The German forces started massed together in the southwest corner stretching to just beyond the western hills with the intention to move as a long lever clearing the southern half of the battle not leaving Soviet forces behind us as we moved North. The Soviets were not at all visible since the game is played Double blind with night vision of only 1 hex, Therefore the requirement that the Soviets place observation points was lifted until a unit was spotted. The German however still needed to observe the rule of placing observations points in the usual manner. At 03:45 the Germans had reached the road and secured the Western half of the southern section. At 04:00 a minefield was discovered on the road directly in front of the northern most town of the southern section slso Soviet observation point were noticed around the town. The Germans left a gap open along the western edge were existed N/S dividing line. Soviet forces tried to slide through this gap but were discovered by an officer sent over to investigate the area. The Soviet smg and infantry units were surrounded by 04:30 and removed. Near the town a Soviet T-34b and 3 infantry units were discovered, assaulting a dug in infantry a single german infantry unit was able to disrupt it. The Soviets assaulted back adding a leader and the T-34b destroying 1/2 the infantry unit and demoralizing it. However the Germans moved up into a death grip around the town and the Soviets left the field of battle. Since the rules of engagement change drastically for night battles, careful consideration must be used before entering into such battles.

In this scenario a strong but not overpowering detachment of Germans must basically clear two boards of an understrength Guards battalion supported by a platoon of T34s. Adding to the fun are a couple of entrenchments and some mines. Oh, and, of course, they have to accomplish this without taking too many casualties.

The kicker is that the Soviets don't have the strength to be effective defending everywhere so they have to choose their spots. Mine chose to set up in two spots on the south board with an entrenchment on the hill furthest to the south, forcing the Germans to split their forces somewhat as the other forces were in a town. The key for this setup is that for a minor victory the Germans have to clear the south board and grab a majority of the hills+town hexes on the north board.

So the Germans entered entirely on the south board with the intent of clearing the board, taking control of the geography and then turning north to the large town where the bulk of the defenders were. The southern town fell reasonably quickly and those forces, including the platoon of StGs moved northward to start the attack on the town. Unfortunately the entrenchment in the far south took considerably longer to subdue resulting in an anemic attack on the town which quickly got bogged down (the Soviets had an 11-1-2 captain to help out their 7-0-0 major).

As an interesting sidelight, the quality of the SS leaderships was quite poor in this selection (very few modifers) and as a result even solid assaults bogged down as the attacking Germans often became disrupted or demoralized and had to reinforce the hex and recover multiple times.

As the wearing fight went on the Germans ultimately lost too many steps to keep the Soviets from their minor victory conditions and simply didn't have the time to completely destroy the Soviets and take the northern board geography necessary for a Major Victory so both sides got a minor victory and we have a draw for a result. The play, however, was fun so this is a perfectly acceptable scenario. The draw I obtained seems to be the likely result with two minor victories but the process of getting there is pretty entertaining. I give it a "3".

This one is perfectly playable in any format.

The title makes this scenario seem a lot more fun than it really was...

I was frustrated by this one: I had no idea how to get the Germans to go where I wanted them to go (that sounds really stupid, now that I think about it) and more importantly, I didn't oppose the Germans on the hills close to the edge. They seemed to know where I was and refused to walk into my planned ambush.

And, yes, I ran screaming from the battlefield long before the sun came up.