In this battle report one of my 13 year olds and I played the Germans under Franz Bäke as he attempted to relive the trapped Germans cut off in the Battle of the Korsun Pocket. As always we didn’t play with platoon or company morale and we also had special mud rules. The entire board, even the road, was considered deep mud and a bog check was required for all movement.

The Germans needed to deploy on the road and the Soviets would come in at random locations on the Northern and North Eastern board edges. The German convoy moved down the road (the were required to deploy on the road) as the Soviets hordes move to intercept them.

The lead Tigers won the race to the cross road and managed to destroy a T34 for their efforts.

The T-34’s superior numbers started to tell as they began to break through the German lines surrounding Bäke’s 2iC! The Germans were slightly slowed down by a bogged equipment truck and halftrack, but the Soviets were also not having any problems with their bog checks which certainly helped!

The German heavy cats moved up to start taking shots at the soviet horde. Somehow 1 more T-34 for the loss of the Panther was not a good sign….

The German scouts saw an opportunity to jump the SU-85’s and managed to kill one causing the other to break off!

The Soviets bailed another Panther for the loss of a few of their own. Still Bäke and his men were getting cut off when they were supposed to be the relief force!

The melee continued to develop with the Germans dropping their anti-tank guns as a rear guard. They didn’t have much effect but they did slow down the Soviets as they felt the need to advance more cautiously. The Germans saw their chance to force a breakout as it appeared the Soviets had overextended their advance. The only problem is the three Tigers in the center all managed to roll one on their bog check getting stuck exactly where they started!

The Germans were able to get moving again and started their breakout attempt.

Consistent with the way the rest of the game was going the Germans were able to get three Tigers in position to break out but the Soviets were able to destroy all three on the second to last turn! Wow. What a massacre!

The Soviets handily beat the historical odds in this game due in no small part due to the dice. I try not to blame the dice but in this game the Germans could not catch a break. They were generally hitting on 3’s and 4’s but through the course of the game if they hit 1/3 of the time I’d consider that lucky. Besides big cats guns had a Firepower of 3+ and allowed no armor saves for the Soviet armor but easily failed well over half the time. Conversly, when the Soviets penetrated the armor they were passing their fire power checks all but two or three times all game! The Soviets failed less bog checks with triple the pieces, and having to move further than the Germans did and once a German vehicle was bailed it stayed bailed for a minimum of three turns. The amazing 1/216 probability roll to bog the three Tigers was just the icing on the cake!

With that said I could have set us up better by putting all the armor at the front of the column and juking to the left of the road behind the tree line instead of the right. Still, with even average dice I think the game would have been a lot closer! Still, I got the chance to roll some dice with my son, and he got to learn that at some point kid luck disappears!

-Wachtmeister