It's truly great that you had the time to do your next Russian campaign instalment. I believe your scenario reflected the desperate fighting very well, and to me, it was historic enough. While a battle for neatness is said to last between two dates while overlooking preliminary and follow-up actions that really need to be considered on the game table. In version 4 of FoW there are omissions such as 85mm anti aircraft guns for the Russians and 5.5" guns for the British. STuGs in Africa is another. Hardware wise for the T-34 is historically accurate and the poor crew training is also accurate. The Germans have better training is about right too. So the T-34 turns out to have thick skin and is very easy to hit while it's the opposite for the Germans. The problem is there is more to this. The Germans had superior tactics but this is left to the player to provide. What makes the Germans so good at this time of the war is that all armoured fighting vehicles have a radio of some kind. This allows them to get inside the decision making loop of the enemy. It means that they can spot a tank before they are detected and can organise a trap for it on the fly. This is very difficult to reproduce in a game. So you have to decide to be offensive or defensive in your attack. If your being defensive it means your hanging back and placing as many negatives on the Russian dice rolls and it takes only a few and its impossible for the Russian player to hit while you can still hit, just. Offensive is more interesting and where the special movement orders come into it. The German player gets to use two different special movement orders while the Russian player only gets one. The German player executes these orders mostly on a 3+ while the Russian player requires a roll of 5+. This makes the Germans agile while the Russians are flat footed. The blitz movement is great in most cases with shoot and scoot allows you to move then shoot at full rate and move again. Blitz and follow me means you get to double your tactical movement rate. While cross here allows you to pick through difficult terrain much easier. Using movement orders will allow you to get more quickly on to the sides of a T-34. While it's only one better to hit the T-34 side they are still easier to hit, keep up your full rate of fire and the range under 16" or less. Always have your guns ready to drop smoke as this helps to isolate parts of the battlefield from supporting fire. Don't forget to bring your aircraft when you can afford them. The SiG 33 15cm is always great even in direct fire mode to clear a building. As for your wife she won and didn't need any post battle advice from me. All up a great game and loved the table. It was great seeing the 38-Ts in the mix. I also think its fantastic that you have started writing your own scenarios. Their scenarios are great for general gamers but not so good to represent actual battles. It also allows you to write historic battles that they can't win in the usual way but can win by achieving victory conditions like 1 point for any unit above half strength etc. I'm happy for you to bounce ideas off me. Once you get into the southern suburbs the Russians can have upto 25 T-70s which I learned to hate. The guy who normally plays Russians used them very well. He had some T-34 lurking forcing me to keep my front to them. The zippy T-70s quickly got to my sides using ruins to block my line of sight to them. He would pop out and hit me on the side armour. From the front their 45mm guns are not that good but from the side they were like a hot knife through butter. Just when I thought it could not get any worse he teamed the T-34s up with a penal battalion. While they can't take advantage of terrain, a blocked line of sight still works for them. So ruins are a perfect environment for them. They really hurt if they assault and I was amazed with the amount of fire power it took over 3 turns to destroy them. So you have a lot to look forward to and I look forward to watching the resulting games.
You always have some of the best, and lengthiest comments mate! Thank you. Some great advice in here I will try and keep in mind for our next games. Thankfully our collection does not include that many T-70s lol. As such most of our inner city games will be pure or near pure infantry fights. Which is its own level of adjustment and learning in order to defeat the red menace lol. The movement orders are a great point to make in order to use against the better armour ratings of reds. I am naturally a very defensive player (hence my love of infantry formations) but I am seeing how poorly that tends to work aye. Will try and be a bit more aggressive in our next armour battle!
Thank you so much for your comment! Glad to hear you enjoyed and thanks for checking it out even though we havent uploaded in several months really. If you have any questions about the game, need advice on what and where to start etc, please dont hesitate to reach out!
Thanks!! Always happy to hear our terrain is looking great, have sunk A Lot of time into it lol! And yes, I agree that the short Panzers are not as efficient as they could be. I am unsure if they would be any more useful up close as I cannot recall them having brutal in direct fire..
