Finished up the No Retreat: The Russian Front game Lawrence and I have been playing. Made it to turn 12 (March-April of 43) with a resounding Russian victory.
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| The circles say it all, Russians needed 16 VP in order to win and had 17. |
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| I was unable to shift to a defensive mindset, kept trying to setup hedgehogs and should have setup a linear defense. Lesson for next game! In particular I gave up the two hexes that are circled and could have fought for them, they were just the latest in a line of VP spaces however. Up at Smolensk is an example, the Russians had overwhelming strength but a couple of cards and the brittle nature of Russian units kept them out. |
I'm really hooked on this game, and ready to play it again. We have played it four times now with three German wins to one Russian. Now that the Russian early strategy is more or less ingrained in our brains the German strategy for when and how to switch to a more conservative game is next to master.
The game is medium complexity, with 20 or so units on each side - but that means placement for each unit is crucial. Card play adds a nice bit of chaos to the game, enough so that it usually cancels out but means you can't just count up odds and feel safe with any line of attack or defense. This is not a card driven game, it is what some call card enhanced, the cards are "extra" things you can do and are not directly needed to activate units to move or fight. Some cards allow an extra movement points, others allow units to be brought on as replacements for free, others allow combat bonuses, and finally there are some that cancel the last card played. You may have the "Auto-victory" combat card but your opponent may have a card to cancel that one...
