players who have been confused by this scenario, I know I was!