Recently I was able to make it out to my buddies Friday afternoon Flames of War game, and what a game it was! Four of us played a giant game refighting a part of the Battle of the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket.

My buddy is a stickler for detail and always draws these really neat maps of the battlefield. I was one of the two Soviet players attacking from the right side of the map against two German players who were defending the left side of the map. The Soviet objective was to hold more objectives than the Germans, and it was the Germans job to prevent that from happening. The board was about 5′ wide and 20′ long. The objectives were placed two on each road, with three being about a foot onto the German side of the board, and the other three on the three roads at the midway point of the battlefield. On turn 1 the Soviet forces rolled on the far right road, turn 2 they came on the center road and turn 3 they came on board via the far left road. The Germans started with a large blob of infantry in the forest at the top of the map and a scattering of Panthers on board as a relief force of StuG’s, Panzer Grenadiers, and PzIV’s came from reserve to sure up the defense. Finally there were rules for fog, and night fall, both of which significantly affected line of sight. Not only was line of sight affected for shooting range but for movement as well. If a vehicle moved faster than the allowed line of sight there was a chance it would veer off track and end up somewhere it didn’t want to be! The fog could change by up to 5″ a turn, and depending on the turn determined wha the maximum and minimum range could be based on the time of day. With that lets get to the game!

Early on the Soviets begin advancing towards the Germans using the tree line to help cover their advance.

The Soviets begin the difficult task of digging out the dug in Germans in the woods to secure the close objective (the black dot on the road.) These Germans would slow down the Soviet advance for almost half the game. Many Iron Crosses would be sent home to the fatherland.

The Soviets move up to the far tree line and begin to engage the German reserves but due to some good saves the Germans gave much better than they took!

The SU’s rolled up the center and started to cause problems for the Panthers knocking one out and adding weight of fire against the StuG’s.

Not liking the sight of the advancing Soviets the Panthers decided discretion was the better part of valor and started to back up so as not to get swarmed by infantry and side shots by Soviet armor. On the left of the Soviet line the Panthers started to tear up the small force moving in to take the objective.

The Soviets were finally able to get enough weight to bear on the Germans in the wood and started their assault but lost three T-34’s in the process. The Soviet armor was arranged in groups of three or four tanks which prevented them from getting a real good mass for an assault. The Soviets in the center formed a spearhead and drove towards the rear objective while on the Soviet left flank the Germans began a counter attack to retake their objective the Soviets swarmed on earlier in the game.

The Soviets in the center continued to drive the Germans back. The Germans continued to punish the Soviets on the road on the far left making it very unlikely they would hold their recent conquest. The Soviets had worked some T-34’s towards the Panthers in the middle of the table and took them in a cross fire, slowly knocking them out.

The Germans finished recapturing the road from the Soviets but where unable to contest anything on the middle road. The Soviet infantry took too long in capturing their first objective so were relegated to keeping the Germans in the forest pinned down so they couldn’t retake the objective and couldn’t help capture the other road objective. The Soviets were able to push the Germans off the objective on the far end of the right road but did not have sufficient strength to full secure the objective with only one and two tank companies at this point. If the Soviets had pushed the final objective a turn earlier it is possible they would have been able to full capture it but as it was the Germans were able to sneak back into range to contest it.

With this the game ended, having reached the designated turn number, with a minor Soviet victory as the Soviets controlled 3 objectives, the Germans 2, and one was contested.

It was a really fun game and the slow moving fog made the game very interesting indeed as more than once shots were stolen by the fog, and relied upon line of sight blocking was lifted at inopportune times.

I love these big tank games and can’t wait for the next one!

-Wachtmeister