A very good scenario, definitely worth a replay. The Tiger II's move to the North, while a motorized column moved to the West. The end result was a complete destruction of ALL Soviet units on all boards but those on Board 24. The Soviet's played a good defense, and in the end it paid off with, the SS just making their way onto Board 24. Recommended to those looking for a decent sized scenario, but the time limit have the SS caught in a tricky position.

Russian set-up mostly prescribed, but choices as to whether to set up more numerous, but smaller road-blocks or fewer, but stronger ones. Board 21 set-up must protect the "airport" from any of the three (see below) possible German attack axes.

Germans have three attack routes: (1) N to board 17, then E through 17 to 21; (2) E through 19 and 18, then N to 21; or NE 19 to 21 directly. This latter is sluggish due to heavy snow.

The German attack was in hindsight too slow to develop and too methodical. Although essentially every unit of the 93rd Rifle division was eventually destroyed (save for a few that fled due to demoralization), the Germans simply ran out of turns and only barely reached board 21 by game end.

Russians benefited from: (1) A (very) lucky assault by a crazed LT and two RIF platoons against a pair of Tiger II platoons; said LT posthumously awarded Order of Lenin and (2) a sharp-eyed captain who, from a 40-m hex on Board 21, could follow and call in OBA on the German advance essentially all the way in from entry.

The step-loss count was fairly close (and high), though the Russians went from about a 1.5:1 deficit to almost 1:1 by the end, due to the German player having to race in some PzIVs and V's past the last gauntlet of JSII hoping to reach the airport.

I'm quite convinced now that had the German player in this scenario more experience, a replay of this scenario would find the Russians very hard pressed to hold the airport. Still, this was a fascinating scenario with dashes followed by town assaults. The Russian player gets to watch a vast number of brave, but doomed RIF platoons get crunched, but he trades blood for time/terrain.

I finished this one quite a while ago and hadn't written a report, so here goes. This scenario is by far the largest I have played, and it really brings out the fun in the system. Big-ass late war tanks going up against each other in the snow! The Tigers lumber onward, rotating overwatch duties to keep the JS tanks at bay in the forests. Huge infantry battles for the border towns. Ultimately, the Germans were slowed down enough that they couldn't quite get enough mass to bear on the airport at the end, where several large JS tanks were waiting for all comers. Overall, an excellent scenario.

Another big scenario for this one, and with snow and big slow tanks it was a bloodfest!

The Russians are forced to split their forces somewhat so it was mainly infantry and AT Rifles in the woods, but with Gun support as well. Around the airport were the excellent tanks with some infantry dug in. The Russian position was formidable indeed.

The Germans attacked from the South East and immediately hit the Russians in the villages. Again as in the last game this caused a bit of a bottleneck for a while. Both sides caused casualties at this point but by 9.00am the villages were cleared. At this point the German tanks were heading north on the road and not against too much opposition. It was soon found by the Germans that the trucks were useless and so foot transport was required.

Now both the infantry and tanks hit the main Russian line and mayhem ensued. Massive losses on both sides and the German attack really bogged down fairly early. Despite this a section of Tigers made it to the Airport only to be destroyed before support arrived.

All in all a excellent game. I like the shorter scenarios as you have a real sense of pressure when attacking and hope when defending, and especially with the Fog of War rules.

Now to a smaller one hopefully

Székesfehérvàr or Stuhlweisenburg was the largest city between the German Lines and Budapest during the Conrad III offensive of Januari 1945. Capture of the nearby airfield was a top priority although no one could say where the Luftwaffe would find the planes to fly from it. And so, in the morning of the 20th of Januari, the 3rd SS Panzer Division got the task of clearing out the Russian defenders. The German onslaught came from the southwest of the airfield, while the Russian 93th Rifle Division, together with elements of the 237th Tank Regiment, made sure to dig in along every morsel of limited terrain en route towards the airfield. Since the area was covered in deep snow, the Germans planned to keep to the roads as much as possible but got a rude welcoming. An intelligent Russian LT 7-0-0 had climbed the only hill in the vicinity and let it literally rain OBA shells on the German columns. To make matters worse, a Russian ambush by ATG blasted 2 HMG platoons and their transporting SPWs, to smithereens when they foolishly tried to bypass the village situated just in front of the German entry zone. So, all the trucks were abandoned and all German infantry was left slogging through the snow for the next 6 Km. After clearing the Russians from the town with the AT guns, all the divisions’ Tiger II, together with a column of PzIV and a few companies of Grenadiers took the road eastwards towards the next town. The rest of the division followed suit but when traffic jams started occuring, most troops veered of the road, taking the shorter cross country route towards the airfield. These moves were painfully slow! So slow that practically all the Russian troops covering the northwestern road , could retreat safely back to the airfield. Once there, they started digging in around the runways, turning the site into a veritable fortress. Only a few platoons and a great Kommissar stayed behind to pour flanking fire on the marching Germans. Those Germans, especially the infantry, had a miserable time, having to constantly leave behind injured and demoralized troops. When the Königstigers ran out of road, the march northwestwards got even slower, a measly 800m per hour. But with Russian JS II tanks on the prowl, those Tigers had to take point. All other armour stood little chance against those mighty Russian hulks. And that point was firmly driven home, when after making short work of the first 2 platoons of JS II they encountered and thinking the threat was brushed aside, 3 Pz V platoons surged forward, straight into another Russian trap. Suddenly all hell broke lose when another 2 platoons of JS II tanks opened fire from a nearby wood. As luck would have it, not a single Panther got hit. Rather foolishly, the Panthers returned fire instead of retreating and letting the Tigers mop up the Joseph Stalins.Those Pz V gunners turned out to be the best shots of the division. At maximum range, 3 of the 4 salvos hit the dug in JS IIs, leaving only burning wrecks for the Tigers. Once again the German commander acknowledged that he couldn’t defy luck any further and assigned the vanguard back to the Tigers. Slow but sure, the Germans closed in on the airfield and its surrounding fortress, but when the last JS tank finally was destroyed, all armor “raced” towards the objective. And then another lucky strike for the Germans, the airfields’ Kommissar was taken out of action by OBA. And when the German armor finally arrived at the airfield, everything started happening at the same time. At 14.00h the Russian Colonel was mortally wounded and from then on, the German tanks proved unrelentless, pounding the Russian lines from close range and smashing huge holes in the defensive line. Three turns later, with only 2 turns left on the clock, it was officially all over when the last defending Russian unit died valiantly for the motherland, leaving the airfield firmly in German hands. Step losses were counted and these numbers were horrifying, especially because of the amount of OBA available to both sides during this battle. In the end the Germans lost 41 steps, all infantry or SPW, not a tank step was lost. The Russians on the other hand, lost an appalling 123 steps. A few moments from this 20+ hour game will go down into our gaming memories:

• Those unbelievably lucky Panther gunners: 4 shots on an 11+ resulting in 3 hits, wow!

• The Russian 7-0-0 LT that rained death on the Germans from turn 1, decided to take care of a bunch of leaderless M3s that got stuck inside a nearby wood. As such, he released a bucketload of possible fresh firepower into the rear of the German columns. It took the Puma and a Tiger unit more than an hour to finally silence them.

• Turn 26 started with these incredible German combat rolls, all on the 45+ direct fire table: double 1, followed by another snake eyes, followed by boxcars! And all this using the Russian players’ dice! That raised some emotions!

We had a blast playing this scenario. Ok, the Russian victory conditions are ludicrous but their troops can make life a living hell for the German commander. So we would like to score this scenario with a whopping 4/5