It Christmas and you are in the Italian CSIR hunkering down in a hamlet in Russia wishing you weren't there. Today is Christmas Day at least so there should be a day when you don't have to worry about snipers or attacking some ridiculous hovel like the last 20 you had to attack. Frankly you are pretty tired of Russia but understand that your performance has to remain good because so far the Blackshirts look to be a good deal better at fighting that the SS despite the dramatic difference in equipment.

So it really does catch you by surprise when an entire Soviet regiment comes howling out of a snowstorm to throw you out of the towns that you have just taken. After all, it's Christmas. So you get just a little ticked off and decide to show them the back of your hand.

Something over a regiment of Soviet infantry with a couple battalions of cavalry are attacking two Blackshirt battalions and one regular infantry battalion through the width of two boards (but a length of three boards). There are five towns scattered throughout the action area and the Soviets are tasked with taking at least three of them. If they take too many losses they will have to take an additional town to reach their goals. For the Italians, their setup is required to have them spread pretty much across the board. The Blackshirts hold one town with a sizable force and one other with some strength. The regular forces hold a town to the front and have some strong OBA to use to "discourage" the Soviets. The Blackshirts have a ton of artillery pieces between mortars and 75 Voloire units which gave the Soviets fits. Plus the Blackshirts themselves have a higher morale than the Soviets, despite having relatively low DF ratings.

Daniel and I played this one in two sessions of about 4 hours each. After the first session it was pretty clear that the Italians had a win in hand. The Soviets had lost 18 steps and had a ton of demoralized troops scattered through the snow drifts while the Italians were pretty much intact and, in fact, had been counterattacking to some positive effect throughout the game.

The initial Soviet assault was pretty much telegraphed by the required setup. An understrength battalion with some cavalry would try to take the northeastern town, while the larger force attempted to take the northwestern town. Clearly if either of those attacks gained traction then the Soviets would push forward heavily on that front. They get some significant reinforcements during the first quarter of the game and need to immediately move them forward as there is deep snow. Visibility is also a big deal as swirling snow keeps you from seeing more than six hexes.

The Italians do get some reinforcements but, as we will see, they didn't really factor into the result.

Daniel attacked straight into the teeth of the regular company holding the northeastern town but due to the constant bombardment had difficulty bringing their strength to bear as one or another unit continued to break under the artillery barrage. While he was successful in "liberating" much of the town some strong leaders and a few infantry continued to hold out throughout the game. A similar refrain occurred in the northeastern town held by the Blackshirts. In this play the Fourth Edition assault chart really had an effect. There were several times when small Italian forces in town (a single infantry platoon putting them on the "3" column) was able to achieve a better result that an 19 DF assault. This one had to be frustrating to Daniel!

Given the lack of traction in the front line towns Daniel decided to send his cavalry reinforcements (a battalion) racing along a gully and then popping out to cause some angst for the Italians who had left two towns ungarrisoned in the rear areas. The problem for the Soviets is that their cavalry is a high profile target and, without an elite morale, the artillery and direct fire of the light screen of units between the two "front" line Blackshirt towns stripped away nearly the entire battlion of cavalry leaving only one platoon to race through the hole. Ultimately this would provide Daniel with his one clear town captured.

Since I was having the better of the battle I tried to be a little more aggressive than perhaps I should have and this led to some comeback capability by Daniel. I left too many units too exposed to the massive Soviet artillery and paid the price over and over again. The regular company that arrived to support the northwestern town's defense was basically slaughtered by artillery and a couple platoons who moved to close the gap in the Italian line that was being approach by the Soviet cavalry were also turned into paste.

Nvertheless, as we moved into turn 29/30 it was clear that he would only have one town for sure and even if he took both towns that were contested the game would still end up as an Italian victory.

I gave this one a "4". It was helped by the unpredictability of the assault table. in Fourth Edition it is even more critical to degrade the defenders before assaulting which leaves the attackers out in the open and subject to all sorts of artillery, fire that the defender is likely to call down, despite the possibility of friendly fire, because friendly fire is far less scary in Fourth Edition. I would be comfortable playing this one with either set of rules and I believe that, in addition to a good play ftf, it is also interesting as a solo scenario.