As luck would have it, my pre-ordered copy of Kursk: South Flank arrived in the mail on July 5, the 69th anniversary of scenario 1. The counters just FELL out of the sprues in their eagerness to get into action! I'll talk more about the counters after the AAR.

"Berezov Bound" is a great first scenario: 12 turns, 1 map, ~1 battalion on each side. The SS are tasked with taking a 4-hex town in the middle of the board, and are attacking from both north and south with a reinforced battalion of schutzen assisted by a company of assault guns. The Soviets have an understrength Guards rifle battalion supported by a company of SMGs and a platoon of Grants. They get four random minefields and three entrenchments.

The Soviets set up one trench northwest of the town with a HMG and INF, one trench southwest of town with the same, and the third immediately southeast of town with the SMG company. The Grants are parked in some fields due east of town, there are ATR teams positioned north and south of town in some fields (looking for crossfire to support the Grants) and the remaining infantry, ATGs, mortars and 76mm gun are in town. The two western redoubts are linked by a belt of minefields. Its a good all-around defensive position.

The SS enters their main force, a battalion of schutzen, north of town beyond the northern fields. In support of them are the StuG company and a company of schutzen covering them. To their west a company of engineers will approach the northwest redoubt and minefield under cover of a company of mortars.

To the south of town, a company of schutzen will demonstrate against the southwest redoubt while an infantry gun and ATG will look for targets of opportunity, particularly should the Grant platoon flee the StuGs.

The game developed rapidly, as the SS aggressively approached from all sides. The northern Soviet ATR team was overrun quickly, but the main attack force fell into disarray under artillery and direct fire as they approached the town. The StuGs made quick work of the Grants once they revealed themselves with an ineffective shot. The two western SS forces quickly moved to assault the trenches, but failed to inflict any casualties. Both attempts were ultimately unsuccessful, so much so that the two defending garrisons were free to make heroic defensive counterattacks to save the western half of the town in the game's final turns.

The main assault force got itself together into an assault on the eastern end of town, but the combined infantry and StuG stack was unable to decisively defeat the rag-tag defenders. 2 half platoons of infantry and an ATG held out for an hour, given an huge assist by the 76mm gun in the next town hex over that took out two steps of StuGs just before being wiped out by a massive DF attack from SS HMGs.

In the final turns, the northwest SS force decided to leave a thin covering force at the trench and infiltrate the rest of the company to attack the weak western end of town, they succeeded in occupying a town hex and were set to assault another, but the trench defenders they left behind, as well as the defenders to the southwest, were able to contain this threat on the last turn. At the end of the game, 3 of 4 hexes were contested, one was under Soviet control. The Soviets won with a VP score of 26 to 13, a major victory.

This was a great scenario, a lot of action in a small area, the Germans had an advantage but were slowly bled by morale checks that they couldn't recover from fast enough. The Soviets, by contrast, held morale remarkably well.

Kursk: South Flank came with laser-cut counters, although I think I will refer to them as barbecued counters from now on. They are remarkably well-cut, but they are very scorched, smell like a wood fire, and leave your fingers sooty after a few minutes of sorting or handling them. I noticed this after punching the first few rows, and wiped all the sheets with a paper towel. After a few swipes the towel was filthy! I still keep a wet hand wipe at the table so I don't spread the soot to my maps, rules or other counters as I'm playing. I understand that APL doesn't plan on using laser cut counters in any other boxed games, only for small print-run supplements, and I can't say I'm unhappy about that. They really made me appreciate the clean, shiny, smooth die-cut counters a lot more.