Another week and another exciting scenario played with Conflict of Heroes: Storms of Steel 3rd edition. After the first four, infantry-based scenarios we decided to jump to the skirmish number #7 Wounded Tiger featuring tanks! And what tanks they were – the mighty Tiger is a key unit here, immobilized due to the engine failure, waiting to be rescued by Panzer III and IV deployment. But a pack of T70 and T34 are ready to quickly strike and destroy it before help can arrive.
The Kursk battle rages on. On day 3 of the German offensive, III Panzer Corps blasted a narrow corridor a few kilometers wide through the Soviet defensive lines. The battlefield at Kursk was littered with tanks – abandoned due to mechanical problems rather than combat – which both sides attempted to retrieve and repair. As the German spearhead advanced, an immobilized Tiger is left behind in a field. Through the unsecured flanks, a platoon of T-34s and T-70s slips back to finish off the ‘helpless’ Tiger.
Session report
It was the first time that we played on full, four maps area; above you can see the disposition of the forces – Germans (blue), Soviets (red). And the closeups follow… (click to enlarge)…the hunters (lead by me)…. (click to enlarge)…the rescue team (lead by Kuba)…. (click to enlarge)…and the hunted – Wounded Tiger, so main point of the whole scenario! (click to enlarge)Turn 1 was very interesting – my pack of T34/T70 closed quickly on Tiger, using a small village as a cover. Still, two of my tanks were hit but not yet destroyed. At the same time the German rescue team was approaching from a flank (click to enlarge)Beginning of Turn 2 – very crucial moment of the game – Tiger flanked by T-34 and destroyed in two salvos!However, that was not end of the game. By no means! The German rescue team transformed into the attack force, killing quickly two of my tanks. As we do not have the wreckage expansion, we used smoke as depiction of places with the destroyed armor (click to enlarge)Situation mid-game (after TURN 2): My Soviets in the lead as far as points are concerned, Kuba with lost Tiger but other then that unscratched (click to enlarge)The battle rages on – in Turn 3 and 4 another 3 of my tanks and one of Kuba’s are destroyed. I am greatly surprised by special card Germans have which allows one of their tanks to be automatically recovered (click to enlarge)Turn 5 is our struggle for victory – both sides shoot on pretty low probabilities but luck – and 1 point victory – goes to Kuba (Germans) (click to enlarge)End of game status situation on the map – all causalities marked in colors (click to enlarge)End of game status situation on the players mats (click to enlarge)
That was a really exciting and interesting game. It could go any way but in the end finished in marginal German victory (we need to adjust points as we played with not updated Mission Book). This is also one of the quickest Storms of Steel skirmishes and can be easily repeated which definitely will happen to us 🙂
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