We left off just before the second soviet turn of their Counteroffensive.
Jan/Feb: Germany runs away from the soviet counteroffensive everywhere but the south. Center HQ ends up adjacent to Kiev. Axis delay rolls are once again worth complaining about (6,3 for the luftflottes, 6 for uboats; all -2). The soviets ding a step off the germans in the south in their turn, but mostly pull back to strong defensive positions stacked deep.
Mar/April: Speer/Crusader/Reforms are revealed. The axis begins a campaign of putting the brits in Albania out of supply, massive support unit commitment by both the Axis and the brits. The last turks in the balkans are cleared out of salonika. The last british support unit (Royal Navy), apparently saved for this purpose, is used to invade salonika, depositing two steps there within HQ range of the five brits in Albania. The Uboats and Regia Marina, which were contested in the grand naval melee in the Central Med, both suffer naval disasters. I put two support units into the Special Delay box, they both get hit. Sigh. However, the two steps that were deposited in Salonika had been the HQ sitting in Suez, up until now....
Apr/May: Axis puts an air unit in Alexandria to again cut supply to Albania, and launches a 3-2 against alamein (alas, without an air shift thanks to storms), killing a brit and an italian. A 3-1 attack in salonika kills a yugoslavian and a brit. In the East, the axis moves forward to engage the soviet stacks. The soviets lose several stacks to disengaging attacks, and pull back to heavy defensive positions around Leningrad, the moscow region, and Rostov. Sevastopol is max-stacked.
May/Jun: I reveal Festung Europa. Alex and I talked a fair amount about this, and I think we've come to the conclusion that I was overly cautious about it. I felt it likely I could seize the two more strat hexes to get to Tide 3, but I was utterly unconvinced I could hold them through Uranus and Torch. I was also very worried about force pool issues meaning that I'd lose lots of steps that I couldn't take as replacements when I played Festung in the Winter. By playing Blue, I have a 1/6 chance of getting to Tide 3 and all the HQ's I could possibly want in time for Uranus and Torch. Based on the fact that it looks like I could get enough steps for a Winter Festung if I managed to build all the armies in my force pool and the results of the first turn of Blue, it does seem like I was overly cautious. Of course, some of the stunts I pulled wouldn't have worked with Blue....
My winter and fall delay rolls put a bit of crimp in my operational plans, but Alex's british invasion of Salonika made up for it. By putting ObK in Istanbul and building an armor step there, along with a beachhead adjacent to Alamein and Alexandria and an air unit in Alexandria, I was able to put together a 4-1 on the stack in Alamein. (British Forces in egypt/palestine/jordan at this point were 6 steps including the first army and the garrison unit in alamein, the persian reserve corps, and one more step in suez.) I got pretty much the optimal die roll against the british stack in Alamein (Dr1 0/2) which forced them to take three step-losses rather than managing to retreat. Blitz combat reduced the alamein forces to a single step retreating; axis forces take Alamein and Alexandria in force.
My last air unit went to Sevastopol, where I put together a 3-1 (I'd originally had a plan that put ObK in Dnepropetrovsk and got me a 4-1 on sevastopol off of one air, but then I realized I could boost my raw odds in Egypt from 3-2 to 2-1 by the shift in plans.) Two 3-1 attacks on sevastopol get me a total of a dead Turk and a dead Soviet step for a panzer. That's pretty crappy, but considering that I broke the brits in exchange, I'm not going to complain.
In the North, I shift my axis advance, once again lunging to threaten Leningrad. The Finns get into the act, moving into position to attack the Line fort that got rebuilt in the frontier defending Leningrad in the second turn of summer. (Ok, so pulling back to Helsinki in the winter might not have been the optimal play after all....)
The brits reveal Arsenal of Democracy and run to Jerusalem (after about 15 minutes of running back and forth to the computer screen with the Cyberboard map on it to try to bring the map into alignment with what's there; we ended up with an approximation that we think isn't functionally different). Alex bemoans his card choice, figuring that the extra american steps would be really handy right now, but is very glad he hadn't gone with his wackier idea of trying to sneak into an italian or french city and shock me by revealing Avalanche as his Summer of '42 (effectively) card play.
