I looked into this scenario as a small, fast-playing one to get back into the system after a long absence. Never having had partisans in the OOB of anything I’d played previously clenched the deal. It was time to quite literally get back in the game.

What I soon found was that this scenario is not so much a test of leadership skill as it is a test of character. Given the victory conditions and the movement restrictions, about the only other thing that could add to the woes of the German player would be a set of dice loaded against him. This is not so much for the German player about winning (I don’t think he can), as it is about how you’re going to react to an impossible situation. How far will you push yourself and your units when bogged down in snow and the Soviet forces begin to close in like a pack of wolves?

The Soviets won this quite handily. They kept pressure on the German forces, slowing them down even more when they were forced to fight or recover morale. In the end, the Germans fell too far behind, making victory impossible.

I wouldn’t want every scenario I played to have such a forgone outcome. I am glad, however, that I fought this battle. It reminded me that you still have to give it your best even when everything indicates that it’s not going to be enough.

German troops have to cross 2 boards being harrassed by partisans. The heavy snow slows the Germans down and in my solitaire game the partisan lept into assaults which though they caused little casulties but further slowed the Germans. In fact the Germans were soundly thrashed with no unites reaching the safety of board 8.

Sinister Forces, scenario #12: Red Vengeance

I needed to play something with Partisans and that was fast playing, so I choose this scenario. Pretty simple, I just have to move my German units across two map boards, to the safety of the third map and lose less then two steps of INF, HMG & 81mm units and last 24 turns without anymore loses and the weather is heavy snow, so movement is down to a crawl. The Soviet win on any other condition, they also have a nice starting force and reinforcements, the only thing slowing them up besides the weather is only two leaders in the starting force and two more with the reinforcements.

The Germans strategy was to avoid combat as much as possible and head for the board number 8 and last 24 turns with the loses less then two steps. Too bad, the German got tangled in combat on map board number 1, the middle board. The Soviet OMB is a strong unit, especially when you add a HMG unit with it. The end result was, I lost three German steps and called game with eight turns left. The Soviets also lost three Partisan steps but this was nothing for them. If played had continued more Germans steps would have been lost, as the Soviet reinforcements were now joining the Soviet Original setup battle group.

I feel this scenario is not possible for the Germans to win, so I ranked it low, but it was fun to try.

Jay’s review sums up the situation excellently. When I played, I had the partisans get aggressive and go after assault opportunities as soon as possible. This was pretty easy to set up since the Germans can’t afford to stray too far from the road. The assaults were pretty disastrous, and on the north side the German HMG/Inf stack even went so far as to clean up the Russians north of the road, to include killing a leader. The NKVD HMG held the road hex itself, so that became the boundary around all the activity.

The southern assault was bloody for both sides, as the Germans lost one step, but the OMB unit also took a loss and the partisans began to break. One partisan ended up dying, while two broke and became meaningless for the rest of the game. Worse yet, the Russian leader died, ensuring the partisans would never stop running, and preventing any Russian initial starting force from ever advancing. But the real problem for the Germans was created by the NKVD HMG in the road. The half step German Inf was disrupted in the assault, and direct fire from the HMG caused it and the sergeant to demoralize. The sergeant recovered faster, but the Inf ran, forcing the sergeant to run after it. It failed again, and ran farther. Eventually it recovered, but this wasted precious turns.

The trucks went off road and eventually got back to the road, and eventually were forced onto the south road by partisan reinforcements. The made board 8, and the Russians ignored them, except some mortar fire did cause consternation.

The delays in getting the southern German stack back underway forced an HMG duel, which the Germans eventually won by inflicting a step loss as well as causing the OMB to demoralize and flee the battle. This allowed the German stack to begin moving, but just before getting out of range the NKVD HMG disrupted the half step unit.

The reinforcements went after the northern German stack a few hexes shy of board 2. After a couple turns of maneuver, the Germans unleashed direct fire fury on the partisans, wiping out four steps over a couple of turns. They then assaulted two more steps, and killed them but not the Russian leader. The leader escaped, and joined with the remaining leader and six step of partisans. The Germans did pay a price, though, as the Inf disrupted. This prevented the Germans from supporting the lagging southern stack as they had only enough movement left to make board 2.

The southern stack now found the road blocked by the remaining partisans, and could not succeed in gaining board 8. With three German steps still on board 1 the Russians got the victory. German losses were one step, while the Russians lost two leaders, one step of OMB, one of HMG, and 11 steps of partisans. The scenario was frustrating for the Germans, as the weather so limited movement that it is nearly impossible for them to make board 2. They can pulverize partisan units, but even one demoralization can so delay them as to make the victory condition that EVERY unit must make board 2 very difficult. Giving the Germans even six more turns could significantly improve their chances, but as written I’m not sure they can make it without extreme luck. Also, the slow pace of movement did not add to the excitement. A German player would be very frustrated playing this face to face. I give the scenario a 2.