Our wednesday gaming group had been planning on introducing one member to EastFront, but he was sick and thus didn't show up. Another member punting left us at three, and Alex and I shanghaid our third (Proven) into taking up the soviets for an evening, promising him he'd get to run Uranus.
Summer of 1944 (one year after Barbarossa), turn 2.
During the Axis turn, Leningrad falls at the cost of an air unit, the german airborne, and two panzer steps, killing 6 soviets. Sevastopol falls without the aid of an air unit, killing three soviet and one turkish steps at the cost of one panzer. A festung europa fort is built tactically, two hexes to the southeast of Leningrad to prevent the soviets from being able to capitalize on the redirection of forces against leningrad. The italians advance into Jerusalem....
The brits build an HQ in damascus to cover the british armor and iraqi reserve corps in abadan.
The Soviets finally get the turkish HQ and build it to cover the turkish straits, breaking down the soviet HQ there to send steps to syria. Proven's offensive tendencies led to soviets threatening the Kerch crossing as well as moving into Bryansk and Orel.
Summer of 1944, turn 3.
The soviets elect to spend their sole air unit contesting the U-Boat placed in the Arctic, leaving the Axis with four luftflottes to play with this turn. One goes into the finnish frontier and allows AGN to kill the six soviets trapped OOS there. Casting about as to how to use their remaining three air units, the Axis ends up not saving any for fall and instead burns all three of them triangulating on Bryansk. Building up a 6-6-3 and 2-2-3 HQ from local corps, the Germans kill the four soviet steps in Bryansk. Meanwhile, loose forces in the south advance into Kharkov.
The brits, deciding that they didn't actually want the WDF HQ in the desert, break it down, and elect to use an RAF to cover abadan for them for a turn while they reorganize their forces.
Proven's offensive spirit inspires the soviet forces, and they push cavalry forward north of Smolensk and just north of Minsk, putting the baby AGC all OOS (8-6-4 and 6-6-3 in smolensk, 2-2-3 HQ adjacent, 3 infantry and one panzer corps in Bryansk). Massive soviet forces are moved adjacent to the soon-to-be-OOS germans (the southern move was completed in reserve movement) to trap them for a fall hammerblow. A 2-1 blitz attack (32-16, two shifts each way using the Push marker from General Mobilization) is launched against Kharkov, killing a german infantry step and sending a soviet 4-4-3 mech army to the delay box. The follow up 3-2 kills another german infantry.
Fall of 1944, turn 1.
The Axis reveals Ural Bombers (grumbling about how they're not
particularly useful anymore, so why did I bother to play them?), and
rolls high enough to get the bomber unit into the delay box.
Unfortunately for the soviets, the northern cavalry corps that
contributed to AGC being OOS is easily pounced upon by forces from AGC
and AGN, and forced back down the heavily-stacked line of soviet troops
that advanced to threaten the annihilation of the nascent army group. I
only get two retreat results on the 9-1 instead of 3, but it wouldn't
have mattered all that much as I'd failed to ZoC the hex necessary to
force that third hex of retreat to end up on a third hex of
heavily-stacked soviets. In the end, the soviets lose only 4 steps to
attrition and overstacking.
Meanwhile, the cav corps in the south is also blown up with a 9-1 and a
1-3 burns a panzer corps to extract three of the steps from Bryansk.
The AGS forces used to crush the cav corps exploit north to reinforce
AGC.
The german line at this point extends roughly south from Leningrad
through Smolensk, and Kiev to Dnepropetrovsk, with a 5-6-2 left
soon-to-be OOS in Sevastopol.
The western allies reveal Wartime footing, and build the 15th HQ in Syria. The italian air force fights off the British Heavy Bombers.
The soviets realize that they can soak off AGC's HQ with a 2-1-3 armor corps and expend the corps to that purpose. With the rest of their central front's forces, they manage to scrape together a 36-12 plus an HQ shift against the now-exposed hex SE1 from Smolensk. This causes an overstack that kills two german infantry steps.
Fall of 1944, turn 2.
We stopped shortly after I started my turn, due to the hour. I did roll for the Ural Bombers, and got the production marker, so Soviet ground forces will face a +1 delay roll modifier for the rest of the game. The WAllies are now in the position that their ground forces delay die rolls will get *worse* if they retake Britain... (or will they? Looking at the most recent update available, it's clear that the Delay roll modifier footnotes are screwed up: US impact reduced, for example, should not impact whether or not a Soviet Heavy Bomber affects Axis delay die rolls).
Uranus! Blau! Torch! All in our next exciting session.
Force Pools Strained
After the next soviet organization phase, they'll have 22 infantry and 4 armor steps in their force pool. Plus any casualties from the mud and first axis winter turns, that's what they have to take their 7 Uranus Reserves replacements and 4&16 Uranus replacements and any Lend-Lease.
There are 12 german infantry steps and 8 german armor steps in the Axis force pool. That plus the airborne that's coming off the turn record track is what's available to field the Blau replacements in winter. (There's a fair amount of force pool expansion available, though, as there's a Panzer Army, 2 2-4-2 HQ's, and 6 5-6-2 armies available.) My constantly increasing commitment to the North Atlantic to try to keep the WAllies from being able to land is sucking down an awful lot of my corps.
Step Counts
| Len/Fin. Front: | armor | inf | fort |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russian | 19 | ||
| German | 1 | 17 | 2 |
| Italian | 1 |
| Smol Front: | armor | inf | fort |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russian: | 1 | 24 | 2 |
| Turk | 1 | ||
| German | 6 | 15 |
| Kiev/South Front: | armor | inf | fort |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russian: | 2 | 33 | |
| Turk | 1 | 2 | |
| German | 3 | 28 | |
| Italian | 1 |
| Turk/Balk: | armor | inf | fort |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russian | 1 | 6 | |
| Turk | 7 | ||
| German | 5 | 2 | |
| Axis Minor | 1 | 17 | |
| Brit(00S) | 1 | 4 |
| Lib/Eg/MidE | armor | inf | immobile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russian | 3 | ||
| Germany | 1 | 6 | |
| Italian | 10 | ||
| Brit/Amer. | 5 | 4 | 1 (rhodes garrison) |
| W.A.Min. | 3 |
| Elsewhere | armor | inf | fort |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | 22 | 6 | |
| Italian | 1 | 6 | |
| Axis Minor | 24 | ||
| Brit/Amer | 1 | 2 |