[AAR] No Retreat - Berkut vs. Tamas

[Tamas]

I mentioned this marvelous little game in the boardgame thread.
It covers the entire Eastern Front of WW2 with about 40 counters and a deck of cards, and it does a great job at it, especially in converting the whole campaign into a balanced game.

Berkut plays the evil nazis bent on subduing the Soviet workers paradise, defended by the one true champion of Communism, me.

This is the starting situation:



In order to understand the ensuing cataclysm better, you must know, that in my opinion this game is about two things: supply, and zones of control
The basic way to get supply is to be in 4 uninterrupted hexes of a city controller by you, which in turn can traces a route of unlimited length to your edge of the board. These paths can only be sought from either the western (Axis) ro Eastern (Soviet) 3 hexes adjacent to the unit or city.

Berkut has 11 turns (until start of 1943) to close off the campaign on his terms. If he fails to achieve an auto-victory by that time, Initiative changes to me, and it will be him who will try to stop me from earning enough VPs.

Going back to the starting situation, the only real question regarding the Axis opening move is the Soviet Army Group West. That's the only one the Germans can completely cut off from supplies with their opening move. It is no problem for them to destroy it, or the Northwest and Southwest AGs, but if the Germans encircle it and stop, and the Soviets do not go overboard to try and save it, it surrenders, which makes it twice as expensive to rebuild, and scores a potentially important VP for the Axis.

The disadvantage normally is that if the Axis destroy it in combat instead, their panzers can reach Minsk via advance, and start their turn from there.


Berkut went with the encircling option. He also destroyed the SW and NW Army Groups, and using one of the Blitz markers he got (these are column shifter bonuses received at some turn. The Soviets have the Shock version of it), he dislodged AG South from the Romanian border, which I retreated to Odessa. Easily encircible there, sure, but it receives supply from the Black Sea.


Now,  during my turn, I drew 4 cards, burned two to rebuild the two lost units, put the Reserve unit on trains, and formed a pretty standard delaying line, making sure that no hex remains without my ZOC in the line. It ran from Odessa through just east of Kiev (still mine), to just east of Minsk (still mine) and that lake east of Riga (German already)
It was a thing of beauty, except that Berkut had a card (Surprise Attack) which allowed him to move a stack and put a Counterblow marker on it.

Counterblows are attacks which you are forced to make in your turn, triggered by your opponent by discarding cards or playing events. Your opponent forgoes defensive terrain advantages with it, in the hopes of distributing your otherwise concentrated attack in neighboring hexes, or, as in this case, to trigger a Counter Attack of his own.

So, the 3rd Panzer and the 9th Army marched into Minsk and had my unit east of it attack them. And since this Counterblow which was forced on my troops caused me to attack on worse than 1:3 odds, it automatically became a German counterattack.

There I was, with a very real danger of my defensive line being broken, immediately before the Germans would move again.
So, I played Conflicting Hitler Directives to cancel Berkut's Surprise Attack. Russia saved!

Or not. Berk had Stalin's Interference, which in turn cancelled my event. Thanks, Stalin!

The counterattack proceeded, but my unit managed to retreat, even with Berkut playing Expert Leaders to influence the result.

At the end of the turn, I completed my delay-line by de-embarking the Reserve unit, and my AG West surrendered to nazi agressors.

TURN 2 - JULY-AUGUST 1941

As of this moment, we are through with Axis movements and declarations of voluntary attacks (the targeting marks on the map below). I also triggered a Counterblow (red arrows marker):

[The Brain]

Nice with a game that isn't crazy huge.

[szmik]

[Solmyr]

Map sucks.

[11B4V]

Being that there's no popcorn eating emo (MODS!). I am watch this with intrest.

[Tamas]

TURN 2 CONTINUED

There was no question the Soviets would be owned this turn, the only question was, how much? I had one card to affect the outcomes, for the rest, it was up to Berkut's positioning, and luck.
I chose to intervene on the northern front. I needed a breath there to move back the Leningrad defense for to the city, since I needed them to block the northern edge before this.

So, when the Germans attacked the Reserve Front guarding the south-western approach to the great city, I played NKVD. Which meant, that in place of normal combat resolution, each side would roll a dice, the loser being the one rolling smaller, and losing a step. Retreat, and more importantly, advance, was to be cancelled. One exception: if both rolled the same number, a normal combat resolution would commence.

And of course Berk rolled double 4s, and with his earlier play of Guderian for this combat, the result was a retreat.

But! He did not advance in a way to cut off the movement path of the Lengingrad defense force. Which also means that I could plan to use my single unit rail capacity to evacuate Odessa (considered to be a sea evacuation, and I would had needed it to save the Leningrad unit. That's crucial, since those local defense force units can be, from my 3rd turn, converted into fortress units). You can see the very discouraging situation after the German turn here:



Bad, right? Well, yes and no. I was up to draw 4 cards, I had two shattered units (these come back on the map free, albeit unable to attack unless you burn a card to reorganize them), two destroyed (costs one card discard to bring back), and one surrendered (costs two cards). Plus two new fresh units.

