German Gren set up in easternmost town hex. Soviet unit set up on mountain overlooking western board. Soviet SU-76 entered first and moved adjacent to German Gren, but couldn't initially dislodge him. This gave the other German units time to enter and set up in the remaining town hexes while the Soviets advanced from the east. The Soviets attacked the easternmost town but struggled to penetrate it's defenses. After ten turns they had yet to enter the town but were wearing down the defenders. With seven turns remaining the Soviets eliminated the rest of the Germans in the eastern town and held the advantage in lost steps, having lost only ten while eliminating twelve. At that point the game was a draw. The Soviets could only win the game by taking one more town hex, but the assumption was that they'd probably lose two or more steps in the process. The Soviets stayed put, content with a draw.

So here's the point. You command a group of Soviets moving up on an occupied town and you have brought your assault guns with you to help in the urban assault. You feel really smart in that you have found terrain that hides you almost all the way up to the town. As you are sitting there feeling smart as the dickens an anti-tank gun section in the town reduces your assault guns to flaming debris. As you look towards the town you see a German in the clock tower and he seems to be saying something like "I fart in your general direction." (with vague apologies to Monty Python and the Holy Grail). Next time maybe we'll move the assault guns after we soften up the units in the town and at least disrupt the AT guns, right?

Easy and small scenario, well constructed, poorly played...

Road To Berlin's battles for the Oder bridgeheads continues with scenario 31, a race between the newly arrived Officer and NCO candidates from the "Kampfschule" (KS) Dresden Reg't, and elements of the 172nd Guards Rifles to reach and secure the strategically placed village of Podelzig. This village guards the Northern access to the Reitwein Spur - a perpendicular jut of elevated land that reaches out and dominates the lowlands of the Oderbruch and which allows an unrestricted view of the battles to the North and South.

Enough background - I rated this scenario a solid 4 as it was a good, quick playing scenario that ended in a Major German Victory.

The German plan was essentially a mad dash along the West-East road to secure the village hexes, leaving only a token force in the forest to the North to tie down any possible Soviet incursions through the woods.

The Soviet plan was essentially the same, all forces attempted to move as one, in sufficient strength to take the Easternmost town hex, and then bludgeon their way West.

What the Soviets didn't count on was the superior German leadership driving their Grenadiers forward to the same Eastern town hexes - evidently two battlehardened instructor-heroes from the school (a 2-1 Leutnant and 2-2 Sgt). That and the fact the Germans had a road to advance along, thus ensuring they would get to the town hexes first...

In the end the Soviets never really even got past the original town hex and were sent reeling back off the Spur with a little less than half of the time allotted for the battle.

My wife and I went to New York to see "Into the Woods" performed. It was a pleasant musical with a good deal of humor and well worth the trip from (at that point in our lives) Western Massachusetts. The story line includes a mishmash of fairy tales strung together with the slightest of literary thread, as in any musical. It did, however include the titular woods and the promise of some level of menace to be found there. This play of Reitwein Forest (with Vince) showed what happens when you go into those woods.

The Germans and Soviets each start with a battalion of troops. The Germans have higher direct fire and they have an antitank gun section. This comes in handy as the Soviets have brought along an SU-76 which levels out the direct fire consideration but only brings along an armor value of "0" and thus cannot ever be seen by an unlimbered 75/41 (with its 6-8 AT fire). The Soviets do have a little more artillery (2X12 OBA plus a mortar against two German mortars. So basically a straight up battalion to battalion fight with neither side having a significant force advantage.

On the other hand the Germans do have one critical advantage. The goal is to control more town hexes than the opposing player while also inflicted a higher loss on them. If one player is to get into the towns before the opposing played it is likely that they will be able to use opporunity fire and defensive assault combat to cause higher losses on the attacker. The Germans enter along a road and all of the town hexes are within three turns movement along the road. The Soviets enter the board without any towns and frustratingly have to move cross country to get to the towns.

