Last night I played the esteemed S. Pleva, with myself as the Germans and Steve as the Rooskies. I plant the 280mm OBA in the center of the map, and prepare to enter in a spread-out attack. I have a MkIV, 2.5 squads and an 7-0 on my extreme right, a Puma, 2.5 squads and an 8-1 on my left, and the balance in the center-left. The OBA breaks a couple 458s, and on I come. I Armored-assault with the flanking stacks, with good success. CX and leader bonus get both eight hexes forward. A third leader-led armored assault fairs less well, as I lose an 8-0 to a 'K' result in the center, approaching the isolated two-hex woods mass in the O/P hexrow. My armor (except the flank AFVs above) groups in the center, and successfully busts a couple of forward Russian squads. Except for the loss of the leader, I feel pretty good about myself.
Steve responds by driving all three of his T34s into hulldown positions behind the wall on the Russian left, facing my platoon and MkIV on that flank. The SU parks itself at the edge of the grain field on the Russian right, with a weaseley LOS that snakes through the woods to the center of my troops. In the center, he flounders a bit to consolidate his defense without offering too much grist for the Prinz Eugen's 280mm mill. My DFire is pretty ineffective, except for a fortuitous scatter on my FFE2 placement that greases a squad, breaks another, and knocks his 7-0 down to a 6+1.
On turn two, things get exciting - I send one Puma on a death ride to get behind the T34s; Steve swings two of the beasts around and waxes the cat on a snakeeyes. I try the same thing on my left against the SU85, surviving the DFire but failing to penetrate. I then move some Infantry, and draw the 45LL's fire in the Boresighted hex in the center woods mass; fortunately they survive, and the ATG is revealed. Feeling frisky, I send my Tiger forward to a HD position behind the T34s, with a MkIV guarding its butt. The other MkIV dies on startup to the third T34; the mayhem on that flank is complete when all the infantry is broken by the T34's CMG and its supporting 9-1/HMG/458. Soooo, I'm down thirteen CVPs (30 loses it for me) but I've established my infantry in the center of the board, and my Tiger is looking at three scrumptious T34-shaped ducks.
In the bottom of the second, a self-rally creates a Russian leader, and the second Puma dies in Prep Fire. In the MPh, all three T34s die to the clip-fed 88L I had specially mounted in my Tiger. Elsewhere, a plucky 458 plants a DC on the MkIV, and a concealed stack tiptoes up to my Tiger. My Dfire cleans up a couple Russians in the center, though the newly-created leader survives. Advancing Fire sees a sub-optimal DC placement roll (no effect) and so Steve passes his PAATCs and advances on both the MkIV and the Tiger to do things the hard way. The MkIV survives and eliminates its antagonist, while the Tiger dies and Steve generates a 8-1 in the process - ouch, we're now at 27 CVPs, looking grim.
In the top of the third I press in the center, losing a HS to a residual FP shot, grrrr. Still, I feel okay - the SU is way out of position, the 45LL is busy shooting at Infantry, and I've killed a lot of Russians. Most of my own Infantry is intact and the only current threat to my MkIV is a Russian LMG with a two-hex butt shot. In DFire I laugh as Steve takes his shot. I'm still laughing when he gets a hull hit. I stop laughing when he rolls snakeeyes on the TK. That puts me over the CVP limit and Steve gets the win.
To be honest, against a player of Steve's caliber I would have had a tough time grabbing my VC buildings with such a thin CVP margin, but I have myself to blame for virtually throwing away the Pumas. Those critters are ten CVPs, and really shouldn't be put at risk. The German has a lot of FP at his disposal, and with careful play can make sure the Russian armor has to come at him to be a threat. Thus the Pumas can be kept back for late-game slashing moves. I think I overcommitted troops to the right flank, because the wall in the Russian half of the board is a great position, tough to crack if strongly held. The T34s doomed the MkIV - I had expected one, maybe two, easily screened with Smoke, but three meant I couldn't place a Smoke round that would block all of them. As for the 280mm, it's greatest utility is the effect it has on the Russian setup - he has to respect it and avoid concentration. I believe it should be placed with the DFire FFE2 correction in mind - you want to be able to threaten a couple of areas and thereby continue to influence the Russian defensive gameplan. Finally, I diluted my force too much - all that SS firepower can and should be rammed down the Russian's throat. There aren't many turns, but there's enough time for a meatgrinder approach supplemented by a little, but not too much, creativity on the flanks. Steve's only 'error' was not using Platoon Movement with his T34s. I expected him to just Platoon-Move all three over the wall and out of danger, probably losing just one on startup. He said he thought about it, and decided what the heck, what's the chance he'd lose all three 8^) ?
