Everything working great

Great game ! Thank you. ¡ Fantástico !

Yes, just to update everyone since the question pops up frequently. This is not the final, retail version of Pavlov's House. It's a playtest version that was used to test the game while in development. So it is missing some elements such as the operational support cards.

The Vassal module doesn't contain the Operational Support cards either.

any news on the final version ?

Thanks so much for this! Wonderful game, will definitely have to buy!

Thanks for post David. btw, http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Pavlov%27s_House is the final version I believe

@Denim: that's why this isn't the final version, as they were discussing below :)

This version appears to be missing the operational support cards?

bump: what makes this not the final version?

Awesome Game !

Isn't this the final version? If not, what would make it final?

I need to see if the publisher (DVG) is ok with posting the final version. Hopefully they don't mind.

Is this likely to get updated to final?

@Plunder, thanks!

Excellent et conforme au jeu de base....pas aussi confortable à jouer qu'un jeu sur table (zoom, déplacements sur la carte et jets de dés pas trop faciles quand même) mais cela permet bien de se lancer dans une partie alors que à l'heure où j'écris il est toujours en production. Un bon jeu quoi...

@sneakynicolas, I updated the module to the 0.8 version. That matches the rules on my website and the Kickstarter.

where can i play the version on the overview videos on kickstarter? The stormgrupen cards are not together with the resupply.

- I updated a handful of counters. The Forward Observers, Voronov, and the Mortar all moved down in cost to 2. Afanasyev was given the Storm Group attribute.

- A sapper on the Wehrmacht track now rolls 3 dice to attack.

- Storm Group cards (except for the deck 5 "Milk House" card) have been removed from the decks. Instead, there are now 6 Storm Group cards. At the beginning of the game you shuffle them, mix one into decks 2, 3, and 4 and remove the others from the game. In this way, you don't know which area needs to be clear during each deck of the game.

- I tweaked the scoring. Now each Wehrmacht counter remaining at the end of the game subtracts 3 (rather than 2) from the score.

Ok, I've updated the rules to 0.5.

Here are the (rather lengthy and significant changes):

- Tokens are no longer discarded from the game. When used they go back to the stock. This resulted in a significant reduction of token components without a substantive impact to gameplay.

- I have introduced "Tactic" cards as an change for increasing difficulty. These replace the Veteran and Elite cards. They are also instrumental in the 3 player variant of the game.

- The game now supports 3 players. Two take on cooperative Soviet roles, while the third plays the Wehrmacht. To make this work, I've added a single extra Wehrmacht card only used in the 3 player competitive version.

Oh - and sorry about the mix up with Dovzhenko and Gridin. That was an error in an earlier set of counters. I fixed it for the print-and-play and Tabletopia versions, but haven't updated the Tabletop Sim version yet. I need to do that.

By the way, do you find it difficult to clear out the appropriate color for the Storm Group assaults? It sounds like you were able to manage that pretty easily based on your score.

I like your idea for the +/-1 for the Wehrmacht spaces, but you're right - it's one more thing to track. Are you finding the Mortar and artillery fire not to be useful right now?

If possible, I'd like to play with you at some point. It would be nice for me to see the strategies you're using.

Great feedback. Lots to think about. I think one of the obvious issues is that I might have to change the way the Vet and Elite cards work. By extending the game by 4 rounds, it's actually going to result in much higher scores. Maybe that's ok, but it's not really my intent. The idea was to make the finite number of resource cubes reach the point of exhaustion. However, an alternate approach might be to use better cards for the Vet/Elites and have them replace rather than add to the deck. For example, you might replace Riflemen with Scouts or Machine Gunners, Panzer IIs with PAnzer IIIs, etc. If I took that approach, I could rework the rules so that you don't run out of cubes but cycle through them like you suggest.

What I noticed about playing with Vet & Elite, though, is that I completely ran out of AA by the fourth phase and I was put back down to three actions per strategy turn by having the wire comms cut and no more cubes to replace it with. I'm not sure the wire comms being rendered unrepairable due to lack of cubes makes any sense. Or depleting any pile of cubes, for that matter. The only one that made a difference I felt even might have been necessary was running out of AA. I was so far ahead, strategically, by that point that if I'd been allowed to reload the AA guns more, the bombers probably would have become trivial. I may try another game tomorrow, but with recycling the cubes instead of pitching them to see how much changes. Considering I just beat Elite with max rank, though, the game may need to be a little harder anyway.

You know, it's like my fourth play and I only just noticed that Dovzhenko and Gridin are evidently identical twins. I noticed because they both just died in the Milk House assault. This is my first game playing with the Veteran and Elite cards and I just won with 50 points to barely be a "Hero of the Soviet Union." The only Wehrmacht counter on the field is the Panzer IV but I sacrificed a huge number of 1 point guys in the final assault in a massive show of overkill because I forgot they counted for points of their own at the end. I would have won by a wider margin if, perhaps, I had sent fewer than sixteen men.

