This is one of two scenarios where the Soviet Guards are trying to take the village of Maloe Kropotovo. We played this with #10 in the same afternoon.

There is not much that is interesting when you look at the scenario instructions, no tanks all infantry and the Soviets don't have any artillery. They do have about a 3:1 advantage in troops, so this lead to the tactics used to try to take the village: direct assault. Morale is good for the Soviets as they will need it, with the Germans having good support of OBA, HMG, and an AA gun.

The setup is straight forward, Germans setup in the town and the Soviets enter the board on turn 1. The Soviets advanced from the east to directly assualt the town. The Soviets slowly advance dragging their HMG's and mortars through deep snow. Oh, yes the MP's are reduced due to snow. By turn seven the HMG's were ready to trade shots with the German counterparts in the town. But time was ticking and so was the visibility the Soviets needed to get their troops into the town. A mass charge was ordered and 9 INF platoons emerged from the woods. Three made it close enough to assault, but their leader was demoralized. At this point the Soviets retreated back to the woods. Leaving the village to the Germans.

In this scenario a reasonably sized Soviet Guards force is attacking a town held by a German force roughly half their size. The Soviets only have 3 hours to complete their attack whose primary target is the town itself, half of that time after nightfall. In addition they have to cross a nearly featureless field under the guns of the Germans. Finally there is heavy snow on the ground which hampers their movement.

In reality the Soviets were told to attack without preparation. The title of the scenario pretty much lays out the problem. The Soviets had to attack "From the March". To simulate the disruption of this deployment, the Soviets enter their troops according to a roll of dice. Each turn the Soviet player rolls two dice and can enter that many units and/or leaders.

Due to the slow movement and the short duration of the scenario the Soviets have no chance to maneuver. They simply have to pitch whatever enters each turn at the Germans and absorb the artillery and opportunity fire.

The Germans pushed a strong dug in line to the front to delay the Soviets but did not extend it far enough and once night fell the Soviets moved around the edge of the line and were able to ultimately assault the town on the final turn, keeping the Germans from a win.

In my playing of this one every die roll that could go the Soviets way did. I rolled three straights 11s for entry rolls meaning that nearly their entire force came on as quickly as possible. The Germans had very few loss producing fires throughout the scenario and the Guards with their 8/6 morale passed most morale checks. So with everything going their way they were still only able to contest 2 hexes of the town and could only eliminate 2 steps of Germans.

Again the inability of the Soviets to develop a coherent assault in a Mars attack shines through. Every scenario I have played which portrays Mars clearly presents the difficult weather conditions and the lack of natural cover which ended up dooming the operation. The Soviets frantically assaulted but each assault only added to the failure of the plan. A very good portrayal of the situation but somewhat forced as a scenario. This would rank higher if there weren't a number of other similar scenarios in Heroes/Tank Battles and Red Warriors. I give it a 2.