Conflict of Heroes : Firefight # 1 Partisans Revisited

Conflict of Heroes 2nd Ed 

Awakening the Bear, FF #1 : Partisans

Oct 17, 1941, Russia

The Germans were feeling confident, over confident perhaps , with their longer range LMGs,  as they group moved on to the map south of the road. They spread out into two rifle squad/LMG  stacks and moved into the light woods.

Germans enter the map on T1

At this point the Germans stopped and started firing at the Russian rifle squad in the woods on the Russian left flank. This had disappointingly little effect.

After the Germans had used up all but two CAPs the canny Russians started to move in toward the cross roads.

End of T1

 At the end of turn 1 the hoped for Russian casualties had not been inflicted, and the Russians were congregating out of sight of the German LMGs.

End of T2 Russian Reinforcements, a nasty surprise

The Germans sent one LMG + Rifle squad around the bottom of the woods to try and flank the Russian  squad there, but the Russians sidled along the road in the woods. The other German LMG + squad moved to the top of the woods and started engaging the Russians there.
Some success there, eliminating one Russian squad outright led to a rush of blood to the head , and the Germans closed to try and take over the objective, completely forgetting about the Russian reinforcements about to come storming down the road into their rear. The German rifle squad was broken but manged to  closed  with the Russian squad on the objective to melee. Callous Russian leadership ordered other Russians to  fire into the melee, missing the Russians but killing the Germans. The  German LMG was also broken, and the center of attention for a whole bunch of Russians.


For a short while it looked like the German   LMG might miraculously survive; on T3 the Germans got the initiative and the LMG backed out to take shelter behind the woods and was looking menacingly at the rear of a nearby Russian squad. The Russian unit changed facing leaving the LMG  with the option to rally or to shoot. The Germans fired and I think killed another unit, but were then eliminated themselves. Iron crosses all around.

Turn 3 saw the entry of the German SS squad. So far the Russians had held the objective  for three turns and the casualties were 2 units each, so the Russians were comfortably heading for a win.
The   Russians split off a  squad to close with the SS, but then decided this was not a good plan. The SS squad moved adjacent to the Russian, who had only one AP  left and was looking helpless. Instead of shooting, the SS got greedy and moved into melee in the same hex. The Russians used their last AP to move out the way the Germans had moved in! So both squads missed each other entirely as they were both facing the wrong way and so could not target each other even if they had the APs.

Meanwhile the surviving German LMG  + squad closed with the Russian squad in the woods. The German LMG was broken, but the Russian squad was eliminated.

End of T3

So throwing caution to the winds in T4 the SS squad carried on toward the objective, ignoring the Russian squad in its rear. The SS took out one Russian squad firing into its rear and then  moved adjacent to the Russian Maxim MG , flanking it but with no APs to do anything about it. In the woods below the objective the other German rifle squad moved toward the objective from the other direction.  The German squad actually moved on to the   objective, and held on to it at the end of T4, eliminating the Russian unit there. The German LMG rallied. Suddenly it looked like victory could be possible for the Germans.Russian casualties had mounted and now the Germans had the objective.

But then the Russian rifle squad the SS troops had bypassed arrived in the rear of the SS squad and put paid to them. The  Maxim MG somehow reclaimed the objective eliminating the German rifle squad and overall we  were left with three surviving units, 2 Russian and  1 German. The Russians had held on to the objective for 4 turns out of 5, so gaine a comfortable victory.

The End

So a big win for the Russians. After the Germans shot themselves in the foot at T2 forgetting about the reinforcements it looked like it was all over, but at the end of T4 it could have gone either way.
However their gamble did not pay off in the end and the Russians came back with guns blazing.