No Retreat: The Russian Front

Played No Retreat: The Russian Front yesterday, two blowouts and then a third game started that is more balanced - took that many tries to figure out the Russian strategy (or get good cards...).

Start of Game.

End of German turn 1, Two VPs captured.

End of German turn 1.  VP hexes are the greyish ones with German armor on them at the top of the map.

End of Russian turn 1.

Russians send reinforcements to Odessa and Kiev.  Pull back in the north.

End of German turn 2.

A strong push on Leningrad, Kiev defenders are caught off and put OOS and Odessa is surrounded but has sea supply.  Smolensk also falls.

End of Russian turn 2.

Kiev falls since it is OOS the defender dies.  The Russians did put up a strong fight to free the city but it was rebuffed.

End of German turn 3.  One VP away from sudden victory.

Moscow and Leningrad both taken.  The Russians had to burn through cards to get their units back and so concede the game.  Germany was in an excellent position to get to the win through VPs or taking another objective hex (Stalingrad, Sevastopol, or the Caucasus oil field).

Game reset (takes all of 5 minutes, very nice!)

End of German turn 1.  Things very much like last game (almost always turns out the same).

Looking familiar.

End of Russian Turn 1.

Odessa was forced by card play to attack the adjacent stack - EX result leaves Odessa open.  Lesson learned - rail the unit out of Odessa and back in at end of turn.

End of German turn 2.

Odessa being open creates a huge hole that the Germans exploit.  Kiev is taken and two Russian armies are put OOS.  If they can not be freed they die at the end of the turn and are worth 1VP each.

End of Russian turn 2.

Ack - forgot the end game photo - this is the NEARLY the end game photo.  The two arrows pointing at each other symbol near Smolensk is a spoiler attack marker - meaning the Russians have to attack.  The Germans play a CA result card (automatically allows the opponent to Counter Attack ignoring terrain) and take the city.  In addition to the losses for the OOS units it becomes a 20 point VP win.  We reset the board once again for round 3.

Map is reset and game restarted for our third playing in one day.  End of German turn 1 looks familiar...

Yup, seen this before...

End of Russian turn 1 and things start getting interesting.

Odessa defenders rail in and out - no way to force them to attack to their doom.  Kiev is also left undefended so it cannot be forced to counterattack to death either.

End of German turn 2.  Things are not going well.

Odessa is still holding out.  Kiev is taken but Smolensk is holding still too.  Two Russian armies are put OOS and the Germans are salivating at those much needed VPs!

End of Russian turn 2.

The Russian plays an Emergency Withdrawal card that allows the OOS units to get away, the German pincers have encircled nothing...  Odessa still holds out and Smolensk is still under Russian control.

End of German turn 3.  The mud has put a damper on operations.  Movement reduced to 3 or less and no extended advances.

Smolensk and Odessa have fallen and the Germans are outside Moscow!  Can they take it?

End of Russian turn 3.

A Russian counterattack pushing the panzers away from Moscow, another attack north of the city destroys a German Infantry army while in the south the Russian attack ends up a counterblow (two arrows on top of the unit near the center).  The snow starts to fall and the Germans have to decide on pushing their luck or hunkering down for the winter.  Not much of a choice really - they would need a miracle to win by turn 6 (end of winter) and so will have to regroup for a win by turn 9 (end of Summer) or 12 (end of winter 43).  Either of those are still within reach but not if losses are great during the winter.  If those fail the only German chance is to ride out the Russian counteroffensive.

Next playing for this is set for the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving.