Sunday 8 September 2024

Through the Mud and Blood - Patrol

 Lisa came by last night for the second of the four scenarios following Maria Bochkareva's experiences in the Russian Army of the First World War.  The scenario was a night-time scenario featuring an encounter between a German and a Russian patrol.

The two patrols were nearly identical, each with three squads and an officer.  In the scenario as written, the Russian forces seemed to have a bit of a disadvantage, as the Russians were rated 'green' and only had two corporals for three squads, compared to the Germans rating of 'regular' with a corporal (gefreiter) for each squad.  All forces started off on blinds, and there were two dummy blinds for each side to add to the fog of war.

Blinds are able to move and attempt to spot other blinds.  Blinds can move faster than deployed troops (typically three dice instead of two for deployed troops).  With the penalties for spotting in the dark, the blinds ended up getting quite close to each other before being spotted and being forced to deploy.  Note the poker chips visible to the right of the Russian blinds - we used these instead of cards for activation.  Chips worked well, but an improvement for next game will likely be to customise them a bit further.


Here you can see some of the troops deploying after their blinds were spotted.  Germans into the ruined house and Russians ready to contact them.


Russians charged the Germans in the house...


and then they were repelled with excess shock.  However, they managed to grab the German gefreiter as a prisoner of war!  This success was offset by leaving behind one of their own privates with the Germans.


Germans in the house held their position and their prisoner as the other Russian squads poured fire on them.


The German leutnant brought more troops to support the troops in the building.



The rest of the battle saw firefights back and forth between the two patrols.  The Germans were gradually being worn down, so they voluntarily withdrew with their prisoner.  Both sides claimed victory as each had a prisoner.



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