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My friend and I did one game before this ending in Zrozliaf, as the Soviets, conceding defeat in 1943.

We both did a lot of things wrong, myself not knowing you could do an attack other than hasty attacks until 1942 and Zrozliaf not knowing you could move industry until half way through Barbarossa. Those are just two of the mistakes.

We have now started a new game with what we have both learned from our previous game and I decided to do an ongoing After Action Report.

The first turn is, I think, decent. I have reached Riga in the north, encircled the Soviets in the center and made a pocket out of Lvov in the south.

Always good to see an AAR from a new person. South and centre are OK (it takes a lt of practice to get them better) , but a bit of a disaster in the north. You needed to take the ports of Liepaja using infantry and Ventspils with the SS. Then focus on surrounding Russian units so they surrender in your T2. See my AAR vs Brian or several others. You have let pretty much all of them escape, and the infantry div 2 hexes east of Memel can cut your rail line which will put that rail line conversion back a turn.

On the other hand, having a top-notch start against a novice player can be game over and I hope you both have a good game without worrying too much about people telling you there is room for improvement [:D].

indeed. he can evacuate his troops in the baltic region with an intact port. the motorized ss division can take the port in turn 1 and advance toward riga.

lvov pocket looks good even at the very end near romanian border.

little advice: if you intend to use half of the panzergruppe 2 in the south then you need to put both romanian armies (3,4) under romanian hq command and "make some room" in the already overloaded army group south for this forces.

also no need to use the entire 6th army to secure lvov pocket. 1 or 2 corpes are enough. you need this infantry asap in the west ukraine. same goes for the blue/green (?) armies in the center.

you should also take brest- litovsk in the first turn with a 4 divisional deliberate attack with some artillery and pioneer support to advance your rail system via there. first surround its ZOC and then make the attack to route the divisions there.

but overall realy good for a beginner. i tend to scream when i think about my first multiplayer axis turn.

This picture end of turn 1?
I notice a lot of higher HQs left behind as well as airfields. That probably leaves many support units idle (if in HQs) and allot of planes to fly unnecessary miles.

Great AAR guys..

All out attack !!

Thanks for the feedback guys. Sorry this has taken so long, my friend took awhile to do his turn.

I did horribly after turn one. I decided to call it on turn four and I will post two screenshots, one of the beginning of turn four and one of the end of turn four.

Here is the second screenshot.

Even though I have called the game we were doing, we decided to start a new game, with myself playing the Soviets and Zrozliaf playing the Axis. I have not played the Soviets before and he has not played the Axis.

Turn one and the Axis have made many breakthroughs.

In the north they have taken Liepaja and Ventspils, Riga holds.

In the center they have taken Brest Litovsk and are three hexes away from Minsk.

In the south they have surrounded Lvov and taken Chernovsty.

I have broken two pockets in the north and center. I will not get all of the men out, but some will retreat to Smolensk and Pskov

Actually, Beginner AARs are very educational, more so than experts playing.

I have started to get units into place to defend Narva and Pskov .

I am all but abandoning Minsk and will leave only one Corps to slow down the enemy .

In the south I have cut off three Panzer divisions and broken the Lvov pocket .

This will hopefully slow the Germans and Romanians down as I retreat units to Kiev and Nikolaev .

And now, an overview of the situation at the end of turn one .

the german situation is very bad. open pockets mean not only that he has to re seal them but also that his rail convertion will be very slow.

try to get some troops at the dnjepr river and also the landbridge between vitebsk and orsha. you can delay him because he will need his infantry to wear down such a defensive line and with his infantry still pocketing and destroying soviet units behind the panzerdivisions you can delay his river crossing until turn 7-8.

or you could restart because all pockets re opend mean a catastrophic start for the german.

Well..there is one big pocket and one small. I don't think Soviets can open those..doesn't look to me that they are open, based on darker shade German controlled hexes.

Turn two start overview .

I am puling divisions away from the Romanian border and I am sending them to defend Nikolaev.

I have gotten most of the Southwestern front across the Dnepr and it will deploy along the river to defend Kiev .