We had some good timing this week. The snow came down. We also happened to play a game based on a Russian retreat in the snow. Paul had set up his gaming table with snow tiles and coupled with the real cold (myself and Shaun had to wait outside when we arrived with no coats, and then the gaming room needed to have the fire turned on!), everything was very atmospheric. The picture above shows some of the Russians I was trying to retreat southwards. They got pinned and suppressed at the north end of the battlefield before they even made the first bit of woods. The German tank ignores them to chase after the bigger Russian group in the far distance (and the German tank support infantry were following anyway).
The retreat was chaotic, with German units actually getting ahead of some of the Russian units they were pursuing. This made the Russian units scatter, occasionally using the woods to make a stand. Any pinned or suppressed units were left behind to fend for themselves! As the German armour got further south, they did take a casualty, by fire from the 2 Russian artillery and a single tank. However, these also were retreating, and withdrew soon after their single tank kill. At one point, a German tank moved between Russian units only feet away, the tank being on a road sided by dry-stone walls which had infantry sheltering behind. The tank crew were lucky their vehicle was not assaulted.
All in all, it was a fun game. There was real confusion over large ordinance firing as both German and Russian troops looked near identical in snow smocks. We also used a snow rule requiring a dice throw to see if units within range could actually be spotted in the snow. This is how so many Russians held out even in open ground.
I've redone the site blog layout using a dynamic blog template supplied by blogger. This means you can select alternative layouts from the first item on the left of the navigation (menu) bar. There are 7 layouts ranging from a standard blog, through to something that resembles FaceBook's TimeLine layout. I've set the default layout to "Magazine", but just select another layout if you like and the layout will take a second or two to dynamically change within the browser or viewing device. 
We had some good timing this week. The snow came down. We also happened to play a game based on a Russian retreat in the snow. Paul had set up his gaming table with snow tiles and coupled with the real cold (myself and Shaun had to wait outside when we arrived with no coats, and then the gaming room needed to have the fire turned on!), everything was very atmospheric. The picture above shows some of the Russians I was trying to retreat southwards. They got pinned and suppressed at the north end of the battlefield before they even made the first bit of woods. The German tank ignores them to chase after the bigger Russian group in the far distance (and the German tank support infantry were following anyway).
The retreat was chaotic, with German units actually getting ahead of some of the Russian units they were pursuing. This made the Russian units scatter, occasionally using the woods to make a stand. Any pinned or suppressed units were left behind to fend for themselves! As the German armour got further south, they did take a casualty, by fire from the 2 Russian artillery and a single tank. However, these also were retreating, and withdrew soon after their single tank kill. At one point, a German tank moved between Russian units only feet away, the tank being on a road sided by dry-stone walls which had infantry sheltering behind. The tank crew were lucky their vehicle was not assaulted.