The leader draw also favored the Germans with two leaders with "2" morale modifiers in addition to having several more leaders than the Soviets. As you can see the scenario records provide an idea of the way the scenario favors the Germans. So I took my task of commanding the Soviets with some "lower expectations" shall we say.

Vince's cadets (the German force is drawn from an officer's training school - kind of a VMI regiment story in a way) enter and establish a very strong line between the two large woods and in front of and in the larger of the two towns. He sends a small force to reinforce the platoon that starts in the smaller town and brings along the AT gun to make the Soviet SU-76 move with some caution.

I feint towards the larger town but the defense at this point is just too strong with the town, dug in defenses and those darn "2" morale leaders. Once the feint has been addressed by the AT gun I move the SP guns and a company of infantry to an attack position in front of the small town. Accurate mortar fire causes a morale check on some of my troops who fail abysmally (two straight "12" rolls). Luckily the Kommissar is nearby and easily brings both units back to good order in the following turn. Vince's town defenders are not so lucky and take the first step loss from point blank range from the SP guns supported by some Soviet infantry.

I have a turn's worth of suspense before Vince decides to yield the small town to my advance which did threaten to overwhelm his defenders. This left me with control of two town hexes to Vince's four although I had a slight lead in step losses (1-0).

I then spread my forces to both flanks to see what response I would get. Vince reacted slightly to the north which was good as my stronger units, including by HMGs were to the north. I decided to move some of my strength from the fields to the north of the small town to the woods north of Vince's line in order to begin pressuring the northern flank of his line. Vince threw some mortar fire on my HMGs and I prepared to laugh it off until I saw the "2". One HMG was reduced and both were demoralized. This was a disaster! I quickly went from hunting to being hunted. Vince moved some troops up to assault the units while I got my Kommissar to the hex and brought up supporting infantry which, unfortunately couldn't get to the hex witht he HMGs.

On the next turn Vince got the initiative and assaulted my demoralized heavy weapons causing a step loss. Unfortunately for Vince I rolled a "6" on the defense and left him with one of his "2" morale leaders demoralized along with one of two GREN platoons. The Kommissar was able to get the remaining HMG unit recovered and one INF was able to join the hex. Another INF would be able to join the hex the following turn. Vince also brought up reinforcements and it was clear that initiative in the following turn would be critical. I won and was able to cause a total of 2 step losses, one from the assault table and one from double demoralization. In addition the "2" leader became a casualty along with the second leader in the hex. Vince was able to get one unit out of the hex by separating their recovery. Unfortunately he hit the assault hex with his mortars afterwards (I was overstacked with one demoralized unit but easily passed the hit but his friendly fire eliminated the remaining GREN platoon. Losses were now 4-2 in my favor.

Initiative for the following turn would also be critical. Any Soviet initiative was likely to result in an assault on the demoralized, reduced GREN (effectrive morale 4 with no supporting leader). The Soviets wno the intiative causing a fifth step loss. At this point it became apparent that we had played to a draw. The remaining German position was quite strong and an attack by the Soviets would require them to throw nearly all their strength into it leaving themselves open to significant losses which could jeopardize their better "loss" position. Similarly, the Germans were highly unlikely to attack since any attack had no strong reason to expect success and in addition to making the loss situation more unbalanced, could result in unmasking the larger town. We decide that we had a draw on our hands at that point.

A very enjoyable romp through some late war action without the pile of tanks to get in the way of the PBI. The fight in the woods justified the scenario name and ended up giving the Soviets the position to enforce a draw, a positive result for the Soviet side in this one. I had played this one before solo but the play with Vince was substantially different and very enjoyable. I give it a "4", somewhat surprisingly what I gave it before

This game was played over one session with Matt Ward on Skype. It's a smallish infantry v infantry encounter. Victory is given to the side that controls most of the six town hexes AND has eliminated more of the enemy than his opponent.