It might be too clunky, but I also have an idea about giving +1 defense and -1 attack to units in the furthest box away along a track, and -1 defense and +1 attack if they're on the sapper space. Artillery and suppression fire would both ignore these modifiers. It makes sense in that vehicles and infantry further away from the house would be safer but less effective, while those storming the walls are more effective and vulnerable, and it would give the player much more reason to invest in the Mortar or Artillery Spotter. As it is now, I get along fine without either of them. That said, it's one more thing to keep track of in a game swimming with things to keep track of, so... Up to you.

Recommendation: Change the Elite Phase 3 Rifleman into another Assault card. The board feels somewhat stale in that things just pile up on the board and don't really interact with the defenders much. Rather than simply add one more rifleman (balanced by an extra turn to deal with him), an assault card gives those units already on the board a chance to do damage to the defenders.

Oh sorry - that is definitely not the intent of the rules, but when going back to read them I see how it reads that way.

When you take a move, you only get to "bounce" one time. The guy (or guys in the case of a team) must bounce into an empty spot or into the reserves. They can't bounce into an occupied spot and start the chain you describe.

I'll clear that up in the rules.

Thanks!

What this means, basically, is that once the house is sufficiently full of people, moving anyone to where you want them to be becomes trivial as you can just move one person into an occupied position they want to be in and start a chain reaction of movements throughout the house. An easier solution would be to simply rename the initial movement phase "redistribution" and allow the player to freely move all their pieces anywhere they want them to be in combat positions. The only limitation being that they can only move a maximum of three men from the reserve box to combat positions during this phase. It's easier to understand as a rule and gives approximately the same result as the rules are written now, I think.

So, in a new example, lets say I have an Anti-Tank team in the Red-Green corner, and a machinegun team in the Red-Purple corner. A Panzer III just landed on the Purple track, so the AT gun needs to be moved to address this, right? So lets say I move Pavlov from the reserve box to the Green corner, this bounces an AT-gunner and I move him to the Purple corner, this bounces a machinegunner to the Green corner, which bounces the other AT-gunner to Purple, which bounces the last MGer to the Green corner, which bounces Pavlov right back out of the corner and I put him somewhere else. The teams have now used "bouncing" to completely change sides in a single move. Because both Machinegunners went to the Green corner, presumably they can bring their gun with them, and the AT gunners can do the same, but even if not, that's just my other two moves.

Okay, so the ability to move people in the house isn't confusing, pre sè, but does seem mildly pointless. That's not to say that where people are isn't important. What I mean is basically the "bounce" rule of movement. On the surface this makes sense. Say Pavlov just came back from a raid, so he's in the reserves, and Chekhov, the sniper, is in one of the slots on the purple side of the building, having just sniped the last fascist on that side. I need Chekhov to be in a better position and I need Pavlov to get back into a combat position. Two birds with one stone, I move Pavlov into Chekhov's space at Purple 3, this "bounces" Chekhov to, say, Green 3, so he can snipe over there, all in one move. So far, so good. The problem comes when you start chaining the moves together.

Ill give it a try in the near future

Thanks @Conscript900. Would love to get your feedback.

im gona keep my eyes on this this looks interesting and fun

I'm glad that you identified the benefit of establishing the wire comms (it's hard to do, with all the other pressures for support) - that fourth action is huge. However, I'd say keeping some of the other, lower numbered spaces clear is just as important as building up the comms for your strategy. For example, I like to make sure locations 11 and 13 are cleared whenever possible when going for the extra action so that I can use them to stop the flow you described. I'm sure you already realized this, but whenever possible, always choose the higher number locations of an area to recover, if you're trying to prevent a higher number location (especially location 18!) from being disrupted.

Having said all that, let me know if you have any thoughts on an alternative system. There must be some negative impact for allowing disrupted tokens to be on locations that get hit a second time, but the current solution is not the only possible path.


Thanks!

@Comrade Beric,


You've hit on one of the key points of tension in the game - the struggle by the overwhelmed air defense forces to fend off the seamingly endless waves of Stukas. Over the course of the game, you will have to fight off 32 Stukas (not including those in phase 5 or in the Vet and Elite decks). With only 15 anti-aircraft tokens, the most you could ever disrupt is 30, but more likely than not, you will disrupt about 15.

You can go with your strategy (it makes sense mechanically), but it means you'll be giving up the extra actions you fought so hard to earn by establishing the wire comms.

I would literally be better off not repairing space 14 and instead letting the bomber break the wire at space 15 instead. That way every time I played another wire comms card, it would just put the cube back, and then break the cube again, over and over again, but this time without constantly adding fog of war cards. It just seems odd to say I'm better off not repairing a space because at least then it can't get damaged and screw up my deck even more.

I'm not actually sure this needs to be fixed. It's just something I've noticed and has frustrated me a bit.

