The Elefant in the Room.

Big night at the club, the first run out for my Russians and my first attempt at a scenario for WWII, I already had the name I just needed to fill in the blanks.

Somewhere in the Ukraine late summer 1944 and a Jagdpanzer Elefant the new version of the Ferdinand is sitting in the middle of nowhere abandoned by its crew, an order has come to either secure the area or if not blow the beast up. The tank has already been spotted by the local Soviet forces and they have had orders to capture the machine intact. The Germans had an infantry platoon with 10 points of support, Dave chose a Pak 40, a medic, a Senior Leader and of course a demolition team. The Russians got 13 points due to the disparity in the forces and I chose an SU76, two MMG's and a pre-game barrage, my idea was to win the firefight and keep the Jerries away from the tank.

The terrain was fairly open with the odd rough patch and a small farm with a couple of woods, the Elefant was put squarely in the middle and we diced for which side we would arrive from, Dave got 11 for his Force Morale, I got 9. I went first, yes we got that bit wrong, but the Gods punished me by giving me the dice to end the turn, which meant Plan A of delaying the German arrivals with the artillery went right out the window! Nevertheless I put down an MMG in the farm and a squad in the small wood on my left, Dave countered with the Pak 40 and a squad opposite my right.

The objective

I started to whittle down the crew serving the gun and the squad moving towards the little wood on my right, and was doing alright, I felt I had the measure of the game this time. Dave moved his squad out into the open to deliver some fire as I had deployed a second squad and moved them forward, I then for some reason brought on the SU76 but I had masked the damn thing, it got one shot off. This was the point at which I needed my Senior Leader on the board as I was having difficulty keeping my MG's firing but I was loathe to do this as the Russians only have one and if he went into the front line I might have trouble ordering up reserves, I chickened out. Things began to turn against me, I lost a machine gun team and a squad, my morale plummeted to five then three, for a moment I looked around for a white flag.

The annoying Pak.

Old McPavlovitch's Farm

 I had lost two command dice but against the odds the ones I had left began to turn up trumps, I managed to recover and routed the Pak crew while cutting two squads up and causing one to retreat and the other to hold its ground, a third turned up but it was too late. With time of the essence Dave threw caution to the wind and set the demolition team off for the Elefant, these brave but foolhardy men were massacred in the open. As the dust settled, the Russians, despite almost being on the ropes were actually in a better position to control the tank than the Germans so a Russian win.

The table from the Russian lines just near the end.

 Still made mistakes but overall I think I had a better grasp on this game than previous ones, my main moan of course was the pre-game barrage not turning up, how unlucky is throwing three sixes on the first turn? No matter, I really like this army and look forward to getting them on the table again soon although with all the Festive stuff it might be looking more like the New Year.

I wanted some cobbled roads and at first thought I might make them myself, then decided maybe some latex bendy roads would work, just as I was about to jump I noticed that Deep Cut Studios had rolls of cobbled roads in the same mousemat material as the battle mats, quick and easy, no contest. I am also tempted to go for their streams as well, I do have latex waterways but I have never been keen on them.

I got a nice surprise from North Star today, OK I knew the Scouts were on their way but I was not expecting them for another day or two. My Russian dice order has still not turned up from Warlord, which is a pity as I expected to be playing with them last night.