Played ftf with Hugmenot on 3/31/12. Fantastically enjoyable.

When I was in my teens I remember vacationing in Williamsburg. The history was OK but I was a teenager and we were travelling with another family with teenagers and we all decided that we needed to be able to do something other than walk from building to building and watch people in clothes that were way too warm for the weather try to teach us something about colonial American history before they collapsed from heat exhaustion.

We had noticed a movie theater and whined and fussed and after it was found that the movie playing wasn't a romantic one our parents said "go ahead". The movie was "Endless Summer" which turned out to be a phenomenal travel movie about surfers chasing the "perfect wave".

I have played well over 150 scenarios of PG now and have played the Russians over 80 times. I have been trying to have my infantry assaults be something more than a trail of disrupted and demoralized platoons desperately looking for a leader to take them forward. I have not, until today, been able to get the morale check rolls necessary to get that wave to make it to the objective.

The Germans begin the scenario holding the town on the board and the Soviets need to cross a lot of ground to get there and take it. The Soviets do have some KV-1s and -2s which help draw off some of the fire but mainly they have 15 infantry/HMG and mortar units which need leaders. The Soviets get three. Add to that the fact that I drew the 6-0-0 Lt. so I really had two since the 6-0-0 Lt was gone by turn 4 of a double demoralization (what a surprise).

My Soviet troops labored on and the KV-1s (the KV-2 was dispatched way too early for my liking) began firing at the town. As the troops neared the town I noticed that an empty town hex beckoned. It was behind the left flank of the German front line and taunted me. I decided to try to slide the troops around the German left flank while keeping the tanks on the right flank to pin the Germans in place.

To get there with my fragile troops I needed to weather the opportunity fire from the town. Remembering my use of the penal troops in Heroes of the Soviet Union, I ran infantry platoons directly at the Germans and absorbed the OF. To my incredible surprise the human wave hit the town and held. It was not strong enough to get into the town but it was plenty strong enough to block the direct fire of the Germans while the remainder of the Soviets slipped around and were able to get into the town. At the same time the KV-1s were able to enter the town on the right flank.

The Soviets were simply not strong enough to push the Germans out of the town but it seemed likely that the Soviets would stay in place as well. Unfortunately the German guns hadn't heard that a draw was inevitable and began slamming the Soviet troops who formed a demoralized ring out of range to the machine guns in the town. On turn 13 this fire destroyed five steps of Soviet infantry and machine guns raising the total lost to 16 and a German win.

The play was fun and although a Soviet win seems highly unlikely a draw is well within the realms of possibility. The ending was tense as Daniel worked to try to push the Soviets out of the town and I worked to get more troops into the town. I give it a "4" for the experience.