Blitzkrieg Commander East Front AAR

Had a goal last night of getting a quick miniatures game in before going to bed. Of course, after laundry was done, dishes from dinner complete, and the kids were in bed, it  was about 9:30 PM. So I decided to go with the rules I know best, Blitzkrieg Commander II.

I've never played any of the built in scenarios in the book, but this time I thought I could use one of them and points (another thing I've never used) to build out a game. The reason I never use them is because i like fighting "historical" scenarios because I like the thought that I'm recreating a battle and at the same time learning a little more about the war. So, to make it not a completely random battle, I adopted a scenario from an I Ain't Been Shot Mum supplement. (Funny thing is, I believe the scenarios out of this battle are imaginary and based loosely on real battles.)

Anyway, I gave the defending Russians 500 points and the attacking Germans, 1000 for the Assault Scenario. The Germans need to take the objective in 6 turns (shrank from 8 because of the small table size.)

Summary - It didn't happen.

A view of the field of battle. Germans are attacking the town beyond the hills.

I entered most of the Germans as Mobile with a small reserve on the left flank, Center of the table to come in after I suppressed the Russians in the woods with my Stuka.

Well, just like you shouldn't rely on Arty to win the day, you can't rely on the Stuka to win the day. The first two turns saw bad command rolls for the Stuka. I got impatient and rolled my troops out on the flank. Dumb. Lost my MG unit immediately. The infantry squads on that side would eventually take 5 and 4 hits respectively before being pulled off and back to the farm house to lay down effective fire...but too late to make a difference.


Oh, yes, two sets of those hits and suppression came from being in the Stuka attack that both times deviated back just enough to catch the Germans in its wake.

Stuka does its job well...on everyone. : (

That was the left. On the German right, they made slow progress because after the slaughter on the left, I was too cautious and worried about casualties. The Germans breakpoint was only 3, compared to the Russian's 6 (now that I type this, I'm not sure why this is.)

In fact, now that I look at the German list I see that I only used "900 points of 900 available (1000 points selected." This quote comes from the great army builder page on the Specialist Military site. Hmm, I'll have to look into that.

The end result? Russian minor victory because the Germans didn't make the objective, but the Russians didn't inflict enough damage for a major. The Germans did inflict 4 killed units, so more aggression on the part of the Pz III could've help move them to breaking.

Next time options:

1. Concentrate forces on one side and overwhelm. Probably the left and the woods, more room.
2. Stuka again (bound to do better) and either flank further in and attack through the woods (probably should do this from two directions. The problem I see with this is that the Russians can then concentrate their defense. Though, with such low Command Values (8 and 7) they could run into problems moving their defense.
3. I suppose smoke could be my friend by my smoke creation was absent. 
4. As the Russian player, don't get any trenches, perhaps some wire to slow them down outside the town. But they could defend the town pretty strongly and do ok. A truck to pull that gun around would've been nice.

I began the process of getting the armies built, collecting my kit at 9:30. I finished the game around 1:50 AM (too late/early) but I accomplished my goal and it was very fun.

This was my 11th game of BKCII and I will still vote it as my number 1.

The Forces:
German
CO (10)
2 HQ (9)
FAC (8)
Recce Unit 222
5 Infantry Heer
3 Infantry Upgrades of AT Rifles
1 MG 34/42
1 81mm Mortar (need to check if it can produce smoke - might be a better use for dug in troops.)
1 Pz III 50mm kurz
1 Ju-87B Stuka

Russian
CO (8)
1HQ (7)
5 Infantry Regulars
1 ATG 37mm
3 t-26,  37mm.

The Video