Finally managed to get the Russians on the table last weekend when Jamie came over for a game.
Simple Russian Counter Attack into the village edge.
My Russians attacking with one infantry platoon, commissar and a pair of early T34’s against Jamie’s German panzer grenadier platoon with a pak40 and MMG on tripod
We didn’t get a lot of pics nor did I take notes so this is a quick telling of the action…suffice to say, an enjoyable foray into the Eastern Front.
I have somehow failed to upload the jump off point pic but in simple terms, the Germans pushed their positions forward into the trees in shadow at the bottom of the table as shown, along with two jump off points in the village centre. The Russians picked a point in each of the two low scrub points on their side of the table.
The Russians declared their hand first and deployed in overwatch, a section into the lower of the two thickets along with a tank just south of the road.
Jamie decided to push a section and the MMG into his forward deployment in order to delay any Russian push.
For a while this position traded shots with the lone section, taking a little HE from the tank.
The shock started to mount on both sides and suddenly the German NCO took an injury leaving him temporarily impotent and the Russians with 11 points of shock looking like they were about to be pinned.
Deciding now would be a good time to send in the commissar. His ability to remove shock meant he had to shot someone to restore order……the higher the roll, the more shock removed, but on a six, yes he’d remove 6 shock, but he would have determined the NCO was the problem…….SIX! His smoking pistol left the Sergeant dead on the floor, and the section snapped back into action.
The Germans decided that the Russian advanced troops were vulnerable and their Senior Officer deployed to take over the squad with the injured NCO, and started to direct both the section and mg team, relieving shock where possible.
The pak40 deployed to cover the road and when the second T34 arrived, it and its companion were effectively shepherded into a partially blind position behind the occupied thicket, restricting their fire towards the German wooded area.
More German sections appeared, one into a wrecked house near the crossroads, and one on the left of Jamie’s table. This section wanted to move forward and bring more fire onto the Russian section hoping to break them quickly.
Once again the commissar had to smoke one of his men in order to keep them in the action. However more concentrated fire pinned them and the commissar, his face distorted with pure rage shot a third man, but failed to restore much order and inevitably, they broke and started to run for it….
On my next throw, a double six finally gave me the window I needed and I was able to replace the displaced squad and bring on a third into the other thicket that began to engage the encroaching right section they faced.
The commander also deployed at the back of the first thicket and was able to remove shock from the fleeing remnants of fist squad….enough at least to ensure they weren’t broken should the turn end.
A few other officers were hit and more casualties inflicted…my mind a tad fuzzy….
The final action however saw concentrated fire from the newly arrived section in the original thicket, along with the HE fire from the tanks breaking the German section, which ran through their attached MMG team, both units running off the table. The senior leader attached to them ran too and the combined weight of rolls on bad things happen reduced the Germans morale to nothing!
Fun game, especially the increasingly frantic behaviour of the commissar!
Thinking I’m going to enjoy playing Russians………😉
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December 10, 2024, 02:37:16 PM
July 16, 2008, 11:43:25 PM