The Poles entered and set up a defensive line in the gaps of the woods on board 6. The Germans advanced south down the road. The Germans headed southeast along the open area to try and outmaneuver the Poles however the Polish cavalry used its superior speed and firepower to inflict heavy losses on the Germans. The German OBA was not a large factor. In the end only one German unit escaped off the south edge and the Poles had a major victory. A fun scenario that warrants playing again.

I needed a great Cavalry scenario and this one hit the spot. The Polish units come in from the south and German units come in from the north with the objective of exiting from the south and eliminating Polish units, the Polish must stop them. I finally got to use a (Taczanka) machine gun mounted wagon unit with the Polish! The Polish cavalry units have a much better direct fire value than the German cavalry units but the Germans have more units. Both sides have a few support units and the Germans have some off board artillery but the Polish have an excellent morale of 8/8 in this scenario.

This is a very hard puzzle of a scenario to solve for both sides, as both sides have mainly cavalry units which can assault from two hexes away. One side is mainly trying to avoid contact and exit the opposite side of the map. Positioning and movement is very important for both sides. The Polish cavalry are a little faster, but some German units that don’t get tied up in the middle of the battle escape off the map but not enough. The units locked in combat or too slow must fight and the higher morale of Polish cavalry and high Direct Fire are too much for the German units. The Polish only have a few step losses while the Germans have many more and the German units that don’t exit count as victory point for the Polish as well. The Polish win a Major Victory by one point.

This was a fun scenario to play and I am still by far, not a master of cavalry units, they are challenging.

A battalion of elite Polish cavalry gets to slice and dice an oversized battalion of German cavalry in this scenario. The Poles merely have to keep the Germans from exiting while the Germans, despite lower morale have to try to get their horses to ignore the faintheartedness of their riders and go across the width of two boards and exit. It was simply not to be.

Daniel and I both had a feeling that, with the lower morale and firepower, the Germans simply didn't have the horses (how could I pass that up?) to win this one and our result, a 30-9 resounding Polish victory, certainly validated that. On the other hand the play was actually pretty engaging as this scenario is a true meeting engagement with neither side beginning on the board.

As mentioned above, the Germans start with several advantages, including numbers, heavy weapons superiority and more artillery by a long shot, than the Poles. The Poles, on the other hand, have individual unit firepower, speed and morale. In our play, the Germans had the edge in leadership with a couple leaders with "2" morale and at least one with "2" combat modifiers. While my Polish leaders were high morale (10s and 11s) they didn't provide quite the kick in morale that the Germans did. In addition, half of my Polish officers took a dirt nap during the game leaving me with a more difficult troop management task than in most plays of the scenario.

The key to a Polish victory is to avoid commiting until after the German player commits the bulk of his force to a particular exit lane. I kept my cavalry hidden in the abundant forests until Daniel had chosen to push to the southwest (the wider side of the board). Since I got points for any unit that didn't exit any demonstrations on the German's entry board were of no real concern). I was able to move a large force into position to assault his troopers (6 platoons) in one activation and then was able to frustrate the remainder of his force through individual platoon charges and machine gun fire.

Daniel almost got a couple of platoons off the board but the low morale of the units finally told as Polish opportunity fire stopped the galloping units in mid-flight within spitting distance of the board's edge.

It was a fun play and Daniel and I agreed that this one is a solid 3.5. I believe that he rated it a 4, combined with my 3 works out just right.