Panzer Grenadier Battles on November 21st:
Desert Rats #16 - The Panzers Pull Back Desert Rats #19 - The Panzers Return
Desert Rats #17 - The Tomb Of Sidi Rezegh Jungle Fighting #7 - Line Of Departure
Desert Rats #18 - A Pibroch's Skirl South Africa's War #5 - Irish Eyes
Drawn and Quartered
Author Matt W (Poland)
Method Face to Face
Victor Poland
Participants Hugmenot
Play Date 2014-03-02
Language English
Scenario WhEa018

A battalion of elite Polish cavalry gets to slice and dice an oversized battalion of German cavalry in this scenario. The Poles merely have to keep the Germans from exiting while the Germans, despite lower morale have to try to get their horses to ignore the faintheartedness of their riders and go across the width of two boards and exit. It was simply not to be.

Daniel and I both had a feeling that, with the lower morale and firepower, the Germans simply didn't have the horses (how could I pass that up?) to win this one and our result, a 30-9 resounding Polish victory, certainly validated that. On the other hand the play was actually pretty engaging as this scenario is a true meeting engagement with neither side beginning on the board.

As mentioned above, the Germans start with several advantages, including numbers, heavy weapons superiority and more artillery by a long shot, than the Poles. The Poles, on the other hand, have individual unit firepower, speed and morale. In our play, the Germans had the edge in leadership with a couple leaders with "2" morale and at least one with "2" combat modifiers. While my Polish leaders were high morale (10s and 11s) they didn't provide quite the kick in morale that the Germans did. In addition, half of my Polish officers took a dirt nap during the game leaving me with a more difficult troop management task than in most plays of the scenario.

The key to a Polish victory is to avoid commiting until after the German player commits the bulk of his force to a particular exit lane. I kept my cavalry hidden in the abundant forests until Daniel had chosen to push to the southwest (the wider side of the board). Since I got points for any unit that didn't exit any demonstrations on the German's entry board were of no real concern). I was able to move a large force into position to assault his troopers (6 platoons) in one activation and then was able to frustrate the remainder of his force through individual platoon charges and machine gun fire.

Daniel almost got a couple of platoons off the board but the low morale of the units finally told as Polish opportunity fire stopped the galloping units in mid-flight within spitting distance of the board's edge.

It was a fun play and Daniel and I agreed that this one is a solid 3.5. I believe that he rated it a 4, combined with my 3 works out just right.

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