Tigers at Minsk - First Game

I have been looking forward to playing this game for the better part of a year now - which is how long it has taken me to get the scenery and figures together! Whilst there is still much more to do I now have enough stuff to start putting on games.

Fair Warning: Lovers of photography may wish to turn away now. Due to ill health my hands shake hence why things look a bit blurry at times. 

I've already shown off the scenery, so here are the counters I made from printouts stuck to beer mats. The advantage chit is double sided with a Soviet hammer and sickle on the other side (we flipped this like a coin to determine sides - I got the Germans). The orange pin/stun markers are from Litko.

The Scenario: Road to Moscow (Eastern Front 1941, November). The Germans have 60 minutes to capture as many built up areas (BUA) as they can. Each BUA is worth 1pt and, as there are three of them, it can be seen that this battle cannot end in a draw. We were also using the limited command rule for the Russians (two hexes instead of three).

Here is the battlefield from the German perspective.

BUAs should be obvious as should the woods and the stream/river on the right flank (special rule "Frozen Water" = vehicles must check for bogging due to potentially going through the ice). Destroyed woodland (with craters) was treated as Rough. Marsh can be seen adjacent to the stream and two single hex hills are also present.

 Here is the battlefield from the Russian perspective. 

And finally from a neutral perspective.

 The Forces: Never having constructed a scenario for TaM before but having read most (if not all) of Norm Smith's AARs I decided that the Russians would get 10 units and the Germans 16, picked freely from what I had painted in the box. It was also agreed that both sides would get one off-table artillery strike and one observer.

The Russian player chose: 3 x T34, 5 x Inf, 1 x HMG, 1 x ATG (with tow).

I chose: 3 x PzIII (37mm), 2 x PzIII (50mm), 1 x StuG III, 8 x Inf, 2 x HMG. 

The Russian player wrote down his troop positions, then I deployed, then he deployed. 

Here's how I deployed: Inf on the right to take the BUA, more inf to advance across the center and fight for the two BUAs on Row A. The PzIIIs (50mm) and a HMG would act as a fire base in the center and the other PzIIIs would tackle any threats on the left flank.

 Here's how the Russians deployed, as can be seen they held back one T34 as a reserve and the ATG is also off table (hidden) waiting to spring an ambush. The two BUAs on Row A were strongly garrisoned and two T34 were strung out as a forlorn hope. Notice that my opponent did not to defend the BUA on the flank. A clever decision which meant that I had committed too strong a force to take that objective.

And we're off!

(Unfortunately due to the aforementioned shaky hands I have had to junk a lot of the photos I took).

Almost immediately my left flank ran into trouble with a T34 in a wood shooting up the PzIIIs (37mm), their return fire was shockingly abysmal with shell after shell just bouncing right off the enemy's armour. Over the next three or four turns the PzIIIs struggled with this beast, it even shrugged off direct hits from the 50 mils firing in support!

Eventually my tanks, with some infantry support, tried to close the range on this troublesome T34. Thereby triggering some savage opportunity fire from the BUA and an ATG ambush. Disaster! I lost the entire force bar one tank, this shocked German morale. But then just as all seemed lost we got our chance, Out of Command and Stunned the beast was wounded and this gave my last surviving PzIII (37mm) one shot to deal with it, finally I got lucky! But my left flank was wrecked...

Meanwhile on the right (unopposed) flank things were going just peachy. However, in the center a cautious advance by StuG supported inf was being held up by another T34 and infantry combo.

Turn 5 and the very unwelcome sight of yet another T34 arriving!

Having captured the BUA on the flank with what was now the bulk of my inf, we see below the beginning of the end. The StuG was taken out without ever firing a shot but we did manage to drive off the T34 with infantry assaults. Unfortunately my attempt to go forward under cover of smoke was thwarted leaving my inf dangerously exposed. Far too late did the PzIIIs (50mm) start moving forward, I badly mishandled those.

And here we are at the crunch, the high tide if you will - the point at which German morale reached 0. I would like to point out that the Russians were only holding on by the skin of their teeth with a morale rating of 1. For the record we were 52 minutes into the battle, could I hold that BUA on the flank for just 8 more minutes?

Alas no! On the final turn (Turn 9) as the clock counted down my infantry gave up the ghost and retreated from the BUA a 2:1 minor defeat was now a 3:nil kicking. Although not pictured my opponent made good use of smokescreens when maneuvering and also for cutting off my LOS.

And in case you're wondering what happen to the artillery, we both missed and the fire fell in empty hexes both times!

Thoughts: What a great game! I am so glad that my faith in this rule set was justified. I like the way that every turn you are required to make command decisions. I like that you have to roll for assets such as smoke and Molotov cocktails. And I particularly like that sometimes you need to roll high for a success and sometimes you need to roll low - you won't win this game by having a good run of 6s (unlike DBA for example). I would recommend this game and I will be playing it again (and again).

Hiccups: We forgot that HMGs and ATGs can roll to avoid OP fire. However, by consensus it was agreed that this influenced the outcome negligibly.

1941: We both thought that infantry in close combat with armour in the open were a little too powerful for 1941. This is not surprising (nor is it a fault) given that the game is supposed to played in the mid war period.

Signing Off: I sincerely hope that Norm expands the Forces List, I've got some Soviet cavalry and a SiG33 begging for "official" stats, and I hope TaM does well.