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We had five members, plus a cameo from Scott Thompson, for our November meeting of the Slaughter at Ponyri CG playtest at St. Crispin’s.
Jim Cotugno and I were in command of the Germans against Dan Plachta and Dave Kocot as the Russians. Mario Goldgorin provided his dice rolling skills and neutral commentary. We resumed the action at with the bottom (Russian) portion turn 3.
The Russians launched a surprise counter-attack from the southwest board edge consisting of four T34’s and some lend-lease tanks. They swarmed the railway embankment from the southwest while two SU 76’s rolled in from the north. Their goal was to kill the two Elephants on the embankment by catching them in a crossfire. One of the great features of Ponyri is swirling tank battles where you get to see armored vehicles employed in the way they were designed. The SU 76’s posed a real threat, instead of being short-lived ‘CVP on the hoof’ as they usually are in a scenario.
The Russian counter-attack inflicted some serious damage on the German armor, including killing one of the Elephants. It could have been worse, because they were poised to break through into the rear of the German center. But the Russians hadn’t counted on the Germans launching an armored attack of their own. Jim and I had some vehicles held off board in reserve; three Marders, two StuG IIIG’s and a Stu42. We had intended to have these AFV’s add their weight to the turn 5 reinforcements, but we committed them instead to the German center on turn 4 to check the Russian threat. When the smoke cleared, the Russian tanks were destroyed, but the counter-attack had done its job; killing German armor (including an Elephant), drawing off reserves and disrupting part of the German attack.
The Russian’s dug-in T34’s continued to inflict grievous damage on the German armor; on the east flank they combined to kill 6 PzIV’s. But the German infantry continued to grind forward and on the east flank sappers cleared a 3 hex gap in the Russian wire, while a 4-6-7 and 9-1 killed a Russian KV that got a little too close the German infantry.
We called it a wrap after the Russian turn 4 rally phase. The action will resume in December. We had our usual ‘gamer’s lunch’ of hamburgers and hot dogs, and we called it a wrap at about 7:00 PM. Overall it was another great day of ASL!
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