This and Stand and Die are the pick of the litter in the WCW scenarios IMHO. Playable in three hours, Eye of the Tiger will see more action, as Stand and Die has lots of AFVs and those damn Japanese which seem to add 20% to the length of a scenario. All the scenarios are fun, and the package is well worth picking up. In the interests of full disclosure, I'm an expatriate member of WCW, but I don't benefit from the sale of these scenarios (though if you want to pay me for these plugs, Louie, you know my address 8^). Take it easy,
JR
The First scenario was WCW7, Eye of the Tiger. This scenario brings two interesting forces against each other. No, its not the fact that it is German vs Russian, but rather the mixture of PzIV, and Pumas supported by a single tiger up against 3 T-34/76 with a single SU 85. Each side has about a companies worth of infantry, mostly elite. A major threat to the German player is the Russian 45LL Gun. While the German player begins play with a 280mm OBA module with a single Game turn on board. However, in that game turn it can do alot of damage on the 36-1 table. In our game, the German player (Herman Frettlore) went balls to the walls and charged across open ground despite the fact that the placement of his pre-registered hex was accurate but fell where there were no russian defenders. He Vehicle bypassed freezed my Squad and moved everybody up behind with the exception of the tiger, puma and two squads. However, while he did break my squad, he did suffer a pin and casualty reduction. This all occured on the East side of board 4. On the west side of board 4 his tiger was cunningly moving up with a rider and turned his turret to drop the rider off only to have him break.
The puma supported by two halfsquads raced forward only to be gunned down by a squad with LMG. The loss of the halfsquads should have spelled disaster for the isolated puma, now hull down. The next player turn, I brought my reinforcements in, one t-34 with the 8-1 armored leader would face off with the isolated puma, hull down to hull down. While I sent one t34 and one su85 to halt the advancing PzIV's. I held one t-34 back incase my opponent got brave with his tiger.
During the Defensive fire phase, my opponent shifted his artillery and knocked out two dummy stacks and shocked one of the advancing t-34s. ANd that was all it did, as it was now over with.
The next turn Herman moved his tiger up in a brave move. He drove him down the middle, knowing I had little infantry in the area due to the previous OBA. If i had units in there they would not have survived. As he moved his tiger, I contemplated trying for motion DR on the su-85, but it was relatively low, only a 2. I then thought about turning and firing, but again, he had two pz IV's waiting to move, I decided to risk the flank shot bounding fire. Low and behold, he rolls a four and smokes my su-85. He then brings up the infantry and pz IV's against my shocked t-34. meanwhile, the puma and t-34 shot it out to no effect.
Additionally, my HIP gun opens up with only frontal shots on his tiger. No effect. Starting my turn 2, I get my T-34 back. I actually get one of his PzIv's, but not both with IF. However, my Deliberate immobilaztion shot with the 45LL worked wonders, as I not only got him immobilized, and the crew bailed, i switched to HE and killed the 9-1 crew. however, this was to see the end of my good luck, as in the next two turns, I would see a puma unleashed. I thought I would take advantage of the immobilized and abandoned tiger and try to knock it out with my reserve t-34. Well, that was not to be, as I moved up, the supporting puma CH on the t-34. Also, the other puma and t-34 managed to do nothing else, as he bouced shells off my turret and i bounced shells off the wall.
Next turn, he moves his PzIV and Puma up between the buildings to face my infantry with only long range MG support from his 9-1, but not before my Gun crew breaks. My ATR sqaud valiently tries to pick off the puma but to no effect. The german infantry move up, using democharges to clear the way and get into the buildings or into melee with my defenders. ALso, I lose a squad to failure to route due to the positioning of his puma/ PzIV.
At this point, with almost all of my armor gone and lots of broken/eliminated units I go for the CVP cap. I move an 8-0 leader and squad into position to CC the puma, and I move the 9-1/HMG stack adjacent to the PzIV. WHile this is going on, the Puma and T-34 trade shots again to no effect. My 9-1/HMG receive three ROF shots from the PZIV as it just could not miss, and breaks the squad which would be eliminated for failure to route and wounds my leader. All in all, a very bad turn as my 8-0/squad fail to kill the puma. The next turn the puma starts up and bounding fires on my leader and squad breaking them, he then moves across the board to deal with one of my flanking sqauds and rallied crew attempting to get back to the gun from the woods.
His infantry move into the streets and his puma fails to destroy my T-34. however, my t-34 finally manages to nail the evil Puma. To late however. As now my infantry is gone and all that is left is a crew and four squads, with a clear path to the victory buildings left to the germans.
In his next fire phase his puma unleashes yet another fury of ROF killing my concealed squad and taking out my crew in a single fire phase. With that I conceded on turn 5, as I had nothing left except a leader, a squad and a t-34 and only 19 CVP. But since he had panzerfaust, I felt it unlikely I would be able to gather the 11 points needed in one turn.
All in all, I had fun. It was amazing how one vehicle, the puma, was able to change the game for Herman after he took the loss of his tiger. The tally for that one vehicle: one t-34, one squad, one crew, and a broken leader and broken squad, plus his positioning caused an additional one and a half squads to be eliminated for failure to route.
Brian Abela