Rules: The Russian Portfolio Germany's "Barbarossa" Invasion of Russia, 1941-42

The Russian Portfolio

Germany's "Barbarossa" Invasion
of Russia, 1941-42

Rules

by Louis R. Coatney

Game Designer: Louis R. Coatney
Game Developer: Louis R. Coatney
Playtesters: Robert S. Coatney, Michael J. Welsh

A. RULES (16Dec99)

INDEX

I. Dedication
II. Introduction
III. Definitions
IV. Victory Conditions
V.Sequence of Play
VI. Weather Determination and Effects
VII. Dispersal and Facing
VIII. Strategic Movement
IX. Replacements and "Siberian Reserve" Reinforcements
X.Terrain Effects
XI. Operational Movement
XII. Maximum Number of Units in a Hex -- "Stacking"
XIII. Attacks, Combat Resolution, Retreats, and Tactical Advances after Combat
XIV. Supply and Isolation
XV. Control

See B. SCENARIOS AND HISTORY BOOKLET for Parts XVI through XX.
XVI. Game Length, Special First Turn Rules, Scenario Selection, and Strategic Options
XVII. Advice on Play of the Game
XVIII.Designer's Notes
XIX. Historical Notes
XX. Bibliography, Historical Orders-of-Battle/Set-Ups

I. Dedication:

THE RUSSIAN PORTFOLIO is dedicated as a token of remembrance, gratitude, and respect to the Polish, Russian, Jewish, and other East European and Soviet peoples who were our Second World War Allies and who suffered, endured, and contributed so much for Allied Victory over Nazism.

II. Introduction:

THE RUSSIAN PORTFOLIO is intended to be an educational 2- or 4-player strategic simulation game modeling the historical strategic and operational military decision-making situations of the Axis and Russian commands on the Russian Front--or The Great Patriotic War, as the Russian people memorialize it--during the first year of the Nazi invasion in 1941-42.

III. Definitions of Terms:

Attacker: The player whose movement and attack initiative it is.

Combat (strength) Factor (CF): Arbitrary units of combat strength used to calculate relative combat strengths and battle results. In THE RUSSIAN PORTFOLIO, there is both an Attack Factor (AF) and a Defense Factor (DF), followed by the Movement Factor.

Defender: The player whose movement and attack initiative it isn't.

Hex: Any one hexagonal space on the mapboard, without reference to the terrain inside it or along its "hex-side."

Infantry-Type Units: Fronts, Shock, Rifle, Infantry, Motorized Infantry, Mountain Infantry -- not Mechanized.

Movement Factor (MF): The number of movement points a unit can move. For example, a clear terrain hex costs only 1 MF to enter.

Owning player: The player to whom a unit in question belongs.

Zone of Control (ZOC): Any hex adjacent to an UnDispersed unit, over which it exerts some degree of control. An "EZOC" is an enemy unit's ZOC.

IV. Victory conditions:

To win the game, the Axis Player must be able to trace an overland supply line into any 6 of the following victory cities in any one Victory Determination Phase: Leningrad, Smolensk, Moscow, Gorky, Kiev, Sevastopol, Voronezh, Rostov, Stalingrad, and Krasnodar. Moscow and Leningrad count as 2 victory cities each -- otherwise, at game's end the Russian Player wins.

The Russian Player can also win if -- during any Victory Determination Phase -- he controls Warsaw or Bucharest.

V. Sequence of play:

See the Charts and Tables sheet.

VI. Weather determination and effects:

A. Determination: October is Mud; November is Hard Frost; December through the end of the game is Snow.

B. Weather effects:

1. On terrain: In Snow weather months, swamp, lake, and river hexes and hex-sides north(east) of the Arctic Weather Line freeze over and are treated as clear terrain hexes and hex-sides. This is true for all purposes, except strategic land movement and victory determination.

2. On movement: Weather has no effect on strategic land movement or on sea movement in the Black Sea. In Snow turns, sea movement in the Gulf of Finland is prohibited. In Mud, opera-tional movement factors on the units are halved, with fractions rounded down. Snow, has the same effect except that the halves of Russian units' movement factors are rounded up. Finn units' operational movement is unaffected by any weather.

