RPT 30 Knocking on the Front Door

Don Petros emerged from his self-imposed ASL hiatus this week to challenge me in a scenario. We chose RPT 30 “Knocking at the Front Door” from Schwerepunkt’s Rally Point III pack.

This scenario takes place on boards 53 and 54, with a small group of SS defending a town against a Russian assault. An SSR creates a fairly large graveyard area, which makes for a slightly unusual terrain feature. The Russians have a mixed force of 6-2-8’s, 4-4-7 and 5-2-7’s with good ELR and decent leadership. They also get two KV-S tanks and two T-70’s (with radios). The Germans get a group of 4-6-8 SS, well lead and armed, for on-board set-up, and two Panthers escorted by two 5-4-8 SS squads that enter on turn 2. The Russians win by clearing the town of good-order Germans. But the Germans can will by killing all four of the Russian tanks. Don took the Germans and I took the Russians.

I decided to push into the town as quickly as possible, hoping to get my armor in close to the buildings and board-edge to help them survive against the Panthers. The KV-S is a good tank; fast (14 MP), well armed (76L fast traverse) and decent armor (8 AF) but no match for the Panthers, and the T-70’s are burning wrecks waiting to happen. The scenario takes place in March, 1944, so the Germans have PF, but with a range of 1.

Using leader-lead stacks, road movement and riders, I ran my infantry and tanks into the town as quickly as possible, and by turn 2 I was pushing hard against the German positions, giving up some flat shots to draw fire and strip concealment. A moral check generated a Russian 4-4-7 Berserk squad, which promptly charged strait into the German’s most critical fire base in the graveyard. That Berserker drew a lot of ineffective DF, and my other squads pretty much followed in behind it. I left one squad on my far left with a 50mm Mtr, and they set up around the center of the board in case Don sent his reinforcements around my flank. It would prove to be a fortuitous move.

On turn 2 it was time for Don to bring on the Panthers and reinforcements. From a Russian perspective, I assumed that Don would swing the Panthers around my right flank and start tank-hunting. But from the German perspective, that choice wasn’t so obvious. The Germans really need the Panther’s FP to hold the village. So Don hedged his bets; sending one Panther into a good firing position in the village, and the other around my flank to take on one of my exposed KV’s. He ignored my lowly little 50mm Mtr, which started pelting the Panther with fire. And you guessed it, immobilized the Panther during turn 3 prep. I still lost my exposed KV, but the Panther was pretty much out of the game.

For the next three turns, we pretty much slammed infantry into the village in a close-quarter knife fight, and 4 hexes of the village changed hands almost every movement phase. Although the Germans are badly outnumbered, they have better moral and rally faster, and Don kept feeding them back into the fight. We continuously exchanged 12+2 and 16+3 shots. Don remarked “this scenario has all the subtlety of a fight between Popeye and Blutto.” Both side used their tanks in direct fire of key hexes from defilade positions. Then, on my next to last turn, I rolled up another Berserker, who promptly charged across the graveyard and into another key German position. The rest of my troops followed them forward, securing all of the victory hexes. Don’s Germans counter-attacked again in his last movement phase, but the Russian FP was too much, and they eventually all broke by DF. End of scenario.

For a guy who hadn’t played in several months, Don played well. His dice went south on him on the last couple of turns, and in a scenario like this with so many fire attacks and MC’s, the dice are mostly going to win or lose the end game, and it cost him.

I’d be interested in playing this one again, to see how the armor battle might play out, and how it might have played if I hadn’t rolled up Berserkers at key points. Roar is already showing this pro-German, and Don and I think that with even dice, it could be hard on the Russian. But it was fun, and we had a very enjoyable game.