Something I've noticed: I tend to go for the extra actions whenever I can, so my top priority for the operational map is getting the wire comms set up. This can obviously be punished by the game through all the bombing that happens due to having given up AA protection. This I accept. Let’s say, though, that everything from 6 to 13 is broken and every attack rolls within that zone. This seems to happen a lot. This creates an odd scenario I’ve encountered a couple of times now where a bombing will break the wire at space 14 and then disrupt the space, causing a new fog of war card. My next operational actions undisrupt space 14 and repair some other stuff. Then another bomber comes by, hits the mid-field, climbs to space 14 and disrupts it again, thus adding another fog of war. Thus creating this loop of undisrupting and re-disrupting the space, only on each pass of the loop, my deck gains more fog of war cards.

Ok all, huge thanks to @Comrade Beric for identifying an issue with the Vet and Elite cards. I've fixed those and updated the workshop.

@Comrade Beric, great job picking up on a MAJOR error on my part. You astutely identified what was a key design point for me (making sure the phases didn't mix), which I completely overlooked when working through the vet and elite cards. I'll get these updated. I really like your suggestions a lot (to including the spreading out of the bombers). I'll get this fixed tonight and updated.

Thanks again!

If it's something to be fixed, my suggestion would be to move the two veteran riflemen from 1 &3 and put them in phase 2, so veteran is a pair of three card piles. Then take the elite artillery and bombers and move them all to phase 3, so now elite cards are a pair of three card piles.

Additionally, if you want to spread out the bombers, you can swap the current phase 3 veteran rifleman for the phase 4 elite bomber so that when everything gets pushed into three-card piles, the bomber distribution stays the same.

I haven't played it yet, but something did become immediately obvious to me when looking at the new veteran and elite cards. Previously each stack's total was divisible by three, which meant it was impossible to draw cards from two different phases. So, for example, you might get back-to-back resupply cards (and cry), but you couldn't get two of them in the same turn. Likewise, you could never draw two Storm Group cards in the same turn, so you always had a chance, if slim, to pull one off. Now it's possible for the deck to trainwreck you with cards from different phases in the same turn. I imagine these situations will be uncommon, but still, do you think this is something to be fixed? Or is this intended to be part of the increased difficulty?

Oh, and one more thing - I have added the Veteran and Elite cards to the game. So now you can play it on the most punishing level! ;)

All, just a couple of update notes:

All the tokens have labels now. Thanks to @Airborne for the suggestion.

Also, I really liked @Comrade Beric's idea for improving the Command action. Now it gives you three Recover actions. However, the cost for the two Defenders with Command that you have to purchase (Afanasyev and Naumov) has gone from 3 to 4.

Thanks for the interest in the game. Please let me know if you have other ideas for improvements to the game itself or for the experience here on Tabletop Sim.

@Airborne, ok thanks.I'll get some alternative markers made - or at least label them.


Thanks!

Yes I meant the cubes and also the round tokens.

@Comrade Beric,

The Command ability is envisioned to work as you mentioned - as a way to syncronize reseting the defenders you want recovered. The idea is that you should keep your leaders ready to use their Command ability whenever you absolutely need to refresh others. (it's designed as an immediate payoff that you have to pay the price for down the road). I will test it with a refresh ability of three instead, though. It may be a little too powerful, but perhaps not. If you try the game again, perhaps you could test it with that change and let me know what you think?

@Comrade Beric,

It will be up to a publisher which route they'd want to go with components. I do think cardboard bits would be expensive, but I agree - that would be nice. I can make those and add them to the game, at least here and in the print-and-play version. I'll work on that this weekend.

You're the first person who has tested the game and reported back about the instant loss due to the Junkers bombing the 62nd CP. Thanks so much for the feedback. The good news is it happened early on, but if even that game you a negative emotional response, it's strongly worth considering changing the effect. I'll have to think on it. It needs to be significant, because players need to understand the strategic importance of protecting the CP, but it is possible (as evidenced by your play) for players to have it bombed twice without an opportunity to repair it. Let me know if you have suggestions for alternative consequences for it being bombed.

@Airborne, the competitive mode is honestly a ways off. I have to make sure the solitaire/co-op mode is rock solid with no changes before working on the competitive mode...that's just to guard against an endless spiral of development where I try to account for changes in the other mode.

I am conceptualizing how it will work, though. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please let me know. Right now the system will most likely involve the German player using the current deck, with a much greater control over card choice/sequencing and perhaps some additional tactics cards to mitigate randomness.

Which tokens did you mean for labaling? The cubes?

One more thing: The command abilities of the officers seems pointless. i.e. lets say I have two men working the AT gun. Lets also say they both fired last turn so now I need to ready them. What are my choices? I may either spend two actions recovering them both, or I may spend one action with Pavlov to recover them both immediately. BUT, next turn I need to recover Pavlov to be able to use him again. So mathmatically, I've made no headway here. I can either spend two actions recovering, or I can spend one action using command and another to recover the officer. Either way it's two actions, so what's the point of the command action? Once I get all three officers I get an extra action but if one of them gets killed then the "C" ability seems useless. Maybe the command ability should be able to cover three, rather than two?