3. On combat: In any 3 consecutive Snow weather turns of his choice during the (first) Winter of 1941/42, the Russian Player may increase by a one- column shift (up) to the right the final combat odds of any of his attacks on Axis units which are north of the Arctic Weather Line.

VII. Spent and Dispersed Units:

A. A unit may be SPENT by its own operational or tactical movement, by attacking, or by a combat result while defending. A spent unit cannot be operationally moved or attack for the rest of the turn. A Spent unit is so indicated by being faced toward the opponent. A Spent unit's defense (combat) factor itself is unaffected by the unit being Spent, and the unit may be attacked and retreated (and/or Spent) by combat again, in the same player-turn or even the same phase.

B. A unit can become DISPERSED as a result of combat or tactical advance, at its completion of strategic movement by land or by sea, or upon (re-)entry into the game as a replacement. A Dispersed unit is flipped upside down. A Dispersed unit may not operationally move or attack. While it is Dispersed, it has no ZOC. The combat results of attacks against Dispersed units are read 1 odds column higher (to the right) on the Combat Results Table, than they otherwise would be. (Thus, a die roll of "3" at 3:2 odds would instead be read under the 2:1 column -- as a D1 result, instead of an S -- for any already-Dispersed unit in the defending group.)

C. Recovery from Spent and Dispersed statuses: All a player's Dispersed units are recovered to his control - flipped back face-up -- during the opponent's Initial Operations Attack Phase -- unless they have just been (re-)Dispersed in that same phase. However, a unit recovered from dispersal is then Spent until the end of that game-turn. At the end of the game-turn, all Spent (but not Dispersed) units are then faced back toward the owning players, ready for use in the following turn.

VIII. Strategic Movement:

To be moved strategically, a unit must be Un-Spent and UnDispersed. A unit is then Dispersed at the end of its strategic movement by land or by sea. A unit may not move strategically both by land and by sea in the same Replacement/ Reinforcement & Strategic Movement Phase (R/ R&SMP).

A. Strategic land--"rail line"--movement:

2. In any given R/R&SMP, the Axis Player may strategically move any 1 corps-level Axis unit. The Russian Player may strategically move as many as 3 non-front units. Each side's limit is called its strategic land movement "capacity."

3. A unit must end its strategic land movement -- "detrain" -- in a city or town hex under friendly control and accessible to "rail" movement. B. Strategic sea movement: In the Baltic Sea and/or in the Black (and Azov) Sea(s), a player may move a maximum of 1 non-front unit per turn from one friendly coastal hex to a friendly-controlled port on the same sea. (The Sea of Azov is just considered part of the Black Sea.) To so move, a unit must already be sitting on its embarkation hex at the start of the R/R&SMP. The unit is dispersed and may move no farther upon arriving at its destination/debarkation hex. A unit may not sail through the Kerch Straits if any of the adjacent land hexes (II13, II14, JJ13, or JJ14) is under enemy control. When attempting to sail through a sea under friendly control, a special "submarine" die roll of "1" by the opposing player eliminates the unit instead. An odd number eliminates a unit attempting to sail through a sea under enemy control.

IX. Replacements and reinforcements:

A. Replacements: A Russian replacement unit enters the game on the Eastern mapboard edge or on any city or town which could be a terminus for strategic movement at that instant. German re-placements enter on Warsaw, Helsinki, or Bucha-rest. Unlike reinforcement units, new replacement units are Dispersed. Not more than 1 unit may arrive in a hex as a replacement or strategically moved unit, per turn. If an arriving unit would violate stacking with a unit already on the hex, the latter unit is moved one hex toward the owning player's side of the mapboard, where it is (also) Dispersed.

A unit's replacement factor cost is its smallest combat factor for infantry, mountain infantry, or fronts -- or its largest combat factor for all other types. Replacement factors of the same (infantry or armor) type may be combined to produce units and/or may be "saved" by for later use. Armor replacement factors must be used to replace armor or mechanized units. All Axis ally units and German armies are irreplaceable.

