I was a youth soccer coach for several years working with girl's teams. My teams were generally made up of a group of girls who enjoyed each other's company and were willing to run around aimlessly on a Saturday morning and then have snacks together. My job was to make the actual playing of soccer fun for them (this was recreational, not club soccer - 'scuse me football).

While the game was on the girls generally had a decent idea of what to do but that all broke down when we got a corner kick. You see, corner kicks generally work best when you have someone who can put the ball in front of the net from the corner in the air. I didn't have anyone who could do this with any regularity on the team. As a result, we worked on a "short" corner kick scheme that focused on controlling the play towards the near goalpost, the one we could actually reach.

I thought of that as I played this scenario. The Soviets in 2 battalion strength with significant artillery support are tasked with ramming through the GD regiment and exiting the board in large numbers (10 units). The GD has little artillery but a full battalion of troops to defend the area. There are only 12 turns so there is little time after the setup to do anything.

It would be tempting for the Soviet to try to push through the center of the German line but I noted the poor morale of the Soviets and instead focused on trying to unhinge the German line at its nearest point and then slide units off the board past the broken hinge (the "near post" of the title). As of turn 8 this appeared to be possible due to some terrific results from artillery barrages. The Germans had lost their 9th step and any ability to win the scenario outright due to some awful rolling on morale.

By turn 11 the Soviets had exited 7 units and had three remaining in range when a German counterattack surrounded the Soviets and demoralized the potential exiters on turn 12. This was a fun, tense and decidedly messy scenario with assaults and friendly fire a regular occurrence. It is well worth the time. I believe that luck was definitely on the Soviets' side in this play so I would expect more German wins than even draws but it is nevertheless a good one. I give it a "4".

This is the next in the line of Russian human wave attack scenarios in the original Panzer Grenadier. This one usually proves interesting because of the dependence on die rolls, and at least, seemingly to me, the ability of those die rolls to flip the balance very quickly. Because of the time limit on this one, there is no setting up for a methodical attack, it is pretty much line up your guys and charge forward. This limits the impact of the Russian machine guns, and stresses their mortars and off board support. These end up being the key of the scenario.

The Germans have to defend the "northwest corner" of the map, which the Russians will be attempting to exit off of. Unfortuanately I could not find a game definition of "northwest corner" so I had to generalize it. Either way, the Germans have to spread out a bit to deny all the avenues of attack, which they have the MGs to do.

I tried to spread out the Russians as much as I could in an attempt to negate their extremely poor morale a bit. Because they number so many, and the objective is such a small corridor, they really couldnt spread out THAT much, but it did help get them to the German line. Once they hit the line though, the center dissolved, and the northern section got tied into and brutalized in assualt. The attack in the south made progress, but they were wore out by this point. It was a bloodbath, and the Germans won the day with significant casualties due to artillery of their own.