It was finally time for the last battle of the campaign, the Soviet hordes had reached the last table and a win would result in a minor victory, any other result would result in a NATO victory - it doesn'tget any closer! If you want to play the excellent campaign written by Stephen Philp you can find it on the Facebook page:
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(https://www.facebook.com/groups/322288738401773).
NATO put a small spoiling force of two infantry in the forward village with the bulk of the forces hidden in the hedge lines and town.
The Soviets used a VDV force supported by T72 tanks (which were mainly in reserve).
NATO put a small spoiling force of two infantry in the forward village with the bulk of the forces hidden in the hedge lines and town.
The Soviets used a VDV force supported by T72 tanks (which were mainly in reserve).
NATO started with a divisional artillery strike which gave a lot of morale tokens to the Soviet hordes.
The Soviets moved down the southern road, quickly killing one of the infantry sections in the town (although Barry's second unit kept falling back giving ground slowly, delaying the assault on the Soviet right for a number of turns, threatening lots of damage with their M72s and LAW80s).
As Soviets continued to push down the southern road at speed, a pattern developed in that a NATO unit would appear, take a shot and then die under the vast amount of Soviet return fire.
Turn four brought what we hoped would be a problem for the Soviets, a Challenger arriving and planting itself across the bridge. Opening up it started to do serious damage to the Soviet T72s. Unfortunately the Russians were holding a card which allowed them to spend a command token and activate a NATO unit, they drove it off the bridge and turned it to face the rear. Volley fire from the T72s quickly brewed it up.
As NATO losses mounted the Soviets pushed for the bridge. Desperate fighting ensued with the British command stand taking out a T72 with LAWs at point blank range before succumbing to massed fire from the other tanks in the platoon. Suddenly NATO hit their break points and the game was over. Many games come down to the wire, this was possibly the best example I have ever seen. The British broke on turn 6 of either 7 or 8, if they could have held out to the end they would have won the campaign as it was the Soviets won a minor victory.
A brilliant thriller of a game to finish a brilliant campaign.
A brilliant thriller of a game to finish a brilliant campaign.