This has everything I wanted in a hypothetical latter date WWII battle. Heavy newer model Soviet & German armor, Helicopters, AK Infantry, off-board artillery & Soviet airpower!

It’s a head-on engagement battle with both sides trying to control both east-west roads and eliminated enemy units. Since both forces come on from opposite sides of the board, the main fight was for the two east-west roads in the center of the map where both forces will meet. Also, since there is a lot of space between the north east-west road & the south east-west road, both side divided their forces into two different battle groups, so it seem like two battles going on at the same time, with a few scatter units or mixed forces battling in the no-mans land in the center at times.

The Soviets have more armor but the Germans armor is much harder to kill, with big Maus’s & Tiger III’s. Fortunately the Tiger III’s are very vulnerable from the top from Soviet airpower in the special rules, due to their weak armor there, from both the Direct Fire and the AT Fire airpower, and some of the Soviet airpower has a 3 AT dice roll factors. The Germans have some of the Fl.282 Helicopters with AT factors so the air is filled with combat as well. The Soviets have the nice 10 direct fire factors with there AK infantry but the Germans balance this out, as they usually have two halftracks with two infantry units per stack, so no advantage really in the Infantry department.

The casualties were huge on both sides and the Germans controlled a few more road hexes and took out more of the Soviets armor. When both sides were beaten down as fighting forces, I called the battle off and I really wasn’t sure who had won but after counting units, the Germans had a minor victory by 12 points. Too much Soviet armor was lost and those Maus monster are too hard to kill when there are 16 steps of them. Assaults combat, Crossfire & Airpower helped but not enough to pull out a victory for the Soviets.

This battle really hit the spot for me, I really enjoy this lethal shot them up battles. I recommend this one!