It's truly great that you had the time to do your next Russian campaign instalment. I believe your scenario reflected the desperate fighting very well, and to me, it was historic enough. While a battle for neatness is said to last between two dates while overlooking preliminary and follow-up actions that really need to be considered on the game table. In version 4 of FoW there are omissions such as 85mm anti aircraft guns for the Russians and 5.5" guns for the British. STuGs in Africa is another. Hardware wise for the T-34 is historically accurate and the poor crew training is also accurate. The Germans have better training is about right too. So the T-34 turns out to have thick skin and is very easy to hit while it's the opposite for the Germans. The problem is there is more to this. The Germans had superior tactics but this is left to the player to provide. What makes the Germans so good at this time of the war is that all armoured fighting vehicles have a radio of some kind. This allows them to get inside the decision making loop of the enemy. It means that they can spot a tank before they are detected and can organise a trap for it on the fly. This is very difficult to reproduce in a game. So you have to decide to be offensive or defensive in your attack. If your being defensive it means your hanging back and placing as many negatives on the Russian dice rolls and it takes only a few and its impossible for the Russian player to hit while you can still hit, just. Offensive is more interesting and where the special movement orders come into it. The German player gets to use two different special movement orders while the Russian player only gets one. The German player executes these orders mostly on a 3+ while the Russian player requires a roll of 5+. This makes the Germans agile while the Russians are flat footed. The blitz movement is great in most cases with shoot and scoot allows you to move then shoot at full rate and move again. Blitz and follow me means you get to double your tactical movement rate. While cross here allows you to pick through difficult terrain much easier. Using movement orders will allow you to get more quickly on to the sides of a T-34. While it's only one better to hit the T-34 side they are still easier to hit, keep up your full rate of fire and the range under 16" or less. Always have your guns ready to drop smoke as this helps to isolate parts of the battlefield from supporting fire. Don't forget to bring your aircraft when you can afford them. The SiG 33 15cm is always great even in direct fire mode to clear a building. As for your wife she won and didn't need any post battle advice from me. All up a great game and loved the table. It was great seeing the 38-Ts in the mix. I also think its fantastic that you have started writing your own scenarios. Their scenarios are great for general gamers but not so good to represent actual battles. It also allows you to write historic battles that they can't win in the usual way but can win by achieving victory conditions like 1 point for any unit above half strength etc. I'm happy for you to bounce ideas off me.
Once you get into the southern suburbs the Russians can have upto 25 T-70s which I learned to hate. The guy who normally plays Russians used them very well. He had some T-34 lurking forcing me to keep my front to them. The zippy T-70s quickly got to my sides using ruins to block my line of sight to them. He would pop out and hit me on the side armour. From the front their 45mm guns are not that good but from the side they were like a hot knife through butter. Just when I thought it could not get any worse he teamed the T-34s up with a penal battalion. While they can't take advantage of terrain, a blocked line of sight still works for them. So ruins are a perfect environment for them. They really hurt if they assault and I was amazed with the amount of fire power it took over 3 turns to destroy them. So you have a lot to look forward to and I look forward to watching the resulting games.
You always have some of the best, and lengthiest comments mate! Thank you.
Some great advice in here I will try and keep in mind for our next games. Thankfully our collection does not include that many T-70s lol. As such most of our inner city games will be pure or near pure infantry fights. Which is its own level of adjustment and learning in order to defeat the red menace lol.
The movement orders are a great point to make in order to use against the better armour ratings of reds. I am naturally a very defensive player (hence my love of infantry formations) but I am seeing how poorly that tends to work aye. Will try and be a bit more aggressive in our next armour battle!
It is really quite amazing that the Germans managed to succeed in Barbarossa - at least according to FOW :)
Aye, indeed it is, but thats the nature of the arcady game system! Sure makes for amusing games though!
Awesome, Batrep! Thank you for sharing. I'm going to give this game a shot very soon.
Thank you so much for your comment! Glad to hear you enjoyed and thanks for checking it out even though we havent uploaded in several months really. If you have any questions about the game, need advice on what and where to start etc, please dont hesitate to reach out!
Great game! Glad to see you guys back!
Thanks mate! Its been an uphill battle getting through some stuff, thats for sure!
Thanks for the game folks. Looking forward to the rest of the campaign.
Hopefully will have the ability to film some more games soon. Been trying to figure out how best to do the inner city fights.. more to follow!
And thank you for your ongoing support mate, it means a lot, truly!
Love the themed battle and the campaign idea.
So happy to hear that! Hope you have a great day!
Thanks for this game. Your map is amazing. The PZ IV section was inefficient maybe you could come closer to shoot directly the Russians infantry.
Thanks!! Always happy to hear our terrain is looking great, have sunk A Lot of time into it lol! And yes, I agree that the short Panzers are not as efficient as they could be. I am unsure if they would be any more useful up close as I cannot recall them having brutal in direct fire..
I think it would be more lifelike if you had you roll every round to see if the dust of the Russian flats blows up your panzer engines lol.
While that would be more realistic, and simply hilarious.. with the way my dice work the game would be over turn 1 or 2 LOL
*Promosm* 🙈
Promosm?