Saturday Evening on the Eastern Front

The 1/72nds got pulled out of exile last evening for a little game of Rate of Fire. Being my second game and Ziggy's first, I kept things simple and set it up as two opposing infantry platoons. The Germans got an 80mm mortar and the Soviets got a Maxim MMG and an obr.1927 76mm gun for additional firepower. As is nearly always the case, Zig commanded the Germans.

Our deployments. Locations of the various objectives are circled. It was late in the day and the sky was as gray as the German uniforms. A storm was coming.

Yevgeny, blast anything that crosses the road!

My lead squad in the woods and the fascist invaders across the road in the beet field spot each other.

Unfortunately, my squad is also spotted by a German with a radio off to my left. One of my squad is killed by a mortar fire.

We both continue to push our troops into better positions.

A smoke round blocks Yevgeny's view down the road!

Blue squad takes possession of the objective house.

Which is a good thing since a squad of Fritzes has gathered up on the other side of the road behind the ruined house.

I knew I should have made a left turn in Albuquerque.

The squad which had been behind the ruined building worked its way over to my side of the road using the smoke as cover. Even though I was able to take shots at them as they ran past, my fire was ineffective. A melee looked primed to begin!

But as the Germans rounded the corner, a quick short-ranged firefight erupted. Both squads, surprised to see eachother, hit the deck and immediately looked for cover. The melee would have to wait. It was getting very dark now and the rain was starting to fall. Both sides pulled back for the night. They'd still be there tomorrow.

We decided that the Germans had won a very marginal victory since they had a few more kills than the Soviets, but it was closer to a draw than a real decision.

Boy I wish I'd had a mortar with some smoke! I had two squads (the squad that was hit by the mortar and the MG section to the left) get essentially pinned down stuck in a crossfire. The MG was fine - it had targets all game but ended up on the short end of the stick since it had less cover than the guys in the beet field. The other squad was hosed until I managed to pick off the observer after sending approximately 350 bullets his way. Ziggy played and rolled well. The assault would have been rather interesting had it continued. His targeted squad had been shot up pretty badly, but I had a red squad moving in to help.

I'm very happy with Rate of Fire. There's nothing particularly "wrong" with Chain of Command but RoF is just more my cup of tea and I'm glad I picked it up. I'm still eager to get some AFVs on the table, but I thought they'd just add complexity to what was essentially a first go for us.

Be Well and Good Gaming!

sneak sneak...