Jay’s review sums up the situation excellently. When I played, I had the partisans get aggressive and go after assault opportunities as soon as possible. This was pretty easy to set up since the Germans can’t afford to stray too far from the road. The assaults were pretty disastrous, and on the north side the German HMG/Inf stack even went so far as to clean up the Russians north of the road, to include killing a leader. The NKVD HMG held the road hex itself, so that became the boundary around all the activity.

The southern assault was bloody for both sides, as the Germans lost one step, but the OMB unit also took a loss and the partisans began to break. One partisan ended up dying, while two broke and became meaningless for the rest of the game. Worse yet, the Russian leader died, ensuring the partisans would never stop running, and preventing any Russian initial starting force from ever advancing. But the real problem for the Germans was created by the NKVD HMG in the road. The half step German Inf was disrupted in the assault, and direct fire from the HMG caused it and the sergeant to demoralize. The sergeant recovered faster, but the Inf ran, forcing the sergeant to run after it. It failed again, and ran farther. Eventually it recovered, but this wasted precious turns.

The trucks went off road and eventually got back to the road, and eventually were forced onto the south road by partisan reinforcements. The made board 8, and the Russians ignored them, except some mortar fire did cause consternation.

The delays in getting the southern German stack back underway forced an HMG duel, which the Germans eventually won by inflicting a step loss as well as causing the OMB to demoralize and flee the battle. This allowed the German stack to begin moving, but just before getting out of range the NKVD HMG disrupted the half step unit.

The reinforcements went after the northern German stack a few hexes shy of board 2. After a couple turns of maneuver, the Germans unleashed direct fire fury on the partisans, wiping out four steps over a couple of turns. They then assaulted two more steps, and killed them but not the Russian leader. The leader escaped, and joined with the remaining leader and six step of partisans. The Germans did pay a price, though, as the Inf disrupted. This prevented the Germans from supporting the lagging southern stack as they had only enough movement left to make board 2.

The southern stack now found the road blocked by the remaining partisans, and could not succeed in gaining board 8. With three German steps still on board 1 the Russians got the victory. German losses were one step, while the Russians lost two leaders, one step of OMB, one of HMG, and 11 steps of partisans. The scenario was frustrating for the Germans, as the weather so limited movement that it is nearly impossible for them to make board 2. They can pulverize partisan units, but even one demoralization can so delay them as to make the victory condition that EVERY unit must make board 2 very difficult. Giving the Germans even six more turns could significantly improve their chances, but as written I’m not sure they can make it without extreme luck. Also, the slow pace of movement did not add to the excitement. A German player would be very frustrated playing this face to face. I give the scenario a 2.