I constantly pass cars with a bumper sticker shaped like a paw with the legend "who rescued who?". I get this at a very personal level as I won a rescued Great Dane (although how any animal that big needs to be "rescued" sometimes stretches the imagination, I can assure you that rescuing was necessary). The applicability to this scenario is that the Spanish are tasked with rescuing some German remnants who are holed up in a town and being besieged by a small but good order Soviet force. The Soviets expect a larger force of reinforcements sometime during the early part of the scenario.

As previous players have noted, the scenario looks to be set up to flow as follows: Soviets beat up Germans, Spanish beat up Soviets. Reinforcing Soviets and Spanish end up in a fist fight over the town. Everyone is supposed to be exhausted at the end from the swings of fortune. The idea that the tremendously undermanned Axis force could consider sending off half of the Spanish force seems ridiculous. Yet that is what happened, the Axis made off with a major victory.

It all starts with the Germans holding the town. The Soviets attacked the town from the east and were savaged by the opportunity fire. As the Soviets maneuvered to gain access to the town the Germans moved within the town to preclude an easy entry. The German leaders both had morale modifiers (as did all the Spanish) and were able to keep their men in hand while the Soviets ran around like chickens with their heads chopped off. The Germans were responsible for 4 of the first 5 step losses the Soviets experienced. Rather than needing any rescuing they were able to keep three of the four town hexes free of Soviets and set up the last for a long running urban battle. More on that later.

The Soviet reinforcements took their own sweet time arriving, apparently having read the previous AAR's and believing that they would be able to walk up to the town and begin fighting there. The Soviets arrived on the last possible turn for the reinforcements.

Meanwhile back north, the success of the Germans meant that two platoons of Spanish skiers could move south to block the arriving Soviets. They schussed by leaving the HMG and one SKI platoon to move the remnants of the initial Soviet force out of the town with the help of the Germans. The heavy snow caused the Soviets to move up the road through board 6 (heavy woods and a road running through it. The Spanish platoons set up at the exit to the board, forcing the Soviet to either assault them or move through the woods to get around them, either way signficantly delaying the force.

The Soviets chose to assault the Spanish and paid the price with significant losses. The assault, however, freed up more than half of their force to move on towards the town. As time passed the Soviets in the assault died out and the remaining forces in the area proved incapable of stopping the Spanish and their choice to exit the board. This choice was made possible by two key factors, one: the town was finally cleared of Soviets by the Germans and Spanish after the Spanish proved incapable of clearing it themselves and needed the German support to absorb potential losses, and two: there really wasn't enough time for the Spanish SKI units to get back north and contribute to the battle. As they slid past the Soviet mortars, whose support was denied to the town assault by the blocking role played by the Spanish.

As the Soviet reinforcements came into view the last Soviet soldier in the town was expelled freeing up the Spanish and Germans to conduct a second and more succesful denial of entry to the newly arrived troops. As turn 20 came to a close there was only one good order Soviet unit near the town and it was in an assault hex, pinned by Germans.

A very enjoyable ride in this one. Certainly the Axis had some great luck to gain a major victory but the swings are built into the scenario. In addition, it is a small scenario both in terms of units employed and turns and is easily playble in a single sitting. I highly recommend it. I give it a "4". It would go five but for the missing vehicles...