This was my first playing of this scenario and was very much looking forward to it.
Chris set up his Poles heavily weighted towards board 17, with a few concealed stacks along the woods road on board 50. My brilliant plan was to perform a two pronged attack. 5 motorcycle squads and the 2 PzIBs on 50, and everyone else through the eastern half of board 17 with the tanks & ACs hopefully generating some smoke for cover.
I ran the two tanks up to freeze the guys in the woods on board 50, follow up with 5 squads & a leader on motorcycle adjacent and hopefully clear them with advancing fire or CC. One of the stacks turned out to be a dummy, and the other failed his PAATC when he attempted streetfighting on the bypassing tank, so he was a relatively easy kill in CC on turn 1. On board 17 I had good success with smoke and was able to provide some cover to get my tanks & ACs up to/past the pond and my infantry just south of the pond.
The Polish half of turn 1 saw some good ROF from the Polish HMG on the level one of 17P4 with the 9-1 leader, and a kill of an AC. However, the crew of the AC survived and the HMG caused a hot sniper who found and wounded the Polish 8-0. The polish reinforcements end the turn in motion on the road mostly hidden behind the 17U7 overlay building.
German 2 saw a heavy swing of luck towards the Germans. The Germans managed to break the Polish 9-1,457/hmg stack on their only prep fire shot. On board 50 at this point there is only a single concealed until remaining. I moved one of the PzIBs and leader, 2 squads & 2 hs adjacent to shoot/CC, but the CC resulted in a polish ambush so his Polish unit withdrew. My other two squads on board 50 move out to occupy building 17P2. On board 17, one of my PzIIs adjacent to the stone wall crosses and executes an overrun against a squad. The squad fails his PAATC and is pinned but the OVR attack breaks the Pz’s MA. The Pz then turns and executes another OVR on the wounded 8-0 in an adjacent hex. This OVR results in a k/ and the already wounded 8-0 fails his wound severity, so he’s gone. Feeling lucky/stupid this brazen tank then rolls into VBM of the woods in 17Q8 containing a concealed stack and ending in motion there. Another failed PAATC, and he’s got a pinned squad. The 2nd PzII runs up and breaks what was a 457 in 17P8 with bounding fire and moves behind him to block his rout, and the last PzII ends in bypass of 17O9 with what turns out to be a dummy stack. I move the AC up to 17P5 and the other PzI moves down from board 50 to 17P3. All of this yielded excellent infantry gains but left me in relatively poor position to deal with the Poles tank movements.
The Poles responded in turn 2 by bringing their tank reinforcements on and parking them around 50X5. The Polish tanks on board 17 moved into position around 17S3, with the Ejw gaining acquision on the 2nd German AC. I’ll need to knock out that Ejw or get some smoke in his LOS to save that AC. The Germans respond weakly by not inflicting any casualties and even forget to fire on the broken 9-1 & squad in 17p4.1.
German turn 3 starts inauspiciously with the Poles rallying the now non-DM leader & squad in 17p4.1. But in prep fire the Germans manage a MC on the hmg stack in 17p4.1 again and the Polish squad manning the HMG rewards me with boxcars. A huge relief. At this point the only Polish SW unaccounted for is the MMG and I’m pretty sure that’s sitting in 17S4. I move my forces on board 50 rather clumsily and end up with my PzI in bypass of the Polish unit that is now revealed as a squad, and none of my infantry in position to Advance fire/CC. I move my remaining 4 tanks to surround the Polish tanks on board 17 at close range, scoring several hits but no kills. Also managed to sD smoke in 17R3 in front of the Ejw in hopes of saving the AC, but the AC was burned on a CH as soon as he started his engine. Moving on to CC, my PzI in bypass of the squad in woods 50S8 survived the CC attack and responded by killing the squad.
Losing that squad in CC was the tipping point. Chris failed his PMC. He still had all 6 of his tanks on board, but 3 of them were in what I would consider a very uncomfortable situation, and he was down to only 3 SE of good order infantry. And to this point the Germans had yet to lose any of their infantry.
Thanks for a very enjoyable game Chris. Looking forward to playing again some day.