I first played a scenario from Red Vengeance back in the nineties when my FTF opponent (no VASL then!) had a copy. When I saw Ritterkrieg had some in stock at a reasonable (great actually) price I had to get it - even though it had no counters and the rules and scenarios where photocopies, I play on VASL for the most part anyway.
The scenario is the largest one in the pack other than the Campaign game. The Russians are attacking across the Spree River to gain a foothold on the other side. Perhaps trying to put the flag on the Reichstag or gaining terrain on the other side of the map. I choose the second option.
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| Russian Forces on the left Germans spread around a bit not knowing what target the Russians would go after. A couple Russian units on the right to harass any reinforcements sent from the German Right. |
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| Prep Fire goes well enough, breaking some Germans but no Radio contact (need that smoke!) and the first shot from the OT-34 is an 11, no FT with that guy. |
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| End of Russian Turn 1. German defenses are shot up, one squad made it to the end of the bridge (under tank) but another is pinned and another 1 or 2 DM making the trip. |
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| End of German turn 1. They fall back - Russian Firepower is too strong to stay in the front line. |
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| Russian movement phase. OT-34 starts up and gets whacked by a Shreck... |
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| Russians try to get a 447 across the bridge. An IS2M made a breach in the barricade (special kind of roadblock) and the German kill stack makes its first roll of the game. |
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| Wrong Army, not a bridge but... |
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| End of Russian turn 2. I advanced a bunch of squads across the bridge - maybe not a good idea. That German ACQ is on a Berserk Russian squad. We would mis-remember the rule for zerkers and send him after the nearest enemy in MF instead of hexes. The Kill Stack had an Opp Fire marker on it - not sure why it did not fire at the Zerker, perhaps it did and I forgot to log it since nothing happened. That would not be a common occurrence... |
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| End of German turn 2. (Here is where the Opp Fire maker went on, same comment as before). There was no shot at the guys on the bridge, perhaps they would not have lived otherwise. |
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| And the Kill Stack fires a second time... |
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| And a third time (yup, looks similar but it was two different 447 squads trying to cross the bridge). |
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| Besides the MG kill stack Tycho's luck was nothing to write home about. First show with the Pantherturm is boxcars. A Half Squad shooting a Faust managed to DM itself. |
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| Here is where that oops with the Berserk squad comes in. My T-34 moved to take on the other Pantherturm since the Zerker was in its hex. The Kill Stack (with only the HMG and squad firing) managed to kill the Zerker that was unharmed till then. I would not have moved the T34 in range if I knew the Turm would be free to fire next phase... On the other hand an 88L AT gun fired and missed and no longer had LOS due to the wall. |
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| Slightly before the Russian Advancing Fire Phase. German player had to go due to family business. Even with the three squads exterminated by the Kill Stack things are looking up, Russians are across the Bridge in some force and losses have been reasonably light considering. |
On our next game day I forgot to turn on logging. Here is a pretty good overview.
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| I had three stacks (granted, should NOT stack but,,,) attacked and the rolls are as listed. At this point (turn 5) I threw in the towel. Not exactly a rage quit, more like an exasperated quite. Tycho deserves the win since he played well and I made some mistakes - but I don't think I'm exagerating when I say that I was diced too. |
For all the shots on the critical Bridge hex that I had to cross all the attack rolls averaged out at 5 (12 rolls total). Taking just the FIRST roll each time it was fired upon the average DR was 3.5. Here is where taking just the Average DR does not help - the average would have been higher including other rolls besides these (kinda crappy really, two boxcars on Pantherturm shots for instance, out of 3 rolls total). As I whined about before though, this was a spot I had to get past and I gambled on average luck...
Anyway, this is a great batch of scenarios and I'll be digging it up again (maybe even this exact scenario) to play again. The ROAR has this one as 60/40 German favor so we played with the Russian balance of adding an extra turn - I don't think that balance is actually useful since time was not the enemy for the Russians, the extra turn can even be a hindrance since losses only count for the Russians and not the Germans in the VP calculations, Russians get VP for units Infantry across the Spree and holding specific objectives.
And the final whine... Here are the DRs from the Kill Stack by turn or ROF tear.
1,2
1,2
1,2
2,2
1,4 -- 1,2 -- 6,2
1,1 -- 6,5
1,4 -- 6,2
So every time it had a target at the bridge (2mp to enter due to Roadblock) it got at least a 5 result and almost always a 2 or 3...
Whine Mode off.
