This scenario was played over two FtF sessions with Vince Hughes. This looks like a very tough scenario for the Germans at first glance as they have lower morale, tough set up restrictions and need to roll an 11 or more to avoid the penalties of the "Surprise Rule" which in effect mean the the SS sit in their camps while the Soviets have free movement to encircle them at will. There are three problems with this scenario :

1. If the German player throws his 11 "Achtung Roll" early in the game he could get sufficient units of the board to stop the Soviet player eliminating 30 steps (Note Truck losses count). This would be annoying bit is a relatively minor issue.

2. The terrain rules state that the east-west road is a rail road, no where in the SSR or the supplement special rules does it tell you what the movement cost is for the rail road. The supplement special rules refer you to Eastern Front but once again no mention of rail roads. We treated them as 1 MP for all units in our game, it is important in this scenario because otherwise the Russians will have to slog through lots of forest to get to Beglovov.

3. As stated above the special rules have the east-west road as a railroad this road runs through Beglovov and I assumed that so did the railroad, logically that what most rail lines do go through towns with a station for drop off and pick up. However when I moved my armoured train into the town Vince was most unhappy, he correctly pointed out that the game rules state that only hexes specified as railroad hexes can be used by trains. I therefore had to move my most powerful unit back and this took no further part in the scenario. For balance purpose's that was a good thing but was that the scenario designer's intention.

   I know that PG scenario's are not play tested to any great extent before publishing but I would expect them to have at least been played through once just to iron out the sort of glitches raised above.

Anyway on to the battle, Vince's set up was just about the best the Germans can do given the severe restrictions on them, he had assured that I would hit a defending unit in the first turn therefore letting him start his "Achtung Roll" ASAP. My plan was to not worry about the alarm being raised but encircle the first two groups of SS and eliminate them picking up the 30 steps needed for a minor win then hotfooting tot he town and putting enough units into assault to deny the control of the town to the Germans. This plan worked but only just, I had great fun at the start letting the Cossack's saber down trucks and doing two small encirclement's there was some tough German resistance at on point but that was soon overwhelmed and of course good old Vince did not roll his alarm roll until halfway through the game. The endgame was quite tense could I get enough units across to the town, every game turn from about GT17 I went through conflicting emotions thinking at first that I was going to do it easily, then no I was going to fall short. As it happened from GT27 I realized that I had just got enough troops into the town to ensure a major win.

Strange scenario this, the first half is a Soviet romp and all the German player can do is react, once he can move freely he has to make his mind up to either flee or make his stand in the town. Our game went down almost to the end and was reasonably exciting. However I have marked the scenario down because of the points made above. If playing this one with an opponent make sure you agree on where the railroad is and what are its MP costs.