1. Russian replacements:

a. Infantry replacements:

2) No more than 2 Russian front units may enter the game as replacements per turn. The Russian player gets no infantry replacements in the first turn of the game -- they are already on the board.

b. Tank Factories and Armor/Mechanized Replacements:

2) Tank factories are in Leningrad, Moscow, Kharkov, and Stalingrad. There is also one off the map in Siberia -- Chelyabinsk, actually.

3) A tank factory becomes nonproductive when its city is out of supply. It becomes permanently nonproductive if a city it is in is lost.

c. Lend-Lease: On the third game-turn of 1941 and there-after, 1 infantry replacement factor of Lend-Lease aid arrives from the USSR's Anglo-American allies in the northeastern city of Archangelsk, unless that city is controlled by the Axis.

2. Axis replacements:

Any non-army-level German unit is eligible to return to the game as a replacement unit after being eliminated. Except on the first turn, the Axis Player receives each turn 2 armor replacement factors and 2 non-armor replacement fac-tors. The armor may be combined with the non-armor replacement factors to produce non-armor units, but not vice versa.

3. Voluntary Elimination of Units:

During the owning player's Replacement/ Reinforcement Phase, he may voluntarily eliminate any of his units. For example, a clearly doomed unit might be more useful sacrificed and brought back in the game as a replacement unit in a better location. Its factors are lost, though.

B. The Russian Siberian Reserve Gamble--" Siberian Roulette"--playing option:

2. Siberian Reserve units consist of 1. and 3. Shock armies plus "pure" armor (or mech) units worth 7 replacement factors in the first turn. In the second turn, they consist of 2. and 4. Shock armies and 4 factors of armor units. And in the third turn, they consist of 6 factors of infantry and any one cavalry corps. Shock armies may not enter the game -- as replacements or Siberian Reserve reinforcement units -- until this time. Any extra Siberian Reserve reinforcement factors may be used as replacement factors.

3. In each turn that any Russian Siberian Reserves are in the game before their "safe" turn, the Axis Player picks a number (from 1 to 6), and the Soviet Player must cast the die. (This should be done at the end of the Soviet R/RP.) If the number cast is the one selected by the Axis Player, the Japanese have invaded the weakened Russian Far Eastern Military District, and the Axis Player immediately wins the game!

4. Unlike replacement units, reinforcement units are not Dispersed in (and thus can move and attack after) the R/R&SMP in which they enter the game.

5. A reinforcement unit may enter the game in any hex accessible to strategic land movement -- not just on a city or town -- and more than one reinforcement unit may arrive on the same hex.

X. Terrain Effects

A. ... on Operational Movement:

2. All units except German infantry armies must expend 1 additional movement factor for each river crossed, if they will be entering an Enemy ZOC.

B. ... on combat are cumulative:

2. Rivers: If a defending unit is being attacked cross-river by all of the attacking units, the combat odds are reduced by a one-column shift to the left on the Combat Results Table (CRT). Any such cross-river defensive advantage is nullified, if any of the total attacking combat strength is attacking from a hex which is not cross-river.

3. Stalin Line: Unless flanked in the manner as for rivers, above, each Russian army receives 1 addi-tional combat factor defending behind the Stalin Line and each front receives 2.

4. Unfrozen Lake Hex-sides, Kerch Straits, Leningrad-Kronshtat: Armor, mechanized, and/or cavalry units may not attack or retreat across them. Other units' attack factors are halved, rounding down any fraction of the total, and they are eliminated by an R2 resulted if forced to retreat across them.

5. Major City: An infantry army or front defending a major city receives a bonus of 2 defense factors. An infantry corps (also) receives a 1- factor defense bonus. Units in a major city cannot suffer Armor Overrun.

6. Victory City: In addition to its major city bonuses (and any fortress bonus), a victory city has 1 intrinsic defense factor, until captured. For Leningrad and Moscow, this bonus is 2.

7. City: Any one infantry-type unit receives a maxi-mum bonus of 1 factor for the hex. A hex containing (only) a city/town is considered "clear."

