Replaying scenarios: pros and cons?

[pierre the shy]

Personally, I want there to be enough variability to throw occasional spanners into players' works. Then you find out whether their plan is robust enough to deal with said spanners. Players who anticipate the possibility of things going wrong and eg maintain reserves, cover flanks, etc etc, will do better than those who don't. These are real-world-type decisions that can be rewarded (or punished) on the tabletop.

Totally agree with that comment Chris.....as I said further up the thread in my Graf Spee anology any refight the actual events will start to vary as soon as the game starts, so being able to put in "spanners" in the works will introduce real world type events to make the players think about what they are doing and the need to act accordingly.

For example with the Graf Spee you would only have a limited amount of ammuntion on-board, so if you use lots in fighting an action like River Plate you will need to either return to a port that can resupply you or have a resupply ship (like the Altmark) available to replenish from "somewhere in the South Atlantic".