First I would like to thank all you guys who answered my mail, regarding the apparent imbalance of this scenario.
I just finished the playing, that I was preparing for, and here's an AAR (my first)
My opponent bid for the Germans, and was giving away the balance, since i wanted the Russians I was happy to Comply.
I Chose VC 2, requiring control of 5 stone-buildings on board 10 at game end, my reasoning being that the russians have a huge advantage in squads, and that I could remove the Panthers advantage in TH chance by making the battle happen at short range.
My opponent set up with five stacks spread across the board, but with a lot of his forces behind the woods 17BB4 - 17BB6. I started the game by rolling a 10 for weather change, now we had heavy snow falling - covering my attacking hordes!
Since my opponent had set rather lightly up front on board 17, with only 2 stacks of 1 concealed counters visible, I decided on making a dash for it in turn one. I loaded my AFV's with Squads and raced along the road with my scout-cars (T-34/85's) leading the way. As it turned out, he didn't have much covering this side of the board, so at the end of turn 1 i had tanks 2 thirds down board 7, with IS2's not far behind.
My opponent spent german turn 1 setting up a defence around the bottleneck at 17BB7, and nothing much happened.
In russian turn two I moved further ahead with my AFV's bunching up in the open area around 17Y8, I discovered the first HIP'ie, a Schreck toting HSin 17Y6, who immediatly destroyed their schreck in an attempt to hit a IS2 at range 2. I started blasting his defence around BB7 with my 85's and the squads I had unloaded or bailed out. I didn't do anything to him though.
German Prep Fire didn't do much either, the HS, now sans Schreck pinned while looking for a Faust. And while the defenders around BB7 found a few Fausts none of them hit, in part thanks due to the heavy snow I had made for myself ;-) My opponent then moved four of his Panthers into the village, one in behind the wall in 17GG6, with three covering it from 10FF3, 10EE6 and 10FF6. The last Panther moved onto the hill on board 11, with LOS right down my staging area. The german squads positioned themselves in the woods at the edge of the village, with a particularily vicious looking stack in 17GG7. He also showed his AC who was parked on the far edge of board 4, as far removed from the action as possible, and a HIP Squad emerged from 4AA4, "only" one board width away from the action
My DFPh proved very decicive. My IS2 with the 9-2 AL (i got due to the balance) nailed the Panther in GG6 when shooting for acqusition, and the german frontline squads was all broken, except a 8-1 in CC8 who went berserk.
Russian turn three; I only fired an IS2 at the Panther on the Hill in PFPh. All the rest of my cardboard Ivan's moved forward. Since the orchard around 17EE8, was now only covered by the panther in 10FF3, and the infantry in 17GG7 and a flankguard in 10FF2, i made a push through that area, two T34/85's moved around the woods in 10EE1-10FF2, to get rear shots at the Panther in FF3. Two IS2's, including the one with the 9-2 AL, took up Hulldown position behind the wall at the edge of the village in 17DD5 and 17EE6 to threaten the Panthers in on the other side of the wall, while two SU122's joined the duel with the Panther on the hill. The rest of my 85's positioned themselves for either threatening flanking moves or blasting infantry. My infantry moved forwards without anything happening to it, since his squads was busy trying to hit my AFV's.
The German squads would only hit a moving AFV at range 2 on a 3 with their Faust's, so only his panthers scored any hits, all four of them fired first, and intensive fire, with only three hits between them. Two of them was against IS2's and both was turret hits, and he couldn't roll low enough to make any impression on their superior turret Armor. His final hit roasted a SU122 who had moved a little to far forwards, the good thing was that it left a plume of smoke obscuring his LOS from the Panther on hill where he had revealed that his 10-2 AL had taken up residence.
Russian AFPh proved desicive, two more panthers was roasted. The one in FF3 got a 85 from behind and the one in FF6 got a 122 through the windshield. I was about to start reducing his infantry with the handfull of AFV's who had not fired yet, when my opponent threw in the towel.
Which brought me into the final at our club Tournament!
My lessons from this game is:
This scenario is great!
The germans has to delay the russians, so you have to set up out in front. There's quite a few natural bottlenecks, spread out your forces to cover some of these, with dummies guarding the rest. You have to conserve your squads though, try to ensure that they have positions to fall back to. Use the SPW's to get infantry in bad positions back into the fight, then abandon the SPW, and use the Crew as INF. The name of the game is to fall back while trying to slow down the russians. But DO get as much Inf as possible back into the village alive, the Russian advantage in Squads are huge from turn one, don't make it even bigger!!
And make sure the Panthers support each other, secure their flanks. A T-34/85 can and will kill a panther from the side or rear.
If the russians attacks the hill or between the hill and the city, the panthers have an excellent chance of dominating th battle from the hill. They can gain HD, and will have LOS to a large part of the battlefield.
If the Russian AFV's goes the same way I did, north of the woods in 17AA3 - 17AA7, try to create a killzone with HD panthers behind the wall and Infantry in the woods.
The Russians has a hard desicion to make when choosing the VC, The task of rooting out SS's from stone buildings are daunting, but so are sneaking 5-6 AFV's past five Panthers. My arguments for choosing the building control VC are mentioned in the top.
Make sure you attack his Panthers coordinated. If you attack with all your AFV's at the same time you can overwhelm his Panthers. Don't attack with the tanks alone, wait or the SU's before you engage him. Move the small guys (85L's) to threaten the panthers flanks - if he fires at them fine, it leaves the way open for one of the big guys, if he lets the small guy slip around the flank - just fine, kill him in bounding fire, you got two chances of hitting him, APCR, and normal AP, usually You'llhit on a 6 or 7!
Also make sure your Infantry are up there with the tanks, the german infantry are DEVASTATING against unsupported AFV's. Unload some of the Infantry a, but take some of it all the way up front and make them bail out, if you dare!
Expect to take some casualties from the HIP'ies, just try to ensure that it isn't the heavy guns, use T34's and infantry as scouts.
He's defence will be thin the first two turns, so don't let one squad hold you up, take the casualties, and then get on with it!!
Well thats all for now, you'll probably be hearing from me again soon, with a request for hint on Maggot Hill, and PTO in general ;-), I've only tried it once before!
Mikael Siemsen