Wow, where to start with this one. The Soviets have a low morale, short range firepower, low mobility force with almost no support (no arty, one airplane counter for the entire game) trying to get through a good morale, high firepower, mobile force supported by mortars and OBA. The Soviets must get through the German line and off the other side of the board. The Soviets must exit twice as many steps as are killed, with Cav steps counting double and partisan steps counting if the exit, but not against the eliminated restriction. The Germans must prevent the Soviets from winning with no more than seven steps lost.

You can tell this scenario has major problems just reading it. Heavy snow reduces all movement allowances by one. This is not very impactful to the truck mounted German troops who begin on the road perpendicular to the direction of Soviet travel, and can therefor move fairly easily in a lateral direction, covering anywhere the Soviets try to cross. But the real kicker from the heavy snow is it completely invalidates the partisan units. The reduced movement allowance means they can only move one hex per turn, and they must travel eighteen hexes in fifteen turns in order to exit! At least they have poor morale so they are likely to break and therefor move even slower. They CANNOT exit! So they are completely useless for the victory conditions unless they can somehow knock out eight German steps. But to do so with a range of one means they must survive adjacent opfire and then either manage to assault or get very lucky on the direct fire table. (I did not read Shad’s errata suggesting the partisans are not affected by snow before playing, so I played as printed.)

The Germans set up along the road, fairly evenly distributing their firepower while staying on the trucks for mobility. The Soviets immediately use the aircraft against a truck stack and manage to disrupt the German stack. This is the highpoint of the Soviet side. Most of the force enters north of the river, with some Cav units entering in the center and south to try and tie down the German units in those areas. The Germans redeploy to create a strong force north of the river while still providing an overwhelming blocking force against both Soviet distraction forces. They are well positioned before the Soviets can even manage to start significant movement across the board.

The German arty rips through the Soviets, causing significant step losses, disruptions, demoralizations, and compound demoralizations throughout the game. As the Soviets approach the defenses in the north German firepower cuts them down like wheat. Only one Par unit manages to get adjacent to a German stack (by its own choice) before being torn apart. The Germans launch counterattacks, assaulting shaken Soviet units and shredding them instantly.

The center diversion force attempts cavalry charges, but those are obliterated by German opfire. Some Soviet Cav in the northern force sees crossing the river to assist as an option. Half of it is destroyed, the other half ends up on the eastern (starting) edge barely functional at game’s end. The southern diversion force faces similar results, but one lone Cav unit with a leader manages to run the south edge and exit before game’s end. The Germans probably could have pounded it with OBA to stop the move, but I felt so bad for the one unit that made mid-board that I didn’t have the heart to take it out.

No other Soviet unit even makes it past row XX11. In the end two steps of Cav make it off the board, eleven steps of Cav, the OMB, and the HMG, along with fifteen steps of Par, the wagon, and amazingly only one leader are eliminated. The Germans lost one Inf step. This scenario is way broken and leads to a question as to whether anyone even considered playtesting it. Some ideas to recover the scenario: 1) Remove the German trucks (as someone else suggested; 2) Extend to 20 turns (so the Par at least have a minor chance to exit); 3) Ignore the heavy snow (hampers Soviets way more than Germans); 4) Play a different scenario. Can’t picture giving this one anything above a 1 rating. Broken.