The Schlieffen Plan – The Way Schlieffen Planned It

Kurt is designing a new scenario by the looks of it for Fields of Despair which is still under P500 with GMT. Here is his play thru unedited:

The original Schlieffen Plan called for 48.5 corps. The German army in August of 1914 simply wasn’t that big.

It is now.

I have designed a what-if scenario that balloons the German army up the size the original Schlieffen Plan required. The French and British stay their historical sizes. This AAR is our first time through the scenario. Apologies for the picture quality. My daughter took my good camera to camp.

The name of the game is see how long the French survive.

Below: Normally the Germans are still fighting the British in Maubeuge. This time the Old Contemptibles were steamrolled and France has a wave of black blocks crashing on her. 

France has yet to take turn one. 

Below: Start of turn one, action phase 2 – German turn. Look to the far right and you can see I have taken 2 hexes in Alsace-Lorraine. Despite the increase German size, my objectives remain Plan XVII objectives. I have to risk the attacks if I want to score. Every other unit that could be spared has been thrown in front the the German wave in hopes of slowing it.
The end of turn one the Score is high at 6 to 6. The Germans let the French have Alscace/Lorraine. In return they have contested every hex on the Marne and Paris. Paris on turn one!!!

In good news (my only good news) Antwerp is holding. And I have to admit, fighting the steamroller is a ton of fun. If you enjoy scenarios where you KNOW you’re dead but want to see how long you can hold, this is for you. 
Despite my valiant efforts to hold, the German army encircled Paris.
I did manage to break the encirclement.
This became a dance. We agreed in our post-game discussion that Pairs was ripe for the taking. In the end, Mark decided to refocus his resources on pushing the British to the sea. I held the port of Calais but the French and British were cut off from each other. 

During the last 2 action phases, the Germans also stuck at Verdun. I had almost nothing in the east at this point. When faced with the choice, Verdun or Paris, I chose to let Verdun fall. This is not to say it was easy for him. I almost held both.

In the final photo you can see the shift to Verdun let me advance out of Paris. It doesn’t really matter much with the British bottled up and the Frontier forts bypassed with the fall of Verdun. The final score was Central Powers 15, Allies 7. A major victory any way you look at it.
The next stage for this scenario is to modify objectives and set victory conditions that drive play a little better.

Regardless of my terrible defeat, I had a lot to fun just trying to hold on to anything and felt good being able to avoid the shutout and score a few points along the way.cool

Kurt