I've always felt that Road to Berlin has some excellent scenarios, many of them with maneuver , which are fun to play. "Clash of Giants" did not disappoint and may well be the best PG scenario I have yet played. This one can be played many ways as there is a good sixed map with many avenues of approach and ways to defend. Both sides have to think it through and plan well.

The Soviets set up a defense in depth with a forward detachment long each road, dug in to delay the German advance. They put their light AT guns up there to hold the Panzergrenadiers at bay or force them to deploy so as not to get shot up in their Hanomags. The JS-2 tanks set up in the middle of the board to react in either direction. Then back about midway on the eastern boards the Soviet dug in a main defense on the southern road and centered the northern road defense on the town with AT guns on the flanks to trap the Germans.

The Germans chose a main effort attack on along the northern road with a supporting attack on the southern road to fix those enemy forces in place to not allow them to converge on the main effort. The King Tigers came in the center right at the Stalin tanks.

The attack jumped off well with the first half hour seeing furious tank battle that left all but one step of the Stalins burning for a loss of a PZ IV step and a Panther step. Then Germans came at the first line of Soviets with just their armor and reducing each with artillery and tank fire. But the supporting attack stalled when the Company Commander was killed by artillery moving to a position to call in fire. That left a feldwebel to lead the infantry into the woods to clear out the retreating Soviet infantry. He was wounded and the infantry attack quit until the medics patched him up.

n the north the Germans moved toward the main defense and had to deploy the infantry on foot to clear out the AT gun positions on the flanks, braving murderous artillery fire they accomplished their tasks and the whole northern force converged on the town. Then the Sturmoviks showed up and started pounding the King Tigers driving up the German casualty count. Now the the issue was in doubt as the Soviets reached their Minor Victory, the German now had to fight for a major victory which meant holding the northern road open while getting enough steps off the board. The Soviet defenders were getting mauled but held the town almost to then end, then collapsed. The Germans ran for the board edge and braved air, artillery and repositioned AT gun fire to just get 24 steps off the board in the final moments of the game. The Soviets tried to move the only surviving combat unit to the road to achieve their Major Victory condition: a 120mm Mortar unit on wagons. But the attempt at smoke to block the German OP failed and the German artillery blew the wagons and mortars away. The last German unit, a one step King Tiger platoon lumbered off the board to win.

This was a brutal scenario with the Soviets losing 55 pints of step losses and the losing 25; a death ride for sure.

With Germany’s last armoured reserves, Hitler demanded an attack to be launched in Hungary with the coming of spring 1945. It was pure madness and the Soviet command definitely did not expect such lunacy.

As such, the 1st Panzer Division march eastwards from Székesfehérvár towards the Danube River. They have two routes of advance but they chose not to split their force and march solely along the northern road. Their plan is to at least take control of the road and then see where the ship strands ( wonderful Flenglish). The Soviets on the other hand, were totally unprepared. They have put up a vanguard 85mm battery in the westernmost wood, another one together with a JS2 tank platoon in the woods just north of Seregelyes (the northeastern town along the road), a battalion of infantry in this very same town and a second battalion in Belsobarand, the second village situated just a click south of Seregelyes. All the other units are quartered within the southeastern woods locally called Vadaskert woods. Their objective is to stop the attack dead cold and as such they call in a huge favour of the VVS (the Red Airforce). They plan to not give the Germans a lot of targets while slowing them down with deadly artillery and the VVS.

But while the VVS command confirms the deal with a lot of “da da da”, they did a crucial no show for the first 90 minutes. Guess they had a more important football match just before scramble! During that time, the Germans were already exiting their first few units from the board. The defenders of Seregelyes put up a valiant struggle but they were no match for the Königstigers and Panthers. The Josef Stalin tank unit in the nearby wood panicked and tried to reach HQ but got smashed the moment it left cover. Things looked grim for the Soviets. The plan to stop the German juggernaut by denying them targets proved to be a giant mistake. The northern road was secured by the Germans in no time and there were enough bodies waiting to be taken in Belsobarand to easily score a major victory.

But then a glimmer of hope. Two JS tank formations blow their cover from the Vadaskert wood to shoot at three Königstiger platoons at 1600 yards. The first shot is a direct hit! The second is a miss and the Soviet tanks are obliterated by the returning fire, but it gets the Soviet commander up from his ass. The whole shebang moves out of the cover of the woods towards the north where the action is. And then the distant rumblings of Soviet planes can be heard.

