Russia Besieged

My normally FTF opponent and I started playing Russia Besieged.  He got to choose his poison and went with Russia so I was Germany and her Axis allies.  Neither of us played the game before and it has been a long time since I played Russian Campaign.  I'm certain I made a boatload of tactical errors in regards to the double turn.

The game setup.  Neither of us knows what we are doing.  I guess it is a decent setup...

End of first German movement phase.  

First turn first German combat phase.  Figured out that Blitzing really doesn't do much unless the enemy is down to a couple of steps.  Still need to grok that.

Second German movement phase.

Second German combat phase.  The Russian line is looking mighty thin.  

End of Russian turn 1.  Everyone was in supply and he decided not to do any attacks.  

Turn 2 First German move.  The Star is where an AV occured. 

Results of first combat phase.  Russian line is smashed in.  One of two units stuck in the mountains is eliminated.

End of second German movement.

Second German combat phase rips a hole in the river line defense near Riga and the southern front is pretty much cleared.

End of Russian turn 2.  No attacks again but the line is now filled out.  There is still an opening in the river near Riga.  The Germans have two or three months of decent weather before the Russian Winter hits.  Almost all of the Russians are outside the range of German air cover now as well.  Going to be a tough slog the next few turns.

As for RB itself.  So far I really like the changes that were made from Russian Campaign.  Not needing to attack across rivers or out of a city is a nice change.  The Blitz attack table I have not figures out yet - will probably do so after 1943...  The scale of the game is good, not too large for me like Dark Valley (good game but my opponent and I would take the rest of our lives to finish it), and Lawrence likes it more than No Retreat's scale (I'm good with NR's scale - can game out the entire war in a sitting or two but there is admittedly some nuance missing at the scale).  We will have to get this one to the "table" again so we can put in the lessons learned from this first game.  We are playing again on Friday - two good things about VASSAL are that you can game after work easier since each player can play at home and there is no problem leaving a game setup.

The African Campaign Deluxe Edition

Played this on the 10th (Last weekend as I write this) and got creamed as the UK.  Rommel is a butt kicker!

The Desert as seen by wargamers millions of times.

End of turn 1.

Things get off to a SMASHING start for the UK (and if they don't restart the game - it won't take long).  Two auto-overruns, an Italian unit destroyed (far left) and the remainder attack my 2-6 unit and kill it (not so smashing start after all but those two escapees dies quickly enough).

Skipping ahead to end of turn 5 when the Allies have captured Tobruk.  Rommel has been building up strength during this time.

There is Tobruk safe and sound.

End of turn 11, The Allied forces have been obliterated in a couple of turns leaving only the 7-6 armor and 6-6 Austalians along with the HQ unit.  The Germans have the required points off the board to start the victory clock.

End of Game two turns later.  UK attempts to break the supply of the Axis units failed with a couple of repulses at Tobruk and Alexandria.  

Going to play this one again in a few weeks with lessons learned.  I'm afraid it will end up feeling more like a regular fight with long lines of units trying to get a breakthrough across the whole map then the desert war but we will see - I certainly messed up THIS game.