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Patch has been fairly distracted lately by other parts of his life, so for our latest game, we went for one of the simpler scenarios from Up Front, and simple sides—German vs Russian.

I had the Germans, and split my squad into two teams, with B taking most of the better members, the LMG, and the DC, while the SL led A. Patch split his Russians up into four groups, A had his five best guys and the DC, B had five second-best, including the LMG-toting ASL, and C had three morale 3 guys, and D had the last two morale 2 guys. (I’m giving the Fire Strength and all the modifiers that applied to attacks; a ‘C’ refers to a concealment card played on it.)

There was no pre-game terrain, and I led by putting Wire on Patch’s B, which he immediately Moved off of. I Fired anyway at his A (1), which failed to do anything, and I realized just how high-quality his guys there were. I then Moved B up to range 1, and into Buildings (-3), and they then Fired at his B (2; -3C) to pin one man.

Patch finally acted after that, Moving his D up to range 1, and my B immediately Fired on them (3+1), pinning both, while my A Moved forward. Patch put a Brush on my A, and I accepted it. He then put a Wire on my B, but I had no movement available. Then his D went to ground in Brush, and then Rallied, making them the best-protected group he had. My B Fired at his B (3-1), and pinned two men, who were immediately Rallied, while his A and C Moved up. I Moved my A up while he was busy, Patch’s men all halted in open ground, while mine took a Hill.

From my hilltop, I Fired at his A (4+1; -3C), and pinned one man while malfunctioning a machine pistol. (I’ll note the cards were poor enough that I still wouldn’t have outright killed anyone on Strength 5 without the concealment. In fact, I would have only pinned two.) Patch immediately Rallied, and I permanently broke the machine pistol, leaving me with only four weapons in the group. After a pause, my A Fired on his again (3+1), pinning three men. Patch Rallied 2 of them, and his group B finally moved up and into Buildings (-3).

My Sniper pinned a man in his B, and his A Fired at my A (1-1), doing nothing. A little later, his B Fired at my A (3-1; -1C), pinning two men, including the weaponless one, who were immediately Rallied. Patch finally Rallied All to get his men in A and B up again, while I finally Moved off the Wire on my B. Then his A Fired at my A (2-1; -1C) to pin two men, and followed up with Fire from his B at the same group (1-1), to do nothing. I Rallied my two men.

Patch started trying to Entrench all his men out in the open, but didn’t have any immediate success. His B Fired on A (1-1) to pin one man. Reminded that the rest of his men were out there, and relatively low morale, my A Fired on his C (2+1) to pin one man. Wire appeared on the hill to complicate things there. A second attempt Entrenched Patch’s D. Fire from his B at my A (1-1+1; -2C) did nothing, and I finally Rallied the pinned man there. Patch finally Entrenched his groups A and C. His B Fired at A again (2-1+1; -2C), pinning two men, who were immediately Rallied.

Patch’s D Moved up to range 3, and my B Fired at his A (2-1; -1C) to do nothing (I had forgotten about his D, or else I might have fired on them). D stopped in open ground again, and now I Fired on it from B (3) to pin them both, and from A (4) to Rout one man. Patch Rallied the remainder, and then Moved him laterally into Brush. The Russian Sniper failed to do anything to my Group B, who then finally Moved off of the Wire. Patch’s D re-entrenched. My B Fired on his B (3-3) and pinned two men, then my A Fired on B (2+1-3) to pin another man and panic one of the pinned ones, at the cost of the SL malfunctioning his machine pistol. Patch rallied the rest, and then, after my Sniper tried to hit that group, they eliminated him.

Patch’s A Moved forward, and my B fired on them (1+1), pinning two right before they ducked into Buildings (+3). His B then Fired on A (1-1) pinning on one man, then A Fired on them (4-1; -3C) for no effect. My next turn saw the SL in A permanently break his weapon. Patch Rallied his men in A, followed by me doing the same. Patch’s Sniper had no effect on my B. Patch’s B Fired on my A again (3-1; -3C) for no effect. My B Fired at his A (4-3; -1C) for no effect. A little later, my A Fired on his C (1+1-1) to pin one man, followed by my B Firing on them (2-1) to rout the pinned man. Patch’s A Fired on my A (5-1; -2C) to pin two men, followed by his B at my A (2-1) to pin the other three men, and routed one. I Rallied everyone, but Group A was down to four men, with only two serviceable weapons (both rifles), for fairly minimal firepower.

My A Fired on C (1+1-1) to pin one man, and B followed up at the same (2-1) to pin the other. The next turn, B Fired on his C again (2-1) panicing one man, and then Patch Rallied the remaining one. My B then Fired on his A (3-3) to pin one man, and followed it up with the same next turn (3-3; -1C) to do nothing other than malfunctioning another machine pistol. Patch’s A Fired on my A (4-1) to pin one man, and then his B followed up (1-1) for no effect. I Rallied A, and the weapon in B repaired (for once!). Patch Rallied his man in A.

With my Group A being relatively exposed, and lacking in useful firepower, I put Smoke on the hill, and discarded Wire onto Patch’s B, but he immediately Moved off of it. My B Fired on his A (3+2+1-3), and killed one man outright. Patch’s A Fired at my A (2-1-1), to pin one man, and then Fired B at my A (4-1-1) routing the pinned man (taking his weapon with him), and pinning another. I Rallied the pinned man. More Wire showed up on my Group B. And a couple turns later, I put Wire on Patch’s Group A.

Patch’s A Fired on my A (3-1-1-1) to pin two men, and followed up with Fire from his B (5-1-1) to panic one man and pin the remaining good order one. I Rallied the survivors, which were the SL and the one man still with a weapon (in fact, he was the last casualty of the game, and he was the first person who broke his weapon; despite starting with a Morale of 2, Patch had generally drawn low RNC against him). I Moved off the Wire in B, followed by Patch Moving off his Wire.

Patch’s B Fired on my A again (4-1-1) to pin the SL, who I immediately Rallied. My B Fired on his A again (1+1+1-3) for no effect. Patch’s A Fired on my A (3-1-1) for no effect. And after a few more discard rounds, the game ended at the finish of the third deck. Patch won with 4 guys in Group A at Range 2 in Buildings (8 VP), 4 guys in Group B at Range 1 in Buildings (4 VP), two routs (2 VP) and a kill (2 VP) for a total of 16 VP. I had 5 guys in in Group B at Range 1 in Buildings (5 VP), one rout (1 VP), and 4 kills (8 VP) for 14 VP.

Afterword

Patch had a pretty good plan with four groups and an obvious desire to move up and get into good ranges, with the low morale guys way out on the flank where it was harder to reach them. However, he hardly saw any terrain cards at all in the early going, which is what kept him stopping in open ground regularly. I had planned to move around more than I did early on, but once again got choked with a lack of Movement cards. The three Moves to Range 1 and 2 in my two groups, plus getting rid of a Wire or two represents every Movement card I saw until about halfway through deck 2. It’s a good thing I didn’t try a three group setup (which was considered), as I’d never have managed to get all three into motion. I did have some movement possibilities at the end, and if I’d discarded slightly different, might have gotten my nearly useless Group A into a Gully for the final ~1/4 deck of the game.

The dominating thing for me in this game were the weapon failures in Group A. It really left me with one effective group for the final deck or so, though it still managed some effective fire thanks to the +1 strength bonus. The lack of movement kept Group B at Range 1, and meant I never had a chance at the higher power cards, though I could manage 8-12 firepower at various groups.