I recently played the Lipovec scenario out of the second Eastern Front supplement recently with Mr Mari, a fellow Rapidian. We used Axal miniatures Slovaks. And a wide mix of Soviet 20mm figures and figures. If I was doing this as a display game, I'd take a little more care on accuracy but for a friendly garage match the substitutes did suffice. Anyway, we played a good game and had a pretty near run thing until the Soviet reinforcements came on turn 9. Both the German Recce unit and infantry battalion losing their morale check didn't help either so we stopped the game with a Soviet Victory at turn 12. It became clear at this point that the Slovak/Germans weren't going to achieve their objctives by turn 15. My Germans got bogged down fairly early in the game when Mr. Mari sprung a very good ambush from the corn fields not far from the german start line. The Soviets then withdrew into the corn and a hide and seek game ensued. My recce troops did rather well but my Inf btn didn't. Dice rolls on both sides weren't super until one particular member of the Soviet rearguard performed an action that should guarantee him the honour of Hero of the Soviet Union. With two very well thrown grenades one figure managed to dispatch six German infantry. This did nothing for the German morale and contributed in no way to their firepower as battle was joined with the Lipovec garrison later on in the game. By about turn 7 the battle of the corn fields had finally been fought out (not won) almost all of the rearguard had been killed but they had taken with them many German casualties and much valuable time from the attacking force. At least a turn was spent by the Germans regrouping before heading toward Lipovec to close with the enemy and try to wrest the village from their control. The rather large armoured component of the German force was surprisingly successful. No they didn't kill that much but they did manage to get to the enemy positions despite being fired at continuously by a number of very effective AT guns including two 76.2mm Div guns and two 45mm AT guns. A 122mm howitzer was also being used in the direct fire role (no Soviet observers being present) but it too was relatively unsuccessful against the German armour. Might I add that this wasn't a great horde of Pz IV or Panthers rumbling up the battlefield but rather a mob of 38t, PzII and a PzI as a command vehicle. Play resumed after dinner and the Germans marched on. Mortars got into position, arty observers finally got into position and a pair of SFMG were set up. Then the Soviet reinforcements came on. Two fresh btns of inf. As they marched on my units were taking more casualties from the stiffening Soviet fire. A morale check beckoned for my recce force. They rolled a 1. Not enough. They scooted from the battlefield. Not long after this another Soviet gun was destroyed and the river forded. My "shopping trolleys" as my opponent referred to my armour was upon the enemy and machine gunning everything that they could see. The Soviet reinforcements were getting shot up with mortar and SFMG fire for a minute there I thought I might actually get away with my assault. And then the great god of morale stepped in and my inf btn ran off. I was going to get nowhere fast so we called it a Soviet Victory. A great game and scenario I'd gladly play it again. The scenario gave a good sized game, very controlable and interesting to play. The forces are quite evenly matched despite the massive inconsistecy in armour between the two. The "poor" status of the German/Slovak inf btn really made a difference both in shooting and as mentioned earlier morale. All in all a good fun and interesting game. Back to Frontline Vol. 2 Iss. 3 Table of Contents Back to Frontline List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2002 by Rolfe Hedges 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