Koenigsberg 1: Bloodletting at Moditten

 I was expecting to be reporting on an ECW game this week but sadly it has been rescheduled for August, instead I was back on the Eastern Front at Moditten, but this time seriously as Matt turned up to begin our Koenigsberg campaign. This involves the German attempt to break out from the city in order to save as many civilians as possible.

There are two phases, the first has the Russians on the back foot having not expected a breakout and with  their most powerful forces surging forward to Berlin, in the second phase the Germans have to decided whether to keep going with their panzergrenadiers, or what's left of them and take a risk of recieving enough replacements, or relieve them with an army platoon for the final battles. I had a motorised rifle platoon and took a team of tank killers, an extra panzerfaust for one of the squads and an elite Scout squad. Matt duly arrived and surprised me by spending all his support points on a Panther!

Matt put everything he had on his right flank, there being no cover on the left and cautiously moved forward, his tank trundled along the road. Despite the danger of the tank hitting buildings with HE I deployed into three of the main buildings in the village, he couldn't target them all was my thinking, as the infantry came closer the main action began. A big help for Matt was that he got four double phases one after the other and all I could do was sit and pray, despite this I remained in the buildings and casualties began to mount on both sides. At some point here I ambushed the Panther as it had got to the outskirts of the village, my little group of tank killers performed better than I hoped and a flank shot put an end to the big cat while my boys retreated to safety.

Here they come!

Meow.

The Germans advance.

It all came down now to the infantry and although I was causing quite a lot of casualties I seemed to dole out more shock, we both needed to cause morale checks and I unfortunately lost this race. I did still look like holding my own even as I was down to two command dice with Matt on 4, but it was not to be.

Ooops.

Fortress Moditten, Russians in the buildings.

The end is nigh.

In the end Matt had broken through but it had cost him dear in panzergrenadiers, the next game has him advancing over yet more open ground but with a decent amount of support points and a free PzIV, I get a free T-34/76 but am stuck in one small part of the table. I have to be honest here and say that this was one of the best Chain of Command games I have ever played, it was exciting and went to the wire.

What else, well I have given up and bought a Waffen SS command pack from Offensive Miniatures in order to get one decent platoon commander. I use these troops whenever I need panzergrenadiers and don't want to keep substituting a Heer officer, hence the new guys, two will be officers and the others will just be spares. I am also waiting for some Warbases hex bases, so to get one guy is costing me a bit.

I ordered up some British early war decals from Black Lion in the Netherlands but have not had an invoice yet, that's been a week now, so I may have to look elsewhere as my patience wears thin. At the moment I only have one Vickers MkVI to complete but by next week I will also have a couple of armoured cars.

I have more on next week, I am going to go to the club, I may have some Chain of Command on Wednesday (The Road to Bremen campaign) and a SYW game on Thursday.

I have also returned to mapping and have completed a few small commissions which sitting for a long time has not caused me any distress so full speed ahead there.