Posting #1

This is my scenario of the week! I’ll be playing this a little bit all week. This scenario looks great. The unit mix, the scenario situation, the topic, the time period, the size and the length of the scenario, should make for an excellent play.

The unit mix on the German side which has a bunch of cool armor types: PzIVE, PzIVH, PzIVF2, PzV, PzVIE/Tiger and some interest mix of INF/AT/ART.

The unit mix on the Soviet side which also has a bunch of cool armor types: T-34/76b, T-34C, T-34/85, JS-2 and BM-13 & some interesting mix of different INF types, including my favorite the SMG, not to mention the Guard & RKKA armies are really mixed up in this battle.

Points are scored by step losses, control of the town hexes on board 24 and how many units the Soviet can exit on the South edge of board #24 and the East edge of board #24, below the east-west road.

I have the German setup in two groups. The Germans are setup well forward on or below the east-west road on map boards 23 & 22. Kind of an ambush/delaying force, that will do their damage and hopefully fall back to map board 24, where the Infantry and heavy weapons support battle group is stationed to block the Soviet exit points and deny them any city hexes as well.

The Soviet have to come on board in the North Battle Group board # 23 and the North Battle Group board #22 according the scenario instructions. Both groups are heavily mixed Guard & Regular Army. Their battle plan will depend on how well they can get by the German armor in a timely fashion without too great of losses. Hopefully the JS-2’s & T-34/85’s can balance out the heavy German armor.

I am not sure how this will turn out but I am looking forward in seeing how it unfolds! This scenario has everything you could want in a late Eastern Front battle/scenario. Armor/INF/Rockets and it's not too large of a battle. Not too many counters, so the battle is very manageable and only 20 turns, so there is no messing around, you have to all out go for it right away!

Posting #2

The situation is now very interesting, as I would guess the whole battle will be but the Soviets have now enter the Northern edges of the Battle field in force in four entry points as the time is very short in this battle.

The Germans have take out 6 steps of the Soviet Armor mass. The next activation is very critical for both sides as the Soviet armor has closed with the German armor and in one place are attempting to blow by them. So the Germans will have about a turn or two at the most, where they will have to shot up some more Russian armor and pull back to defend their Infantry & supporting units or they will get tangled in the Soviet Infantry, which would not be good at this point of the battle.

The next two turn look to be a mini Kursk but a 1944 version. This will be cool to play out!

Posting #3

This was a fun scenario to play, as I played a little all week. This battle really had two phases. The first phase being the armor clash on the Northern half of the board before the breakout attempt and the two Infantry & support units would engage. • The Armor Clash:

This went pretty historically with the German getting the upper hand with better placed armor waiting for their prey!

Russian mistakes in this phase, were that they didn’t play to their strengths, by grouping in numbers, instead, they came on board in four areas, too spread out. True the scenario makes you come on in two groups on the different boards but I used 4 groups. Also, only the Russian Guard units have Armor Efficiency, so most of the Soviet armor can only shoot once per turn, which really offsets their numbers. Had I realized this before turn one, I would have played this differently.

The Germans did a great job with their initial setup. The only thing they did wrong was get greedy, trying to pick off more Soviet armor then they should have and in a few areas they didn’t pull back in time and got caught in Infantry assaults. Even though I said I wouldn’t let this happen it did in a couple of places. 18 points of SMG and a Leader can do a lot of damage to armor in city hexes with assault combat. Other then those tangles, they had a good game plan but those JS-2s can put a hurt on you.

The German side did so well at this point, I should have call the battle, as the Russians did historical but since this is just card-board and I was really enjoying the flow of this battle, I decide to play it all the way out. I wanted to see if the Russians could still get 25 steps off the map board. • The Breakout Attempt:

At this point, much of the German Armor that wasn’t too engaged, start to pulling back instead of getting over run by hoards of Soviet Infantry!

The Russian came close to getting the 25 steps off the board and taking away 25 victory points from the Germans. They got 23 steps off the board but even if they had gotten 25 or more steps off the board, they still would have lost by total victory points, as I mentioned, they lost too many armor steps in the first phase of the battle. They also controlled no town hexes on board #24.

The German stuck to their game plan and won this battle but did take some lumps with their armor as well.

At the conclusion of the Game, the Germans had 132 victory points to the Soviets 76 victory Points. A Major German Victory!

Even though the battle turned out as above, it was very enjoyable to play, it flowed very well. I recommend pushing some counters around on the scenario.