En parallèle de Cavalry Reborn, je jouais ce petit scénario Eastern Front sur une carte : les troupes de montagne roumaines attaquent la Crimée et doivent franchir une ligne de défense soviétique, enterrée sur la carte 8, immense plaine sans obstacle. Au début, combat d'artillerie, les roumains perdent leurs deux 75 et les russes leurs 76 ; mais les avions et l'OBA font craquer une partie de la ligne russe. Les roumains se séparent en deux groupes et attaquent d'abord à l'ouest. Le russe est obligé de dégarnir la ligne à l'est pour boucher les trous ; les roumains attaquent à leur tour à l'est. Finalement, la ligne russe s'effondre, victoire roumaine qui arrive à faire sortir au sud 7 officiers, 13 pelotons d'infanterie et 3 HMG. Ils ont perdu 3 INF et 1 HMG alors que les russes ont perdu 6 INF, 2 HMG et 3 officiers. Très chouette petit scénario, pour apprendre à attaquer tranquillement en prenant son temps.

Soviets set up in an east-west line as far north as the rules allowed. Their mortars set up a few hexes behind the lines and the 76mm artillery platoons were behind the hill out of sight. The Romanians entered on the western side of the north edge and immediately moved toward the Soviet lines. Early Axis air attacks helped a great deal in neutralizing the Soviet bombardment capability. The Romanians pushed through the western part of the Soviet lines and headed south, but took too many casualties. A couple well times Soviet bombardments on stacks of three Romanian units killed a number of steps. Half way through the game the Romanians had lost 8 steps and any chance at victory. The only chance to preseve a draw was to exit the board as quickly as possible before the Soviets could eliminate twelve steps. A good roll by a Soviet OBA attack on the Romanian mortars killed two steps and gave the Soviets the victory. Not a bad scenario, however the victory conditions are a bit strange. Should the Romanian player lose eight steps he has no incentive to keep his units on the board so will look for any way to exit them from the map, which seems odd. The only reason the Romanians lost in this playing was because I didn't notice the quirky aspect of the victory conditions until well after they had lost their eight steps. If I had noticed earlier, the Romanians could have disengaged and preserved the draw.

I played this one in solo in order to learn the rules.

The Romanian attack was too fast in the beginning, and on turn 3 they had lost 8 steps. Victory impossible ! But I kept going, more cautiously, and the Romanians caused some losses to the Russians. But after a few good dice rolls of the Russian artillery, the Romanian's casualty were too high : more than 12 steps. So, it's a Russian victory.

I think the Romanian needs to go slow in order to soften the Russian defenses before trying to get out of the map. Usually, I am too cautious : this one was an exception !...

I deployed the Soviets along the xx04 hexrow, as close to the Romanian entry edge as possible. the 76.2mm guns were safely tucked away behind the hill in the south, and the two mortar units dug in in the centre of the board, within range but well out of harm's way. All the Soviets were dug in.

The Romanians came from the north. With OBA and air support I expected they could soften up the defenders each turn as I prepared the Romanian 75mm guns and mortars behind the advanced mountain units to contimue the bombardment. But whilst doing this I advanced the mountain units and HMG's too early and they were caught by accurate Soviet defensive fire and opportunity fire. Whilst the OBA, on-board bombardment units and aircraft failed to really hurt the Soviets, the foot units had to either go in or face machine gun fire that seemed to pick them off.

By 8:30 the Romanians engaged with the Soviet flank units but met with murderous defensive fire before they could assault themselves. With assaults happening for much of the flank units, the Soviet centre continued to pour fire into the 'refused' Romanian centre. Within 15 minutes the Soviets were able to leave their positions and advance. The assaults on the flanks were all going the Soviets' way. The Romanian units seemed extremely brittle (despite the higher morale levels) and it was clear by 09:00 the Romanians could only win if they could quickly open up a gap to exploit. But with the Soviets getting the benefit of the random events (units in a hex getting two actions) they concentrated fire into the centre which broke completely.

Throughout the Soviet guns and OBA were more accurate than those of the Romanians, and by 09:15 with the romanians losing 12 steps and two leaders compared to the Soviets' two step losses, I decided to retreat back to the north.

Tt's clear I should have had the Romanians staye on the north edge for the early turns whilst their artillery and aircraft created some weak points in the Soviet defence. After I committed them to assaults too early, fortune favoured the Soviets and they won all the local battles along the line.