September Campaign scenario 7: A Break for Freedom

When Warsaw surrenders, many Polish troops decide that this war will not end with a defeat. They will continue the war, but to do that they need to escape to a neutral or Allied country. And as such, a group of Polish infantry tries to fight its way past the German 4th Light Division that is guarding the Hungarian border.

The Polish units try to get across the border in one huge column but right from the start they run into trouble when the cyclist vanguard get butchered in an ambush. The Poles, whose cover is now blown big time, decide to try to outrun the Germans but to no avail: at the foot of the Northern hills, the Germans are able to cut off the advance. Not thinking about surrendering terms, the Polish officers decide to duke it out with the border guards, thinking that sheer number of troops will carry the attack. Alas, it was not to be, hundreds of Brave Polish soldiers die during the assaults and within a few hours of frantic mano a mano, the Germans have v control of the battlefield (and Poland).

VP counting time: Germans 40-13 Poles (ouch)

Campaign result: +51 VP for the Germans: a resounding Major Victory for the Axis player. Now people will probably think: “off course the Germans win it, they are supposed to”. But this campaign seesawed right till the end, at start of the last scenario, the Poles still had every chance of pulling off a draw result.

The most fun of the campaign were the special characters, they gave a roleplaying experience to the game which was a big hit. We went so far that when our characters earned medals, we would purchase replicas of the actual medals and wear them with pride and joy during the games. I don’t have to tell you guys that following games were filled with many bouts of manly trash talking! In the end not one of our characters earned a promotion, although it wasn’t due to a lack for trying.

This campaign took us almost a complete year (50 weeks) to play every single turn of the darn thing: in total 110+ hours of play, spread over 28 sessions to complete 138 turns! Yes, we know we are slow players, but for us, playing quality games is always a social event with a lot of laughing, joking and drinking lots of incredible fine Belgian beer. We will remember this campaign as a hoot and a half, and we will refer to it fondly for years to come!