8. Fortress: A fortress adds a defense factor of 1 to any one friendly infantry-type unit defending it. Fortresses can survive isolation, and they remain in friendly control until actually occupied by an enemy combat unit. Furthermore, they themselves can act as an independent source of supply for any 1 non-front unit, if the normal supply line is cut. They cannot be Armor Overrun. Although not so marked on the map, Kronshtadt is a fortress.

9. Swamp: A Soviet army or front defending in a swamp receives a defense factor bonus of 1. (See stacking limitations against armor in or attacking into swamp, and there are no Armor Overruns therein.)

10. Hills: Each infantry-type unit in a hill hex re-ceives a defensive bonus of 1 factor. Units in hills cannot be Armor Overrun.

11. Mountains: Same penalties against stacking and Armor Overrun as for unfrozen swamp. Same defense factor bonuses as for major cities.

C. ... on Supply: Supply may not be traced across an impassable hex-side. Supply can only be traced across an all-sea hex-side if the sea is under friendly control. (Supply can be traced across frozen or un-frozen lake hex-sides, the Kerch Straits, or the Leningrad-Kronshtadt hexside.)

D. Clarifications of terrain, unit situations, and geography:

2. The Hungarian unit may never enter Romania -- under penalty of elimination. Similarly, one of these nationalities' units may never enter a hex already occupied by the other's.

XI. Operational Movement:

A. General rules:

2. Except in the case concerning rivers, above, 1 movement factor is expended for each hex entered. An UnDispersed/UnSpent unit may be moved all, some, or none of its (weather- and phase-modified) movement factor.

3. The owning player must finish moving one (group of) unit(s) before starting to move another. (If necessary, a tournament director may invoke chess rules about moving a "touched" piece.)

4. A unit of whatever type may never enter--let alone pass through--a hex containing an enemy unit.

5. A unit may always make an operational movement of at least 1 hex, as long as it isn't violating Zone of Control rules described in B. below. It may even exceed its MFs to do so; however, it is then Dispersed.

B. Operational Movement into, out of, and/or through Enemy Zones of Control:

Players are reminded that Dispersed units have no ZOCs.

2. In most cases, a unit may not move from one ZOC to another ZOC of the same enemy unit -- even when the initial EZOC is occupied by a friendly unit -- UNLESS it is moving into a hex occupied by a friendly unit ... and it may then do so even if that friendly unit only arrived in the same/current movement phase. EXCEPTION: A stack of units containing at least one "pure" armored unit may make a (total) 1-hex operational movement from one ZOC to another ZOC of the same enemy unit, even if the latter hex is unoccupied by a friendly unit -- UNLESS the enemy unit is a German army or Russian front OR UNLESS the stack would have to move across or into non-clear terrain. Any other stack of units (not containing a "pure" armored unit) may do the same, except that it is Dispersed by doing so.

3. A unit may always make a 1-hex movement out of one enemy unit's ZOC and directly into another, different enemy unit's ZOC.

C. The Operational Movement "Bonus:" Axis units receive a bonus of 2 operational movement factors and Russian units receive a bonus of 3 operational movement factors, if they do not move into the ZOC of an enemy unit. They may still receive the OMB if they do move into an EZOC, but they are Dispersed by doing so. A unit still receives its OMB if it is (only) moving out of an EZOC. These bonuses are never modified/reduced by weather, although they can be reduced by the Reserve Phase movement penalty, after all normal/printed operational movement factor has been subtracted. (For example, a front moving in the 3rd Reserves Phase would only have 2 "bonus" movement factors left of its entire movement factor.)

XII. Maximum Number of Units in a Hex--"Stacking":

There may not be more than 2 units in a hex. Not more than 1 may be larger than corps level. There may be only 1 unit in a hex if it is a Russian front. Not more than 1 armor-type unit of any level may be on a frozen or unfrozen swamp or mountain hex ... or attacking into one (from each attacking hex). These limits may be momentarily violated by units passing through a fully stacked hex during strategic or operational movement or tactical retreat -- but not during tactical advance. Any unit (of the owning player's choice) violating the limit is eliminated.

