Chaplains in PG

[Matt W]

In addition to the leaders themselves, I find the variation in the number of platoons per leader to be very interesting in terms of the forces presented. Americans, Germans, and usually British have gobs of leaders making the loss of one or two or little impact, whereas the Soviets, especially the early war Soviet's leaders are often very few and far between, forcing a clumping of units around the few that do exist and clumsy moves towards the enemy and an unmistakable target for defensive fire.

I remember one Iron Wolves scenario where, if memory serves, each Soviet leader had to manage slightly more than 5 platoons on average. Compare that to the German or American averages in most scenarios of 1.5 platoons per leader and you can feel the difference immediately. Due to morale failures and losses in assaults the huge Soviet force was virtually immobile.

Don't even get me started on the availability (or lack thereof) of bonuses.

In the game that Daniel and I just played from Fronte Russo my Italians had sufficient leadership to weather some drastic losses in the leader department and still have operational flexibility. Daniel's Soviets on the other hand were stopped at one point by their leaders suffering disruption and/or demoralization leaving their platoons stranded for several critical turns. Plus, as he mentioned, his Kommissar managed to "reeducate" three steps worth of corpses, proving to be less of an asset than expected.