Battlegroup Fall of the Reich Soviets attacking a hasty German defensive line.

Last night I played a "defensive line" game where an ad-hoc Wehrmacht vanguard is attempting to stall the inexorable Soviet advance. I don't think I have played Fall of the Reich yet. It was the one that got away all those years ago, and when they did the reprint I jumped on the chance. Playing it felt a little different, but mainly that it felt like I couldn't afford as much German stuff, with point costs being higher. But that may be imagined. I was also surprised that my two armies ended up with the same Battle Rating. Usually my US armies have a far higher point to reach before breaking. I assumed the Soviets would be the same. But both ended up with BR 23. The Soviets, however had many more infantry to throw at the fascist invaders.

Germans
FHQ is a Panzer IV.
1 infantry platoon.
1 Panzerfaust team
1 80mm mortar team
1 Pak 40 with loader team
1 StuG III
1 sniper + spotter

Soviets
1 infantry platoon
1 T-34/85 platoon
1 Maxim MG team
1 ZiS 76mm gun
1 BA amoured car
1 sniper + spotter
4 trucks and a jeep for the platoon command

A handful of German units held the wooded areas along the road. A sniper team were overlooking the northern fields, a Pak 40 also. An MG team were over looking the southern fields along with the Battlegroup Commander in his Panzer IV. A knocked out Tiger has been left on the road to create an obstacle to an easy advance.

The Soviets advanced across the field with a T-34 out in the open. It took fire from the Pak 40.

It brewed up easily, rounds cooking off inside.

The Soviet armoured car attempted to engage the LMG team, but the fire was ineffective.

In response to movement the LMG team opened fire on an advancing truck.

It blew up, but luckily the squad inside managed to escape. To be honest, advancing a truck was a bad idea, but I wanted to see how it worked shooting against soft skin vehicles.

Due to having to escape under fire, the Russian squad end up pinned.

The Panzer IV attempted to fire on the armoured car but missed. You can see a Soviet sniper team and the platoon commander advancing up the field.

Due to the left flank being unopposed, the platoon commander decided to relocate to the central wooded area, in order to best respond to the attackers. The forward infantry squad would soon follow suit, leaving the sniper on the flank to harrass any enemy towards them.

Soviet infantry managed to clear the MG 34 team from the woods, opening up the right flank.

This is the state of things. One lost truck and a T-34 gone. But otherwise, advancing. The ZiS 76mm has been deployed as a Panzer IV has been spotted firing. More troops will advance up. The forward most squad and armoured car will secure the woods ahead.

The Panzer IV and T-34 fired on each other.

With the T-34 coming out on top. The German battlegroup had now lost its overall commander. The platoon commander would attempt to keep the defensive line going. I searched and there didn't seem to be too much of a morale penalty for losing a FHQ unit, or a unit with the rule "senior officer". Maybe I didn't search hard enough. I feel like this should be a bad thing.

The Germans in the central wood managed to manhaldle the Pak 40 and move themselves around to face the enemy. This did, however, leave their new left flank exposed, but the infantry squad kept watch.

The T-34 and Pak 40 exchanged fire across the road. 

The Soviet shots went wild, whereas the Pak 40 scored a direct hit, destroying the attacking tank. The Russian sniper team advanced up through the woods, while the command tank remained just out of vision from that nasty German Pak.

Two Soviet squads and a Maxim team began to advance over the open ground on the newly exposed German flank. The German sniper did his job by providing harrassing fire to them, in an attempt to slow the advance.

The German platoon commander managed to spot the sniper team and fired with no effect.

Not wanting to get pinned down by sniper fire, the infantry squad bravely charged, killing the team and taking no casualties.

The Soviet squad advanced into the southern woods, claiming that objective. They could now provide covering fire while the others advanced up the flank. Inaccurate German mortar fire hit around the T-34 but achieve nothing, except for getting the attention of the Soviet armoured car, who circled the woods and plunged into the German rear to hunt down the mortar team.

Here we can see the Soviet flanking advance. The T-34 platoon commander still hugging the woods, and a truck load of infantry advancing up. Unseen, the ZiS has limbered back up to reposition in case and German armour reserves arrive, the BA armoured car has rushed into the German rear to cause havock, and the infantry squad has advanced to the edge of the woods to provide covering and harrassing fire.

More German sniper fire and he managed to take out the squad LMG gunner.

The central German infantry squad managed to pin a Soviet squad to help stall the advance.

Finally some German reserves arrived! The StuG III engaged and blew up the armoured car, which had been attempting to machine gun the mortar team into submission for a while.

With the armoured car gone, the mortar team was ordered to open up again on the advancing Russian trucks, pinning them. Unfortunately for the Germans the truck had already unloaded it's squad which was advancing towards the Germans in the woods.

The Soviets charged into the woods and destroyed the German squad, killing them to a man. The Russians took casualties themselves, and became pinned after faltering in morale. So they won the Close Assault, but lost three men and became pinned. Not sure it was a good idea. 

At this point it was 23:00 and I was getting tired. The Soviets had pulled 22/23 BR and so were not pulling more chits, leaving quite a lot of units pinned. Meanwhile the Germans, were only on about 12/23 and had finally gotten their reserves to arrive. We were on turn 6 or 7 I think. The Soviet victory conditions were to win by turn 9 by destroying/pinning everything or holding objectives. It looked like I was about to have a second battle within the battle by having most of a German platoon arriving to defend for two turns and time the Soviets out. So it was a pretty good German win. However, I played the Soviets poorly in two areas: 1. I wants to see how squishy T-34s were, so I sent one vs a Pak 40 to die. 2. I wanted to see how easily trucks died, soe let it die vs. an LMG. I would probably not advance trucks so close to the battle again. 

This game I switched inches to centimetres and I must admit my experience was far, far more fun than previously. The table felt the right sort of size for the game. The ranges, looked better when compared to the table. It was pretty cool. My brother is coming over in a few weeks and I imagine we will play. He bought me the Russians after all.