First Blood ‐ Verkhniy‐Kumskiy

The Germans have taken the village of Verkhniy‐Kumskiy and send their panzers towards the Soviets approaching from the East.

Game nine of the Winter Storm campaign is a bit different than a standard Chain of Command game. This scenario features only tanks and no infantry. Also the tanks do not arrive at the table edges but may use jump-off points. As usual we let the dice decide who played the Germans and who the Soviets.

This time I played the Germans (three panzer III and one panzer IV). The Soviets had three T34/76 and two T70 tanks (represented by T60 tanks, because I wasn't able to acquire the T70's).

Due to the lack of cover most jump-off points ended up at the table edges anyway.

I deployed my panzer IV which was soon facing two T34's!

In an attempt to be able to fire at the side armour I deployed my senior leader on a flank.

The panzer IV did however manage to knock out one T34 and the woods and smoke obscured the other one from the German senior leader.

My opponent then deployed his third T34 and blazed away at the German senior leader, scoring an incredible six out of six hits! I was only able to save two and lost my senior leader and his tank.

The panzer IV got hit repeatedly, but managed to survive. After rallying the crew and removing all shock the tank commander moved to get a shot at the side armour of the T34 that knocked out the German senior leader.

 Net three hits and the T34 exploded!

My opponent now brought up his smaller tanks and concentrated fire on the panzer IV that had knocked out two T34's already.

I deployed my remaining two panzer III's. One on the flank and one able to fire directly at the Soviets.

The panzer IV destroyed one T70 and drove the other one off the table before being destroyed itself by the last remaining T34.

Then the panzer III punched a hole in the T34 and it was over for the Soviets.

It was a fast game which went quite smooth. Activation options were limited, since only fours and threes could be used to activate units. The next scenario requires the Soviets to move from one short table edge to the other in order to claim victory so it will probably have more movement than this game.