XIII. Attacks, Combat Resolution, Retreats, and Tactical Advances after Combat:

A. Commitment of units to attack:

2. A unit may only attack a hex (or hexes) adjacent to the hex it is in. Although a unit must be UnDispersed and UnSpent to be able to attack, it does not have to be in supply at the moment it attacks.

3. A Defender's unit does not have to be attacked by an adjacent Attacker's unit, unless the Defender's unit is an UnDispersed German army or Soviet front which is adjacent to an Attacker's unit which is, in fact, attacking (it or some other unit) in that same combat phase.

4. The combat factors of units which are attacking in the same attack phase but are attacking from different hexes may be combined in their attack against a mutually adjacent enemy-held hex. If an early wave of attackers cleared the hex of enemy units, then the units of any wave scheduled to attack it later may advance on into (or through) the hex as well, using whatever the combat result was.

5. In the same attack or in separate attacks, attackers' units stacked in the same hex may attack stacks of defender's units in more than one different, adjacent hex. A group of units may attack defending units in more than one hex, as long as all the attacking units in the attack can attack -- are adjacent to -- all of the attacked defending units.

6. All defending units in a hex must be attacked as a combined whole.

7. Once committed, Russian units must attack. Unless the attack was already used to block a potential retreat or compelled by Rule 3. above, Axis attacks may be cancelled at any time prior to the die actually being cast.

B. Combat odds calculation sequence for an individual attack:

2. Total defending units' defense factors (and include bonus factors to unDispersed defending units for major cities, cities, fortresses, forests hills, mountains, and tank factories).

3. Calculate the "basic" combat odds in the customary manner: the proportion of the attack wave units' total attack factor strength to the defenders' total defense factor strength is matched to an odds ratio on the Combat Results Table (CRT) which is nearest but no greater.

EXAMPLES: 5 attack factors to 1 defense factor yields 5:1, 5 to 3 would most match 3:2, and 2 attacking 5 would most match 1:3.

4. Attacks having basic combat odds greater than the maximum (10:1) allowable ratio are reduced to that ratio before any further modification. Attacks having final combat odds below minimum (1:4) odds are not allowed.

5. Any applicable combat odds column shift modifications (due to rivers, invasion surprise, Russian 1941/42 Winter Offensive, etc.) are now made, yielding the final combat odds.

6. Before the Attacker begins casting the die to determine combat results, he must ask the Defender if "No Retreat!" orders are in effect for any defending units during the Attacker's entire player-turn.

C. Combat Results: Individual attacks can be made in any sequence the Attacker wishes.

Cast a single die. Cross-index the die roll against the appropriate combat odds column on the Combat Results Table to find the combat result, beneath. Read the odds one column higher, individually, against Dispersed defending units.

Special Combat Situations and Results:

Surrounded/"No Retreat!": D1 to -; DX, D4 to DE; DE to BR. Armor/Mech "Breakdown" from (Dispersed by) combat die roll of 1to1+n -- 2to2+n, for Russians -- if attacking, where "n" = Reserve Movement Phase no.

D. Tactical retreats after combat:

2. The defender may voluntarily retreat his units from a hex after an AE, AD, S, or X combat result, if he chooses to do so. (Attacking units would then be eligible to advance. An AD result would then be nullified if the defender retreated all his units from the attacked hex.) The defender can retreat some of his units and leave others behind, as he wishes, and he can retreat different units into different hexes.

3. If a hex is cleared of all defenders by a combat result -- or by voluntary evacuation -- the attacker must (if at all possible) advance into it units which are eligible to advance and have total attacking strength factors at least equal to the terrain-modified defending combat factor (or advance as many as possible up to that).

4. Retreating defending units must be retreated into/through a hex which...

5. If possible, a retreating unit should be retreated into a hex which is at that moment serviced by friendly supply and/or not fully stacked. An attacker may not leave retreated defenders overstacked if there are alternative hexes available.

