This was a second scenario we played on this day back in 2006. First, one was a draw so we tried another,but this was a draw as well. I attribute this to the victory conditions, some make it easy to split a game. This was a similar situation.

In this small scenario the Germans need to hold all the town hexes until turn 7, then run for the west edge. In our play the Germans held until turn 7 but then failed to get enough units off the board, leaving us again without a clear winner.

While once again we find a large group of Soviet Guardsmen attacking an inferior German force defending a town, as in the previous two scenarios, the Soviets aren't slogging through snow, night is not falling and here the artillery is well caught up with the attackers.

The victory conditions are tighter, however. The Soviets have to take at least four hexes of the town prior to the end of turn 7 and then keep the Germans from exiting 9 steps from the board at the end of turn 13. Throughout the game until the end of turn 7 both sides had a reason to think that victory was at hand.

The first part of that victory condition is tough to acheive but it is relatively easy to contest four which will make it impossible for the German player to win. In my play the Germans placed two machine gun platoons dug in on the approaches to the town with the bulk of the infantry, such as it is, in the town to try to stop the Soviets from getting into a position to contest more than three hexes. Unfortunately the Soviets were able to get enough troops adjacent to the town on turn 5 and maintin enough good order to contest 4 hexes leaving the Germans with the need to exit 9 steps. Through a random event the Germans were able to get 7 steps of reinforcements which, once the win was no longer possible were able to turn away with another platoon and exit the board easily.

An outright win for either side seems unlikely but it was intriguing to see how a nearly identical Soviet force to that showing up in Scenarios 7 and 8 would be able to accomplish so much more once they didn't have to slog across an heavily snow covered empty field in the dusk without artillery support. Not withstanding the ability to compare the situations the lack of true novelty gives it a 2.