I drew my 4 cards, burned two on getting the destroyed ones back, then placed these total of 6 units I could (2 shaken, 2 replaced destroyed, 2 reinforcements). I placed and then moved these to recreate my delaying line, and de-embarked South Front in the samps of the Crimea. I may end up regretting not putting them to bolser the defense of the steppes, but I had to make a call.

There was no combat or German card interference, so this is how end of Turn 2 looks (this is where we are at now):

[sbr]

[Tamas]

I will try to not disclose my plans, but since I am trying to explain general strategy in this post, Berkut pls skip this post




Turn 2 concludes the guaranteed good weather turns at start. I may still get unlucky and have Berk draw a weather changer event, turning the coming mud turn into clear weather, which could have very severe reprecussions on my steppe frontline. But a major German reorg toward there would lift the currently mounting pressure on Leningrad and Moscow, so I could have some spare resources to counter a long summer.


But if the weather doesn't change, we will be looking at a roughly historical setup: the Germans would be at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad, but with bad chances of finishing the conquests, especially with Leningrad. Far from impossible in case of Moscow though.
Turn 4 wil be winter, with ability to attack soviets reduced. Turn 5 (start of '42) will be even tougher winter, a one-time suckage for Germans, rendering them almost incapable of attacking Soviets, unless they muster a very superior force (-2 column shift for attacking the Russkies).

In other words, barring any surprises, Turn 3 should still be a turn full of defeats for the Soviets, but also a noticable slowdown of the German advance. Turn 4 will be a pivotal one, the Germans will still have the strength to potentially push for an auto-victory, but the Soviets will also start to grow some teeth.
But the cards can carry nasty surprises, especially if you are lucky and smart to combo their effects. First auto-victory check will be at the very start of Turn 3 and Berk is short with 3VPs (has 17, need 20), but the next one will be on start of Turn 6, and that IS within his possible reach if he manages to outmaneuver me.

[CountDeMoney]

I better see some white-on-black SS counters by 1943.

[11B4V]

Hey, where you get that?

[Tamas]

TURN 3, SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1941

The invading armies closed off the distance again and went on the attack, here is the situation before German attacks were rolled:



So as you see, they struggled through the autumn mud, and launched an attack toward Moscow, as well as trying to take Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk.

Little did they know, that the "Not a step back!" order was issued and echoed throughout the eastern front. With their backs to the wall (well, more like to their capital and a vast open steppe), Soviet soldiers made a desperate stand. (I played the relevant event, which made all "defender retreats" combat result be combined to an "exchange" one - both sides lose a step, no retreat and advance).

In the ensuing bloody fights, the Russian units defending west of Moscow, and defending Kharkov got eliminated, but the German 16th and 6th Armies also suffered considerable losses. The failed Romanian-German attack on Dnepropetrovsk resulted in a counterblow, which means the Soviets have to perform an attack on the German 11th army, or retreat to get free of that obligation.

My turn started out very badly: Berkut played "Stalin Orders Attack" on me: I was to perform at least 3 voluntary attacks this turn, or lose a VP. Well, that VP may cost me the game at the victory check on Turn 6, but so could 3 attacks against superior German forces. So I decided to ignore Stalin's orders, then blame my staff and have some of the scribes be sent to the gulag.

On the positive side of things, I had the Sevastopol and Moscow defense forces arriving as reinforcements, and I also received a Cadre unit. You can place these down in the place of destroyed units, and later replace them in turn with -guess what- replacement units.
Also, 4 valuable cards were discarded to recover the two eliminated and one surrendered unit (this one is back from the Turn 1 surrender).
Some pretty nice events were discarded, but these were decisive moments.

Below is the situation at the end of my Movement phase, prior to Berkut placing counterblows. A unit of mine, the South Front which was previously north of Sevastopol, was in the railroad pool, ready to be placed where it is needed at the end of this turn.

[crazy canuck]

/popcorn

[grumbler]

Thanks for such a clear AAR, Tamas.

[Zoupa]

I know nothing about wargames, but this is pretty cool

[Tamas]

TURN 3 CONTINUED

Two counterblows developed near Moscow. The Kalinin front jumped into attacking superior enemy forces West-South West of Kalinin (the unit and the city), and with big luck managed to disengage without serious losses.

The Southwest Front, pushed into a desperate stand just west of Moscow, triggered a counterattack against their ill-fated counterblow attack, which yielded an Exchange result, eliminating the soviet unit (thereby exposing a weak Moscow garrison) and causing serious casualities to 2nd Panzer.

The 3rd triggered counterblow was out of almost-surrounded Kharkov, which also presented a counter-attack possibility for the Germans, but they did not use it. Clearly their plan was to trap that unit in the city.

All that remained after these was to detrain my South Front unit. I had two basic choices: beef up the southern defences, making a major German breakthrough there during this winter unlikely, but offering a very decent chance at them capturing Moscow, or, send the unit to Tula, offering better odds for Moscow with a Counterblow on it next turn, but risk a major rout in the steppes, due to the very exposed flanks of my defenders in Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk.

Without being convinced that it was the best call, I decided to go with a de-training in Tula. Moscow must stand!