The soviets reveal (to no one's surprise) General Mobilization. Alex puts together various wacky plans in reaction to the threat to Leningrad. The first one has me salivating in response, as he ends up sticking a bunch of units out into the smolensk region in reach of most of AGN (at this point, there's no such thing as AGC; the soviet and axis forces are clumped in the moscow-leningrad region and the sevastopol-rostov region). It was a sort of dubious plan, where he sails a corps into an ungarrisoned talinin, walks a soviet corps down from Oulu to zoc an empty helsinki, and shoves turkish cav way forward, all with the goal of cutting enough supply lines that leningrad can only be hit with two air units in the following turn. This plan falls apart, alas, due to two reasons: I only expect to have 2.5 air units available on the following turn (1 coming off the turn track, 3 in the delay box at 50% each); more importantly, he can't both sail to talinin *and* give the guy in Oulu the supply it needs to zoc Helsinki.
His revised plan is unfortunately far more effective. The guy in Oulu is put into supply and zocs Helsinki. A bunch of guys sally from leningrad to pop the German-Finnish army that's pinned in place by the zoc in helsinki (the two finnish armies left were north of that, in an abysmal placement by yours truly). The German-Finnish army evaporates between blitz and regular combat, and the 0-1-2 from oulu reserve-moves into Helsinki. Axis forces remaining in finland: 1-2-4 mountain corps OOS and in soviet ZoC. Oops. The rest of the plan is to hunker down, with forces in Leningrad, Volkov, and the moscow region, with an HQ hiding behind Volkov. Due to the forces sent against the Finns getting stuck in enemy ZoC, leningrad has only six steps after the conditional replacements.
Then we get to the all-important delay die rolls: We save the most important one for last... in support units and whatnot, the Allies come out somewhat ahead: the soviet Air Support unit shows up immediately and the Axis only has two air units (plus the night fighter) to match against it. Then the crucial No Retreat die roll comes up... anything but a 6, and I'm at Tide 2 for the forseeable future. A 6, and well... I was at a net of 7 hexes at the start of the summer; I pick up Cairo, Sevastopol, and Leningrad on the second turn of summer. I roll a 4 (-2 down to 2).
How do things stand? The brits are in trouble... they've got three steps in jerusalem plus the persians, with the syrians in Abadan. Three WAllied steps in the commonwealth box, and five OOS for the forseeable future in albania. They've got a bunch of support units coming back shortly, so they have no fear of the axis being able to get air shifts against their positions during the rest of the summer blitz. The soviets may be forced to divert forces to Syria to deal with the Italian Menace.
In the Balkans, things have stabilized for the axis: no soviet forces are on the european side of the Dardanelles and Bosphorous. There are five british steps that'll need to be dealt with at some point, but which are largely toothless for the time being. The first Festung fort went into istanbul, and the "Med" HQ is covering both crossings. The soviets facing them are similarly arrayed, with a soviet HQ (soon to be replaced by the turkish HQ) defending the crossings.
In the East, virtually all the forces are either above the Smolensk hexrow, or in or below the hexrow north of Dnepropetrovsk.
Sevastopol will fall in the second turn of summer even without air support, but major soviet forces in the rostov region make that city look safe for the summer (rostov alone has 3 Guards Armies and the garrison unit on its fort side; that plus an HQ is 16 combat factors and three defensive shifts).
In the north, I *can* guarantee the fall of Leningrad (25% chance it survives the turn, but it'll only have one step left and and will be interdicted by an axis air unit if that happens), but at enormous cost: I expect to lose 3 armor, two infantry, and the airborne in the various attacks necessary to seize the city. I'm going to have to decide by our next session if I think that's a price I'm willing to pay.
In our next session...
Step-counts:
| AGN/Finland: | armor | inf | fort |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russian | 1 | 44 | 6 |
| Turk | 1 | ||
| German | 5 | 27 | |
| Italian | 1 |
| AGS | armor | inf | fort |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russian: | 1 | 26 | 4 |
| Turk | 1 | 2 | |
| German | 7 | 30 | |
| Italian | 1 |
| Turk/Balk: | armor | inf | fort |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russian | 1 | 8 | |
| Turk | 7 | ||
| German | 1 | 9 | 2 |
| Axis Minor | 1 | 15 | |
| Brit(00S) | 1 | 4 |
| Lib/Eg/MidE | armor | inf | fort |
|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | 1 | 5 | |
| Italian | 9 | ||
| Brit | 1 | 2 | (rhodes garrison) |
| W.A.Min. | 2 |
| Elsewhere | armor | inf | fort |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | 22 | ||
| Italian | 5 | ||
| Axis Minor | 24 | ||
| Brit | 1 | ||
| American | 1 | 1 |
