Battleground WWII, Barbarossa

Mr. H gamed us another excellent Battleground WWII scenario which was once again taken from Paul Carell's books.

Set in the inital stages of Operation Barbarossa, the Germans are waiting for the return of their recon unit and since the return seems to be delayed they send some troops eastward looking for it even if the night has fallen. At the same time the Soviets are pushing forward...


The German search party moves eastward in an attempt to locate the missing recon unit.
On the left you can see the game as we played it and on right a modified picture trying to represent what the situation would really have looked like.























At the same time the recon unit enters the table from the east end of the table. All the advancing Soviets have been placed using hidden setup. The exception to this is the T-26's which are following the German scout cars as they believe them to be on their side. On the islet left the Soviet infantry squad has noticed that German recon units are driving by so they open up. In the woods right there is a another T-26 (with the commander of Societ forces IIRC9 who stubborny refuse to believe the Germans to be enemy units (he rolls several critically failed perception rolls) and is puzzled why the infantry are firing at their own scout cars!























The T-26s following the recces finally do recognize the Germans for what they are and promptly shoot the front one to smithereens. The unramed radio car manages to escape however.


One German squad starts to flank from right but in the darkness get charged by a Soviet squad and after shooting their way out of that mess soon get run over by another similar human wave leaving just an odd few seeking a refuge behind a flanking pzkfw III.

The tank duel drags on adn Soviets score multiple hits on one pzkfw III killing the majority of crew but the tank won't ignite and the remaining crew won't abandon the tank either. Other highlights include a German soldier rolling a critical on morale table which means he becomes a hero and the hero table gives him another critical so he becomes a Knight's Cross decorated überjerry (but doesn't really affect the game).


The game was total blast!
The conditions (ie. darkness) REALLY changed the game. With regular lights a vehicle could see 12 inches forward and with dimmed "war lights" 6 inches. Visibility in the forest without any extra illumination was whopping one inch! If another night game is played we certainly have to make paper cutouts for the lights so it'll be immediately apparent how far away the lights extend and at a glance you notice who has lights on and where another forms of illumination is used.

The game actually has strange rules for light pistols since they stay around for 3 turns diminishing every round. This sound like flares to us, not light pistols (all players used both while in the army...).

-Janne
(Played: December 20th. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Mr V. Germans: Janne)