Fire and Sword, scenario #3: In the Puszta

This was an interesting looking scenario with a large variety of unit types and both sides are armor efficient as these are Soviet Guard units. The Germans have three victory objects to try an achieve or not, controlling more of the town hexes on the farthest western map, map 53, controlling the east-west road and eliminating more enemy steps then losing. As the Germans enter three maps back on the eastern edge, the Soviet enter on the western edge and right into those town hexes, so they also have time to put up a large recon blocking force down the road into a town hex on map 54 as a blocking an delaying force, while waiting on their large armor reinforcements to arrive on turn 5.

The Soviet recon force of a halftrack with a leader and 57mm anti-tank gun unit, a SU85, a BA64 and two trucks loaded with SMG infantry and one leader, beat the Germans to the center maps and setup their delaying force. The Germans now have to fight their way out of the map center and by this time, the Soviets have setup their town hex defensives on map 53. The Germans push as much of their armor westward but it’s too late, the Soviets T34/85s & JS2s have arrived and the Germans PzIVHs, StuGIIIGs & JgPzIV/70s aren’t as strong and lose a ton of armor to a few of the Soviet vehicles. With no way to achieve any of their victory objectives, I call this scenario early. This was a Russian Major Victory.

With that said, I still enjoyed playing this one, moving the Soviets ambush force east was the key to their huge success and the Tank shootout was fun especially for the Russians.