I needed to play another Cold War scenario from PG world and instead of my normal plays from Iron Curtain or Secret Weapons, I decided to play my second scenario from Polish Steel. I look at the Cold War & extended war material from Panzer Grenadier as an extra subset or bonus scenarios to the normal WWII battles from PG. I sometimes play another game system from LnL about Cold War in 1985, so PG’s from 1945-1950 I really enjoyable and the new situations and so is the new unit/counter types that come with these PG supplements. A fun break from normal WWII play!

The (To Poland From Italy) scenarios had a huge variety of armored vehicles which is what I was looking for. The Polish have Modern British, American armor plus captured German Armor from WWII. They have the: Centurion I, Sherman, Black Prince, Stag, Bren, Pershing, Pershing CS, Pantera-Panther, Priest, Tygyrs-Tiger II & M3. The Soviets have: JS2, JS3, JSU152, JSU122, SU100, SU101, T44, Ba64, T-34/85 & M3. Both sides have a large Infantry, AT-Guns, Artillery, Heavy Weapon support units as well. In fact it’s a pretty large scenario with four maps and some interesting victory conditions In the middle of the board with a large river on board #20. No off board artillery to worry about, as it’s all on board in this one. The perfect scenario to play and only 26 turns!

In this one the Soviet start with a larger force plus some early reinforcements on turn one to make their force even larger but the Polish may start with a smaller blocking force but also start rolling for an larger reinforcement on turn one which will more than double their forces plus some older Tiger II’s on turn number eight, so the Soviets must attack early and try to dislodge the Polish forces from map board #20 and maybe able to pushing into map 19, across the large river, either at the bridge or with assistance from and Engineer or the luck of the dice rolls.

The game started with the Polish starting units setup up mostly on the east side of the large river on map 20, to control and challenge the Soviet Forces right up front and bye time for their reinforcement to arrive and control victory objectives. The Polish load up the towns on map 20 and forest hexes with Infantry, AT-Guns, and armor, especially those deadly Centurion I’s. The only units the Polish leave on the Western side of the river are the on board artillery units, 25-pder and 4.3 large mortars and one screening Stag AC unit, to rain artillery across the river when needed. The Soviets start on map #19 as close as they can to map #20. They blast forward as fast as they can, before the Polish reinforcements can arrive, as loses mean nothing to them. The Soviets reinforcements arrive automatically on turn one on the eastern edge of map 3 and rush forward to help their comrades. The Polish rain direct fire, AT-Fire and bombardment fire on the Soviet to try and put a dent in this huge force.

The deadly combined fire starts to put a dent in the Soviet force but then they close fast and return the fire and their reinforcement have caught up to add their punch but as luck would have it, the Polish reinforcements arrive from map 24 on turn 3 and push forward down the road. The Soviets realize that they must try to clear the towns on map 20 faster but in trying this, they are taking much greater chances and losing units doing this, that they wouldn’t have normally if not pressed for time.

Both sides are now shooting it out with most of their forces and the tank heavy armies are starting to thin a bit and now more infantry type units, support weapons are making their presents noticed. So as not to bottleneck the bridge hex too much, the Polish are using two engineer units to assist river crossing farther south. Infantry assaults and on board artillery is now thinning the infantry on both sides, as the Soviets have: 5 x 76.2mm, 2 x 122mm, 2 x 120mm, 2 x 82mm, 1 SU122 and 3 x JSU152s on board ART and the Polish have: 2 x 3-inch, 3 x 25-pdr, 2 x 4.3 inch, 1 x 40mm, 2 x17-pdr and 3 x Priests on board ART. No off board artillery at all on this scenario.

The battle pushes back and forth but the Polish control must of map 20 and the town hexes on that map but have lost over 40 steps, so both side obtain a minor victory, which means a Draw! If the Polish reinforcement hadn’t come on so early the Soviets had a change for a major victory, if the Polish hadn’t switched over to the offense so early, they had a chance for a major victory. Play this any number of times, I think it could easily be a different result each time, which makes this scenario of good replay value. I found that units really bunch up on map 20, so most to action takes place there and it becames a mass of counters compared to the other three maps. Combat is a lot more deadly from 1945-1950 then the 1934-1944 PG scenarios but if you take the time to pull counters and maps from multi games, you will find playing Cold war scenarios from Polish Steel, Iron Curtain & Secret Weapons well worth your time and a great addition to Panzer Grenadier.

There are also some non-traditional PG games that give you hypothetical WWII action, like: Waltzing Matilda, DAK’ 44, Divisione Corazzata and Grossdeutschland 1946.

For outside of WWII era try: War on the Equator or Indian Unity and for really outside the box, Try the free 1938 War of The Worlds Scenario. Or just play WWII action from one of the many area of the world: Western Front, Eastern Front, Pacific/Asian Theater, Arctic Front, & Desert/Mediterranean Theaters. August 1914 digs into WWI but with a somewhat different rule set. Big scenarios, Medium scenarios, Small scenarios, something for everybody in PG World!