Reconnected with John Barkoviak. We hadn't played squad leader in quite a long time. John said he had been away from the game for a bit and was going to start playing again. I was looking for a game in the old HOB campaign offering, Berlin: Red Vengeance. We decided to start at the beginning with BRV1: Tactical Doctrine.
My favorite historical subject in WWII is Berlin in 1945. For some reason I find it interesting. This scenario is based on a counterattack, following German tactical doctrine, even to the end of the war. The Russians defend with a full array of units, from elite to conscript, some MG support weapons and +3 TEM. The Germans attack with a few elite SS and some second line Landsers, the usual array of machine guns and a single King Tiger, representing one of the last functioning German tanks of the battle.
Dice gave John the defenders, he sent me his setup and I prepared to attack.
My victory conditions were to have more Casualty Victory Points than the Russians and take 4 location VP. With 5 turns, I was figuring if I took a beating on turn 1, I could probably recover and try again. A disaster mid-game and I wouldn't have enough time to have another go. I would lead with the SS, if they couldn't get in there, the 447's certainly weren't going to. I set up to get the big boys into the street in front of the enemy buildings at the end of turn 1. The King Tiger had one job, keep those big Russian machine guns suppressed.
Turn 1 prep fire went well, and the enemy Heavy was down. A good start. My desperate troops stepped off.
At the end of turn 1, we are nose to nose with the Russians. This scenario doesn't take much time to get right to brass tacks. Mr. 9-2 is leading the assault, looking to take some Russkies down with him.
In turn 2, my front liners do some damage. John has had some wicked luck, a theme that would plague him the whole game, but he re-manned the HMG in his turn. The big tank has that unit double aquired. A stack of broken Russians occupies M8. I use a 447 to find out what is behind door number N10/N11 and get punished. A 658 also breaks. The follow up SS get their smoke down and push the attack.
Things continued to go badly for the Russians. The 9-2 was simply taking what he wanted. The SS were too much for the Russian defenders and it was just going to be one of those games. By the time we got to the end of Russian turn 2, the Ivans were on their heels, and my best leader had gotten himself into a pickle.
Well, that close combat went the way the rest of the game did. Two Russian squads eliminated and the 9-2 free to continue the abuse. Things were looking very good for my Germans. John was hanging in there. Sometimes it takes a lot to stick with a game that hasn't gone your way at all, but John had good humor through the whole thing. By the end of the turn, it seemed as if I was going to be able to take both of the front buildings, I would need to get set up to repel a counterattack myself.
At the end of turn 4, it was all over. My Germans got the job done. John's dice were terrible the whole game and while my dice were better, it wasn't a true dicing. If anything, John's dice did him in. In a small scenario like this, a couple of different rolls in a couple of situations and I'm in trouble.
Thank you to John for the game. It was good to play him again.
It's good to be blogging again.
Thanks for reading.
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