In the opening moves, the KS Dresden Cadet Regt heads straight up the road from the west edge and takes control of the bigger 4 hex town. The Soviet 172nd Gds Rifle Regt come in on the north edge and fan out towards the smaller town where one German GREN unit initially sets up.

There is a small gun battle at the smaller town where initially the GREN company appears to be doing well as two of the attacking GDS plns demoralise in the face of the enemy. But poor German back up fire and immediate action by a Komissar restored the men to Uncle Joe's mission. The supporting SU76 also assisted in inflicting a step-loss on the defending German platoon and from that point it was time to bug out of the small town for the survivors.

The battle now looked as if it would be fought out ahead of the big town. Some Soviet troops entered the large forest to the north of the large town including their two HMG units. A German spotter went out to spot them for the mortars and the resulting fire found snake-eyes to remove a step. Both HMG's then demoralised. In reaction to this, a '2' morale LT and 2 x GREN plns went out to put in the coup degrace next turn, surviving some opportunity fire on the way.

The game result was now decided in the following action in the Reitwein Wald. The Germans won the next initiative and the GREN's assaulted the demoralised HMG's achieving another step loss. The full strength HMG survived morale checks and the return assault, a rolled 6 M2 in turn demoralised the German '2' leader and a GREN. This was crucial as now the SOV guardsmen homed in on the assualt hex. The KOM recovered the HMG in the meantime. Another German GREN pln also made its way to the location to enter next turn as the following initiative roll would probably determine the result in that hex. Unfortunately, for me, Matt's Soviets won it and they had no hesitation piling into the weakened German units in the assault and causing casualties. They received little in return, and with a step loss from the SOV assault plus another in a compound DEM, the German position was a mess in that hex. The other GREN that had positioned itself to support them in case of a German initiative win duly retired back to the town area as his entry would otherwise have been throwing good money after bad.

With a 5-2 casualty advantage, the Guards hunkered down in their location teasing the Germans to attack. Likewise, the Germans sat in the town jeering the cowardly attackers to attack something worth catching (ie -The town). With this stalemate, the game ended as a draw.

I was tempted to rate this as a '2', but finally marked it as a low '3'. I'm not keen on VC's where both sides can accept their position without fighting for it. Draws should be last turn game-end results coming from a serious fight. As the scenario currently stands, whichever side has a casualty advantage could conceivably melt away from the action immediately upon inflicting the first casualty and call the draw. A simple way of stopping that would be to have VC's call for a minimum infliction of casualties before allowing the casualty win. That said, had I won the assault initiative roll, the result may have not come so soon for that outcome. This was my second game against Matt and as he is such a cheerful soul and getting to grips with the hamete dice & skype thing, we will be looking to start some games that are a bit meatier and involved. Perhaps a series of scenarios linked in some way, a mini-series. More on that in our next encounter.

Otro mal escenario. Tendría que haberlo adivinado al leerlo. Tres compañías de infantería alemana con moral 8/5 ocupan unos hexes de ciudad, que deben defender ante el ataque de una fuerza soviética ligeramente inferior y con moral 8/6. Gana el que más bajas causa al enemigo y controla más hexes de ciudad. El sistema Panzer Grenadier se caracteriza, a mi juicio, por lo difícil que es desalojar a un bando parapetado en hexes de ciudad o trincheras. Si además el atacante tiene la misma moral que el defensor y encima es menos numeroso, la partida se convierte en una aburrida tirada de dados sin posibilidades de victoria para el atacante.

No he mencionado que el atacante dispone de artillería fuera del tablero (2 x 12) y de una sección de cañones de asalto SU-76, ambos insuficientes para hacer una partida competida.

En el turno 11 abandoné esta tonta pérdida de tiempo.

¿Por qué se publican escenarios como éste, que sólo producen fastidio? Creo que sería mejor prescindir de ellos y publicar juegos con menos escenarios, pero que hayan sido "testeados" al menos una sóla vez.