At 9.15 (t12), the Germans exit a Panther and PzIV unit (already 18 steps exited by now) when right behind them, at the outskirts of Seregelyes, an IL2 squad targets a cluster of heavy armour. It does no direct kills but demoralizes a TigerII platoon and disrupts both Panther units. This leaves the town suddenly empty and immediately the Russian infantry dashes over from Belsobarand. With the might of the Soviet force now flanking the German positions in the wood opposite Belsobarand, a foot race ensues to reach Seregelyes first. The Soviets win. But the Germans do not try to recapture the town, they bypass the village and move up further north to try their luck around the northern wood. Luckily a Russian battalion was onto this move and made it their mission to close this gap. A single German platoon manages to escape from the map, but the others are contained and dealt with.

By now the whole eastern side of the map is littered with recovering troops of both sides. Steadily the German infantry is picked off one by one. And when at 10.15 the German CO gets killed whilst acting carelessly alone, German morale drops significantly. At 10.45 (t18), the Russians are the first to claim a temporary major victory by doing enough damage and moving the 85mm from the southwest woods onto the road. But oddly enough this is the moment the Germans had been waiting for! A German Sgt runs to spot the lone 85mm and artillery smashes it to pieces with its first shot. The tables have completely turned now because the Russians have just two leaderless 45mm and a single reduced / disrupted JS2 unit in the vicinity to reclaim the southern road, but all are on the wrong side of the Vadaskert wood! And right in front of them rumbles a TigerII in their direction…

Quick as they can, one of the 45mm limbers up and disappears into the wood to retry to secure the road. Three infantry units led by the Russian Major sprint from Belsobarand back to their former HQ while at the same time the JS crew desperately tries to recover morale. When the Tiger rumbles within spotting range, the tankers have no other choice than to snail pace themselves through the wood towards the road. The Germans now realize that the slow Tiger cannot manage this task alone and send a swift moving Panther platoon all the way from Seregelyes straight through the Soviet backline. But as it is whizzing by Belsobarand, a deviously lurking and thus completely overlooked by the Germans, JS2 unit shoots it in the flank. The Sgt and the Tiger will have to do this on their own! German OBA stops 2 of the 3 Russkie footsloggers while the Tiger and Stalin are doing their Konga line through the forest.

Meanwhile, at 12.15, the Germans are finally able to get enough troops off the board to claim their Major Victory objective. All they now have to do is deny the Russians from controlling any part from both roads. A big task indeed, considering that three quarters of Seregelyes is in Russian hands along with Belsobarand and the north woods. All the Germans have left in this part of the battlefield is a half squad in Seregelyes, three unscathed heavy panzer units on the northern road containing the Soviet occupants of Seregelyes and all their HMGs controlling the western part of the road.

At 13.00 (t27) a loud Ura from the Soviet CO is heard when the German Sgt succumbs to Russian OBA. This means that the southern road is certain to remain under Soviet control. A draw is in the making! What happens next is stuff made for legends. The German OBA gets called back towards Seregelyes and starts a veritable killing spree. Every shot is a direct hit wreaking havoc by raining hell onto the thin and brittle Russian line. The Russian commander’s Ura quickly turns out to be a bit premature. But all is not lost when in the last interval of the penultimate turn, the Russian Col orders an infantry unit to dash through Seregelyes right beside the hulks of two of the three panzer units. All the Soviets now have to do is win the zero vs zero initiative roll, assault both panzer units, which would also stop the Germans from spotting because they had infantry leaders riding on the tanks, and a draw is probably in the bag. Alas, the Germans win initiative by more than two. First they order a Panther unit further up the road to deny the sole remaining Russian infantry unit in the north wood from moving to the same spot. Drat, he had noticed it! Then the half squad in Seregelyes assaults and pins the bold moving infantry. Again drat! The Soviet Col returns the favour by also assaulting the two Tiger platoons to simply prevent them from opportunity firing the last Russian infantry unit capable of dashing onto the road. However, accurate German OBA stops that move before it even happens. Clutching at the very last bit of straw, the VVS is called in with a mighty three antitank attack plane versus the Panthers in the hope of somehow clearing the road again, but the plane undramatically fails to show up! And thus the Germans win a very hard fought Minor Victory!

Russian lamentations all through the debrief. Curses were uttered towards the totally useless VVS. They did a no show for the complete first third of the scenario and then failed to hit the board during the immensely critical last five turns! Curses for the uncharacteristic bad performance of Soviet OBA. They only did one good hit by killing the lone German Sgt. Curses for the smirking German remark that killing that Sgt was the key to the German win. The Germans were so preoccupied by the southern road that they neglected the outskirts of Seregelyes completely. Having the southern road snatched away so brutally, they focused back to the north where a few good hits obliterated just about all Russian threats. Curses for being right! Curses! But what a game we had! Again everything being decided on the last dice roll of the very last turn. We have no other option than to give this scenario a whopping 5 out of 5. Hell, we declare the whole road to Berlin module a well deserved 5! If you ever manage to buy, beg, borrow or heck even steal one box of the Panzer Grenadier series, make sure it is this one, you will not be disappointed!