Trips to the beach as a kid were almost always defined by the sand castle. No matter where we went the goal was to build a castle at the very edge of high tide, where the waves would come up to the footings of the castle but never sweep it away. More often than not, I was unable to adequately identify the tide line and watched in incomprehsion as the product of my labor was swept back into the sea, with what seemed to be sinister laughter as a soundtrack.

No doubt my Soviet tankers from 5th Guards Tanks Corps had similar experiences. If they haven't they now know what it is like. The wave of SS armor simply was too strong and the high tide line was well off the board in this case.

The Soviets set up in three lines, forcing the SS through messy terrain in two separate situations, with the idea of forcing the Nazi tanks into a killing zone in the middle of the boards, perfectly set up for crossfire, etc. In essence the Soviets were willing to tank a chance on heavy losses in order to keep the Germans on the board. The two large reinforcing groups were to be used to set up successive tank traps on the rear areas based on where the Germans made their effort.

The Nazis, however, looked at the setup and decided that to engage in a broad sense would be a mistake. They chose instead to throw their effort to the west of the board, capturing Luchki but forsaking the capture of Teterevino (the large town in the northeast of the playing area. To this end the armor was massed and what we saw was more or less a recreation of Murat's charge at Eylau. There was a little more to it than that as the Germans mounted a battalion on SPWs to provide support deeper into the Soviet positions which came to be very valuable in the later stages of the fight.

The failure of the Soviet position wasn't, however, that it didn't cause losses to the German tanks. Indeed, there were 20 step losses, aided by the large number of Pz IIIjs with a "4" armor factor and a company or so of Pz 747s (captured T-34As) with a similarly vulnerable "4" armor factor. What really ended the Soviet chance to win this one was the fact that all those arriving tanks eventually had to fire in order to stop the advancing German tanks. In doing so, they were spotted by the Tigers who shredded the final lines of Soviet tanks permitting the motorcycle troops, the mounted battalion and a large force of Pz IVs to ultimately exit the field thus ruining the Soviet goal of keeping less then 30 step values from exiting. Indeed this was accomplished by the Germans during the 22nd turn, in essence with time to spare. By this time the Soviets were reduced to trying to assault armor with soft targets which were then hammered with artillery leading to a shattered Soviet on board force and a substantial German force off board - a major German victory, despite the Soviets continuing to hold Teterevino.

This is a very, very good scenario and exciting to play. The only reason that I didn't give it a "5" is that it seems very difficult for the Soviet player to win. My Germans were in position for a major victory even before they started exiting units. Once they did I believe that the victory was by well over 70 points. Yet it was a great deal of fun so I'm not going to downgrade it too much. Those ones that I give a "5" are typically those that are just a much fun as this one to play but with a greater degree of tension in the play based on the victory conditions. So I give it a "4" for the fun. This is a great one for solo or face to face play. I would not think that it is well suited for PBEM since there are a TON of activations necessary.