Vince and I played Panzer Lion Scenario 6 - Kalmu - Hill 256 today. He was the Germans, I was the Russians. I was not pleased with my leader selection (curse you, Alan!), with only 1 leader with a morale modifier. Still, my troops were dug in on a hill and were guards, so the situation wasn't exactly terrible. Of course, Vince had a 9-1-2 leader who depressed me greatly.

I set up with a strong forward defense and my artillery on the hill in the back. This was mostly because I misread the victory conditions and didn't realize that only the unwooded hills counted for victory. Still, I don't think this was a crippling move. Because of my forward position, Vince spent several turns working around my flank, while my 57mm on the hill kept his Sd.Kfz 251s at bay...and I learned the term "Hanomag" today.

After about 4 or 5 turns, Vince's troops were actually behind my troops and moving up the back slope of the hill. I withdrew some of my forward troops back and they dug in again. Vince moved in close to bring heavy firepower to bear and then weakly assaulted the back of the hill, losing a step for his troubles. Vince was not feeling very confident at this point. I didn't think he was that bad off, and my position wasn't bad. In fact, one of his captains had died of a bad case of lead poisoning.

And then the roof caved in. Vince's mortars demoralized my AT gun which failed its recovery check and was eliminated. Oh, and my 1 leader with a morale modifier was killed, too. Then, I pulled an ATR out of the assault so I could send in an HMG and INF squad amd take him apart on the 30 column. Of course, this left me with a stack of 3 units for one impulse. So his mortars open up and roll a 12 (or a 3...I forget which of these attacks was which)....The ATR loses a step, and the others are either disrupted or demoralized and can't reinforce the assault. This is not good...my position has suddenly gone from good to very bad. Its not desperate yet, though, even though his halftracks can now advance mostly unimpeded (hey, I did still have an ATR!). His heavy firepower is probably not as effective as Vince would like, so I still scrape up enough units so that I can assault him on the 18 column with he was on the 9...if I can win the assault, I think I can stabilize things. Of course, I roll a 1 to his 4. And later, I get to be on the 18 while he's on the 13...and he again outrolls me. Meanwhile, with his superior morale, my units are slowly breaking, and he's bringing up a lot of firepower to do the final assault on the hill. Given that it was 2 AM for him, we called the scenario. It looked most likely to be a German minor victory.

I really liked this scenario. If it wasn't for that absolutely terrible turn when all my plans went into the crapper, and perhaps a slightly better set-up, this scenario could have easily gone to the Soviets. OTOH, I thought Vince wasn't as aggressive as he could have been with this attack, and I think he could have made faster progress. Overall, I thought it was really balanced and didn't inherently favor either side. Plus, getting in a live game was great, too!

And hopefully Vince will give his view of the scenario.