I played this as the Allied (Russian), and found that the onsluaght of enemy forces massed and overan me as my reinforcements were peicemealed into the fray....not too enjoyable from this aspect.
Hi KGAirborneBob,
Thanks for taking the time to reply. Hmm, sounds like your opponent rushed everything into the pass? The T34's were found to be quite powerful in the play tests which is why there's only one on the map at the start of the battle. There was really only one bit of Hungarian armour that the T34's didn't like and that was the SP guns. As soon as the T34's spotted them, they usually backed away (very frustrating!) but the SP guns can be killed on the flanks, using the speed of the T34's to outmaneuver them.Yes, I took the briefing to heart and rushed as fast as I could in to the town.
I transferred infantry from the trucks and placed them on the tanks and charged up and over the ridge in four locations.
I also swept around the left on the road using tanks and infantry in trucks. Using the armored cars to speed ahead I discovered no one at the small flag so I advanced armor to the ridge to the side and rear of the town.
As my troops were slowly moving through the rough on the ridge and setting up overwatch on the town the Soviets were receiving reinforcements which were being routed while they were in or just dismounting from their trucks. It seemed some reached cover but the mass of HE from the tanks especially the SP’s routed them too.
This was about the same time the tanks broke out of the rough on top of the ridge and with the infantry and the SP and 75mm tanks in overwatch the 40mm tanks charged right to the buildings in the town, point blank to the Soviet infantry.
The T34 came out from behind a building and knocked out 2 of the 40mm tanks but while that was happening, using the buildings as cover and again taking the briefing to heart, I charged all of my armor except the SP’s in to the town surrounding the T34. While using the shoot and scoot command from behind the building I was lucky enough to immobilize the T34 and then take it out with a rear shot from an SP on the ridges to the side and rear of town.
At that point, with the town pretty much surrounded by armor and using half my infantry to assault and the other half along with the SP’s as over watch any Soviet infantry that fired was quickly targeted, pinned, routed or killed. I took almost 40 prisoners, including a couple of full squads and the rest were eliminated.
By turn 10 the town was completely taken.
That’s when the first T34’s started to arrive.
I had one SP covering the gap in the woods entering the town and one 75mm high up on the western flank. Three T34’s pushed forward two targeting the 75mm on the flank knocking it out. But while doing this the SP knocked out one T34 and then a third T34 that was moving up. Here I was very fortunate in that the SP took several hits with the last hit only shocking it.
By the end of turn 11 I had the gap entering the town covered in a semi-circle and at that point the Soviet was in dire straights.
Any infantry moving up were quickly routed as they had little cover to approach the south end of the town and any T34’s that came through the gap were targeted by the three SP’s to the front and a host of 75mm and 40mm tanks from the flanks.
I have to say I was very lucky that:
1) Not one tank was immobilized due to terrain.
2) The SP’s took several hits and were not knocked out or immobilized.
3) When the SP’s knocked out a T34 they were quickly abandoned saving the SP’s AP ammo which by the end was nearly depleted.
As far as Allied reinforcements go it’s a tough call.
If the Axis does not hold the town by turn 10 it would be very difficult to take after that.
If the Allies get more reinforcements in one shot instead of being spread out the Axis with only 3 SP’s and little else as far as being able to stop the T34’s could easily be overwhelmed.
I would be hard pressed to tell what, if anything should be changed in this scenario.
In looking at the results the scores seem to swing both ways with a few in the middle.
I would like to hear from the Allied winners on how they did so well.
So it seems to me that it could go either way depending on a few breaks from the gods of war, the aggressiveness of the Axis and/or the patience of the Allies.