We're in the 3rd game turn now. Russians are next. I received the Northern reinforcements and we brought them in on the west edge, close to the center en-masse so to speak, to not activate most of the reserves, and start unrolling the string of counters as we go along.
I had a chance to get a Flame thrower into a nice firing position, and another engineer to drop a demo charge onto some broken squads and a 9-1 leader, but 2 crazy lucky shots broke both: one shot was a 2 FP with no mod and the other one a 4FP with a +2 or something crazy like that, and the Russ rolled 3's on both accounts. My 8 leadership troops been dropping left and right to lucky DR's on the Russian side, followed by 10+ rolls on my side. Bad string of luck...but they broke about 6 squads that way already. Bad JuJu...
I need to make some pics, but I essentially have a strong presence in the center up to the main road beyond the rail-way area. Between the 2 railstation is no russian at all anymore. They lost their 120mm OBA, and the 82mm OBA was a red chit, the first one for that module. I also drew a red chit this turn. So no OBA to lighten things up. We have a nice fire going at the back of the Northern Railstation, and the wind shifted clockwise 1 hex.
I have less bogged vehicles this time, and so far no MOL. No serious injuries have been inflicted on either side with Vehicles, but thats due to come up shortly.
The Russian presence in the south is still strong, but its on the tethering point I think. I need a decent turn of fire to break a few key squads and rally some of my broken 5-4-8's, then I should be good to mount another offensive there. The center is holding as planned until the new forces are in line and can weaken and threaten the flanks of the south and center. That done, some OBA will hopefully crack open that thin line of defenders and my troops will pour all over them. The casualties are alredy mounting. Lets see:
3-1/2 German Squads and 2 Leaders (8-1 & 8-0) vs 12-1/2 Russian Squads and 2 Leaders (10-0 Com & 9-0 Com). No vehicles lost yet...wait, yes, 1 HT.
Stuka's have been mediocre. One failed the TC and few off, and the other was damaged by AA fire !!! and then failed to hit the target with a very bad DR. The Pinning result was the most effective thing they have done so far. But its been only 2..and I have 2 more comming on this turn.
We're plannig on playing on Thanksgiving. Inviting one of the Russian players over with his family: we will make it a point to disapear into the war-room and roll some dice I'm sure. Then its back on on Saturday, for another 10 hour session. The other 2 players on our sides stay for about 5 hours. But we're having a blast playing so far. It very challenging this time around...much more exiting.
Thomas