6. A D4 or DX result becomes a DE -- and a DE becomes a BR -- against any defending unit unable to retreat at least 2 hexes. In the case of a (group of) unit(s) able to retreat only 3 hexes on a D4 or DX result, the die is cast again, and the unit(s) is(/are) eliminated by a roll of 4-6. A unit forced to retreat off the mapboard (or into the sea) is ELIMINATED. However, the Attacker may not retreat a unit off the mapboard or into the sea if there is another retreat route available.

7. Attacking units are never forced to retreat by combat results, and tactical advances after combat by defending units are prohibited.

8. At any time during an opponent's combat phase, the defender may voluntarily retreat any of his Un-Spent/UnDispersed units (which do not have an as yet unresolved attack already allocated against them) 3-4 hexes -- as he chooses -- in the normal manner of any "D4" combat result. They are then Dispersed, of course.

E. TACTICAL ADVANCES (by attackers only) AFTER COMBAT, according to weather:

Players are reminded that Dispersed units have no ZOCs.

2. Tactically advancing units must stop as soon as they enter an EZOC, and they may not move directly from one ZOC to another of the same enemy unit, except in the cases described by 3.-5. below. In all cases, an advancing unit is stopped by the ZOC of a German army or Soviet front.

3. In any case, attacking units at least equalling the factor-modified total of the defending factors must tac-advance at least 1 hex into a hex vacated compulsorily or voluntarily. They may move directly from EZOC to another of the same enemy unit -- even (in this minimum-1-hex advance rule only) if that enemy unit is a German army or Russian front -- but they are then Dispersed by doing so, unless moving with the benefit of 5. below.

4. Units tac-advancing on a D4 or DX result may move directly from one ZOC to another of the same enemy unit -- as long as it is not a German army or Russian front -- but are Dispersed for doing so.

5. Units tac-advancing on a DE or BT result may move directly from one ZOC to another of the same enemy unit with no penalty whatsoever, as long as it is not a German army or Russian front.

6. As long as the advancing combat factor require ment described in 3. above is satisfied and as long as they are not moving directly from one ZOC to another of the same enemy unit, attacking units may instead make a 1-hex advance into an empty hex adjacent to the vacated hex. However, if advancing more than 1 hex, the first hex entered must be the vacated hex.

F. BREAKTHROUGH Bonus ATTACKS: A BR combat result means that any of the participating attacking units may immediately attack again after tactically advancing. They may attack individually or together, or join in on a normal attack already allocated against other enemy units in the same Operations phase. They may not be combined with units from other battles also making break-through attacks. A unit may not make more than one Breakthrough Attack per game-turn.

G. Reserve Phases: After the initial operational phase is over, the Axis and then the Soviet players may move and/or attack with any units which haven't yet moved and/or attacked. However, the weather-modified basic and then bonus operational movement factor of each unit is penalized a number of factors equal to which reserve phase in which it is used. (Thus, a 4-4-3 Soviet army would have no basic/engaging movement at all in the 3rd Reserve Phase. It would only have its Operational Movement Bonus left to move.) Even if the reserve phase is so late that an UnDispersed/UnSpent unit cannot move to attack, it could still attack any enemy units already adjacent to it. See the Reserve Movement track on Charts & Tables Sheet 1.

H. Facing: Units are faced toward the opponent in the (Initial or Operations) phase in which they have moved or attacked (or both) or in the phase they are recovered from dispersal (unless they were Dispersed by their own attack and are instead flipped upside down). All unDispersed units are refaced back toward their owning players at the very end of each game-turn.

XIV. Supply and isolation:

A. Supply sources: For a unit to be in general supply, it must be able to trace a supply line no greater than 7 hexes (under friendly control and joined by hex-sides which could be traversed by that unit moving operationally or strategically at that instant) to the hex it occupies from any city or town under friendly control which can, in turn, trace a supply line of any length back to a supply source hex. An Axis unit's supply source hexes are any of the hexes in its own country along the western edge of the mapboard. (Italian and Hungarian units use German supply source hexes.) A Soviet unit's supply source hexes are any of the Soviet Union hexes along the eastern and southern edges of the mapboard. Note that fortresses and victory cities act as independent supply sources for any non-front units stacked on them.

