Yes, it's a pun. This was my first real foray into the fourth edition rules. I will save many of my comments on the fourth edition at a future point but will mention areas where they had an impact on the play of this scenario.

A couple battalions of SS troopers supported by some of the best armor available (4 steps of Tigers and 12 steps of Pz IVH) square off against a battalion of guards and a Soviet RKKA tank battalion (with a bunch of 76s between them. The Germans need to clear the town to their front without losing the towns or hills that they start out holding, they need to push troops across the width of two boards with tons of fields and they need to avoid losing too many steps.

In the third edition much of the fight would have been in the fields that flanked the town and exiting steps would have been a significant issue. The town would have been relatively low hanging fruit due to the ability to assault consistently on the 30 column, but the fields with their ability to block LOS would have been an issue and the use of minefields would have limited the German armor mobility to off road rates and a near impossibility for the Tiger to make it off the board if they could disengage at all.

The fourth edition provided the Germans with two significant edges. First, clear terrain hexes now only cost 1.5 MPs for mechanized movement so the Tigers and Pz IVs were a lot faster. Movement that would have taken 5-6 turns in the third edition took only 2 or 3 for the Tigers due to their ability to move 3 hexes in clear terrain.

In addition the front edges of fields no longer block the LOS to the inner sections of the fields so hexes that used to require adjacency now can be shot at from three hexes away. This is critical in a tank duel and spelled doom for the Soviet tanks which died in a three turn segment due to the German initiative and their desire to do something other than run.

Countering these two advantages was a significant change in the assault chart which favors the smaller force. Losses have been reduced at the higher columns and increased in the lower columns. For example on the last turn of the scenario a Soviet force of an INF, KMS and a leader fought against a huge stack including a Pz IV, two SCHs and a leader. The columns were 9 for the Soviets and 30 for the Germans. Both sides caused 2 steps losses but the requirement to lose a step from the Pz IVH meant that the Soviets "won" that fight and just missed causing the Germans too many losses for the victory condition.

The fourth edition made it possible for the Soviets to survive in the town much longer than any such battles I have had in the third edition. The changes to the assault table give an outnumbered defender a lot more options and much more to think about. The scenario itself is a little wide open due to the lack of cover but was fun to play and with the added near run of the German loss level kept its interest to the very last die roll. I give it a "4" as I don't see a Soviet victory to be possible and the tension will be whether the Germans can be kept to a minor victory.

This is probably just as good in a ftf session as it was solo.

This one was a pleasant surprise. I was sure the Germans would wallop the Soviets. Again, I was the defender; so I set up the four minefields in a sort of J shape right in front of the town, on the road and on both sides of it. Two entrenchments were next to the town, and the third was set back in the little field to the south of the town.

For some reason, a few turns into the game, the Germans balked at the opportunity to go North around the minefields. The entire attacking force shifted to the south. This kept them bottled up way too long as they spent time trying to take out the big 76.2mm guns. It also allowed me to make a small (eventually completely defeated) counterattack in the north- I drove the Grants and two T-34s toward the far hill on his starting board. Though defeated, this attack did keep a few HMGs and at least one heavy PZIV away from the town. At one point, the Tigers were completely separated from everybody else in the German force. I jumped into assaults on those guys! It cost me probably six full platoons to knock out one and a half Tiger platoons, but after a certain point, casualties didn't matter to the Soviets- but they did to the Germans. The German attack on the town finally came from the WEST! They had swung all the way to the far side and were taking the town easily at game's end. But time ran out- there was no way they could get the needed steps off the west edge.