As wayne mentioned in his AAR this was for the first half, very much a game of cat and mouse with a lot of manuvering. Eventually someone has to stick their neck out to get some shots firing. So eventually I was the one to move into firing range and take the first losses, a lot of losses but I knew having played this one out solo that it's only a matter of time before the German foot units can at least catch up with the slower-moving KV-1s and overrun them. Also, once the Soviets get flushed out of the town it is not so hard to eventually get some of their units in a crossfire. I managed this but just barely and really thought I had lost this one with my earlier blundering but then was reminded that tank step losse do not count double in this one for victory purposes. So once in the crossfire I was able cause a domino effect after eliminating the first step of T-34As. A situation arises where the Soviets have to make a decision to return fire and eliminate the units that have set-up the crossfire or to run. Well, he did eliminate one platoon of panzers and then soon moved up an adjacent hill. However, I still had a reduced and disrupted panzer a few hexes further back that still had heavy tanks in range to continue even more crossfire results. I was also soon able to run up on the one reduced and disrupted T-34 with INF and HMG unitss close by but not without losing a step from opportunity delivered by a triple stack of Bt-7s, however, the assault is still sucessful. After the smoke cleared from even more deadly crossfire another platoon of T-34s were gone and the remaining reduced and demoralized KV-1 ripe for another assault from the German foot units. And that was it, both sides inflicted enough losses for a victory on turn 13 ending this one in a draw.

I believe Wayne is right that this one favors Germany a bit and that is also a good beginning or training scenario for someone new to using armored units of varying firepower and movement rates with a lot of terrain to utilize as well. With the Germans you can make a few mistakes, in my case a lot of mistakes and still have a shot. You also have to learn or employ crossfire tactics to realistically hope to get rid of all the Soviet heavies, especially the KV-1s with their armor rating of 5 and you have to follow through foot units making assaults on damaged or barely mobile tank units. Anyway, it was a good play and glad to have walked away from this one with a draw. I almost panicked after taking a solid beating the first half of this battle but luckily was able to recover and bounce back to even the score in time. A solid "3" rating from me