B. Isolation effects:

2. During the owning player's Supply Status Determination Phase, units equal to at least half (rounded up) the un-modified factor strength of all the units in an unsupplied "pocket" (at that instant) are eliminated. A front may be replaced by an army no greater than half its attack factor. Fortresses and Russian tank factories are not eliminated by isolation -- only by actual Axis occupation. Russian cavalry units are not affected by isolation or counted against the isolation-eliminated survivors. During Good weather turns, any one isolated stack of German units may be considered "air-supplied." They are not affected by isolation.

C. At any time during the game, the Russian Player may voluntarily reduce/ replace a front unit with an army; however, he forfeits the strength difference. After the first game-turn, either player may voluntarily eliminate any of his own units at any time during his own player-turn.

D. Fuel Supply: If an owning player cannot trace a supply line from one of his armor, mechanized, motorized infantry, or armored cavalry units back to his fuel source at the start of his OMP, then that unit suffers a "fuel shortage," which means that its movement factor drops to 2 and that it cannot execute Armor Overruns. The very instant a battle reopens the fuel lines, the unit can make Armor Overruns -- weather and terrain permitting, of course. The Axis fuel source is Ploesti, the Soviets' is hex ( ) -- as indicated by the crude oil wells on the mapboard.

XV. Control:

A. Control of the land: Control of a land hex is gained by operationally moving a unit into or through it. At the start of a game, hexes are initially under the control of the side whose border they are behind.

B. Control of the seas: The Baltic Sea is controlled by the player who controls Koenigsberg. The Black Sea is controlled by the player who controls Sevastopol. The Sea of Azov is controlled by the player who controls both Rostov and Sevastopol.

XVI. Game Length, Special First-Turn Rules, and Strategic Options:

A. Length of Game: THE RUSSIAN PORTFOLIO runs until the Axis Player achieves his victory conditions or--starting with Mar42--until either player stops the game at the very beginning of one of his player-turns.

B. Special First-Turn Rules:

2. German Amphibious Tanks: The cross-river attack penalty is dropped for any one German attack in the Axis Initial Phase of the first turn.

3. Soviet units more than 2 hexes away from the Germany/USSR border may not move or attack until the 1st Reserve Phase.

4. There are no Axis or Russian replacements in the first game-turn of the 1Jun41 or 22Jun41 game-start games. There are, however, in a 10Jul41 game-start game. In 1Jun41, 22Jun41, and 10Jul41 game-start games, the Soviets have an already-accumulated reserve of 15, 18, and 21 armor replacement factors, respectively.

5. Romanian units may not enter or attack into Russia until the 2nd turn of any game. Finns have the same restriction, unless there are German units starting the game in Finland.

C. Variable Invasion Date and Soviet Deployment: NOTE on nonhistorical redeployments: In all cases, Romanian units must begin the game in Romania, and the Hungarian and Italian units must start the game in "Greater Germany." In tournament play, the Soviet player should not take more than 10 minutes to set up a nonhistorical setup scheme, so that should be thought out and written down in advance.

b. If the Axis invade historically, on 22Jun41, Axis and Russian units with an uppercase "D" in their upper lefthand corners are Dispersed.

c. If the Axis Player invades on 1Jun41, he must cast a die to determine the weather: an even number produces Good weather; odd brings Mud. Units with a lowercase "d" in their upper lefthand corners are Dispersed, as well as those with the uppercase "D."

2. Russian Redeployment Option: Russian units may be freely redeployed within the USSR, but the Axis victory requirement becomes only 3 victory cities. Also, Russian units must be set up before Axis units (which are then freely redeployed with the geographic restrictions described in 1.a. above), there may be no more than 1 Soviet unit per hex, and 8 Russian major (or victory) cities must have armies on them.

Russian Portfolio Rules
Russian Portfolio Set up, Historical Commentary, Charts
Russian Portfolio Maps (slow: 958K)

Back to Strategist Vol. XXX No. 6 Table of Contents
Back to Strategist List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 2000 by SGS
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com