Jay Townsend
Member
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2013
- Messages
- 149
- Points
- 28
Clash of Steel
I haven’t played this series since the second edition rules and the third edition scenario book came out, I finally had time and rereading the rules last night, I played out two scenarios, with the first one being Clash of Steel. Most of the scenarios from Stalin’s Triumph are large than the other games in the series, so you get more formations and units to manage.
One thing I didn’t remember was both the Acquisition and Overwatch rules. They seem neat on paper but I don’t think they are necessary and they just give you more to manage. But I can see the Acquisition rule helping out in getting rid of the stubborn defenders, so it helps balance things out, so I’ll let that one slide but the Overwatch, I feel is pretty much taken care of with Opportunity Fire and Fire & Move or Move & Fire rules. So I not a fan of the Overwatch or managing it with a ton of other things going on in the battlefield.
The Scenario Clash of Steel is great mix of unit types and you really get the Kursk feel to the battle. A couple things I noticed, the German Pioneer units don’t have the NATO engineer symbol on them and the units fonts are much smaller to read when setting up the scenarios but fortunately they all have different color strips or bands, so once you find one, the rest are easier to pick out. With scenarios of this size I could have used a few more Barrage counters, Disrupted and Wreck counters. I kept track of how many barrages and fate points I had by putting these counters on the turn track.
The game play was pretty exciting with the chip/formation marker pull and the action on the battlefield. In my scenario the Soviets won, as the Germans could not take all the city hexes of Pokrovka in 9 turns. In fact I called the game after 8 turns, as the situation on the battlefield wasn’t going to change enough in one turn. I made the mistake of using most of my German armor, to block the Soviet armor coming in on the north edge of the map as reinforcements on turn 2. It would have been much better to use all my forces to conquer the city hexes and deal with the Soviet armor further south as they approached the city. Instead they got tangled up in a tank battle in the north and the Infantry in the south could have used more support instead of a last ditch effort. Or at least use a smaller amount to block north. But I really didn’t know until about 5 turns in and that is half the fun of playing these scenarios. I few dice rolls here and there, a different strategy or two and the results would have been different. I will recommend that the Soviet’s light tanks, the T-70s take on lighter German armor and armored cars, like the Pz-IIIs and the SdKfz 222s and avoid the heavier armor if possible. It’s kind of like the American Stuart tank, the same situation. Overall, a great gaming experience with many unique events that happened throughout, in a Soviet Victory!
I haven’t played this series since the second edition rules and the third edition scenario book came out, I finally had time and rereading the rules last night, I played out two scenarios, with the first one being Clash of Steel. Most of the scenarios from Stalin’s Triumph are large than the other games in the series, so you get more formations and units to manage.
One thing I didn’t remember was both the Acquisition and Overwatch rules. They seem neat on paper but I don’t think they are necessary and they just give you more to manage. But I can see the Acquisition rule helping out in getting rid of the stubborn defenders, so it helps balance things out, so I’ll let that one slide but the Overwatch, I feel is pretty much taken care of with Opportunity Fire and Fire & Move or Move & Fire rules. So I not a fan of the Overwatch or managing it with a ton of other things going on in the battlefield.
The Scenario Clash of Steel is great mix of unit types and you really get the Kursk feel to the battle. A couple things I noticed, the German Pioneer units don’t have the NATO engineer symbol on them and the units fonts are much smaller to read when setting up the scenarios but fortunately they all have different color strips or bands, so once you find one, the rest are easier to pick out. With scenarios of this size I could have used a few more Barrage counters, Disrupted and Wreck counters. I kept track of how many barrages and fate points I had by putting these counters on the turn track.
The game play was pretty exciting with the chip/formation marker pull and the action on the battlefield. In my scenario the Soviets won, as the Germans could not take all the city hexes of Pokrovka in 9 turns. In fact I called the game after 8 turns, as the situation on the battlefield wasn’t going to change enough in one turn. I made the mistake of using most of my German armor, to block the Soviet armor coming in on the north edge of the map as reinforcements on turn 2. It would have been much better to use all my forces to conquer the city hexes and deal with the Soviet armor further south as they approached the city. Instead they got tangled up in a tank battle in the north and the Infantry in the south could have used more support instead of a last ditch effort. Or at least use a smaller amount to block north. But I really didn’t know until about 5 turns in and that is half the fun of playing these scenarios. I few dice rolls here and there, a different strategy or two and the results would have been different. I will recommend that the Soviet’s light tanks, the T-70s take on lighter German armor and armored cars, like the Pz-IIIs and the SdKfz 222s and avoid the heavier armor if possible. It’s kind of like the American Stuart tank, the same situation. Overall, a great gaming experience with many unique events that happened throughout, in a Soviet Victory!
