Played over three long sessions FtF against Herr Hughes. This is an excellent well balanced and exciting scenario. Soviet forces have to exit 30 steps in order to avoid a 30 VP deficit, VPs are awarded also for eliminating enemy steps and for the Russkies exiting units. The Soviet plan was to tie up the enemy AFV's with INF assults and the T34's while protecting the BT5's & BT7's, then making a dash for the north edge of the boards with enough tanks exiting to gain a victory. The plan seemed to work but the execution was faulty, and of course Vince played a good defensive game giving ground at then end to keep plugging the gaps. Initially I came on in the centre then feinted to the left, I placed all the BT's in the woods out of harms way and engaged the PZIII's in long range fire from the T34's. Meanwhile my SMG troops having hopped of the T34's engaged the enemy. My INF on the other hand were slowly deploying however disruption were messing the advance up and all through the game I found it hard to launch any real coordinated INF attack. The German's were not just sitting there watching this, well to be honest the German INF in fact do that most of the game, but launched a mini counter attack with MTC units and used SPWs as a mobile reserve. The motorcycle troops were wiped out but not before disrupting the Soviet attack and forcing the Soviet COL to lead an attack which saw him mortally wounded. Slowly though the Russian juggernaut got going and the vaunted Panzer's were having a torrid time, being either picked off by the T34's or falling to brave attacks by Red Army Infantrymen. The Soviets then made a decisive move with all the Soviet tanks advancing towards a gap in the German lines, however the move was made about 30 mins too late and the German plugged the gap with just in time. It was obvious that this breakout was not going to happen today and the Soviet forces withdrew into the dark forbidding forests where they would form Partisan band and continue to fight the Nazi invaders. A really good large scenario which for the first 20 turns I and Vince thought might go the Red Armies way, but not to be, Vince kept putting units into gaps just when I though the German line might break. The German line did buckle and tank losses were very heavy, but the line never broke. I played this one OK and I thought I handled the Russian tank units pretty well but to beat Herr Hughes you have play better than OK particularly in a balanced scenario like this one. All in all this is a highly recommended scenario.