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My first game as a Soviet since my infamous game with Pelton. So even more rusty with the Red’s than the I was with the Germans. My opponent is Manstein63 (Sean). He is an unknown quantity for me. I know he has been around WITE a long time. So I expect he will be a tough opponent. Sean opted for Random Weather and he also suggested a Finnish Border HR. Which involves having extra troops stationed there. I told him to take his time so it might be a few days before we see any action here. Stay tuned.


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Game Settings

Sudden Death 41CG scenario
Server game
Full FOW
Random Weather
Standard Blizzard
No +1 to Soviet Combat Odds

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House Rules

Finnish border garrison requirements (not exactly sure on the details of this yet, will advise later)
No Para drops at all
No bombing of HQ's unless stacked with a ground unit
No Night Bombing of Airfields

No naval invasions before November 1941, none outside the 1939 Soviet borders before January 1943 In addition if Sevastopol is either isolated, or in German hands, none west of the Crimea, which reflects the scope for air/naval interdiction not really reflected in the game. (This is Pelton’s rule)

Additional Sudden Death rules for 1941. Used to help prevent unrealistic Soviet retreat strategies in summer 1941 and to prevent unrealistic German retreats prior to and during the early blizzard period.

German SD victory check is made at the beginning of the German 4th December 1941 turn. If the German VP total is equal to or greater than 243 VP they win an Auto Victory.
Soviet SD victory check is made at the Beginning of the Soviet 1st January 1942 turn. If the German VP total is equal to or less than 205 VP then the Soviets win an Auto Victory.

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Here are the Conditions of the Sudden Death scenario (Lost Battles) in case you don’t have them.

Turns: 211
This campaign is a variant of the 1941-45 Campaign - Alt VC260 campaign, with the only change being additional sudden death victory conditions. The victory conditions are the same as that in the Alt VC260 campaign with the addition of three sudden death victory condition checks made during the campaign. The checks are made at the beginning of the first turn of April 1942, April 1943 and April 1944. If during one of these checks, a player is determined to have met their Sudden Death victory conditions, the game will immediately end and declare a Decisive Victory for the winner.

April 1942
German Victory if victory points are >=242 Soviet Victory if victory points are <=191

April 1943
German Victory if victory points are >=255 Soviet Victory if victory points are <=188

April 1944
German Victory if victory points are >=210 Soviet Victory if victory points are <=150

The Alt VC260 campaign victory conditions used in this campaign as well are:
• The Axis Decisive Victory level (Automatic Victory) is 260 instead of 290.
• The Soviet Major Victory timeframe ends on 31 March 1945 (instead of 31 May 1945) and the Soviet Minor Victory timeframe between 1 April 1945 and 30 June 1945.
• A draw occurs if Germany does not surrender by 1 July 1945 and the Axis has less than
142 victory points.
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Awsome, good luck MT and lets hope this is a long one!

Actually Hardluckyetagain started a new thread called New House Rule Finnish Boarder & being a German player, I completely agreed with him.
The Soviets should be prevented from moving the units that are guarding the Finnish border to other combat areas.Like, I have played against
Soviets that have lined the border with fortifications & not a Soviet fighting formation in sight or line the border with anti tank units!.
I kick myself for not making it one of the "house rules", but good on "hardluck"for bringing it to the fore & Manstein 63 for making it a rule & I will be insisting on it for now on.

ORIGINAL: Ice

Actually Hardluckyetagain started a new thread called New House Rule Finnish Boarder & being a German player, I completely agreed with him.
The Soviets should be prevented from moving the units that are guarding the Finnish border to other combat areas.Like, I have played against
Soviets that have lined the border with fortifications & not a Soviet fighting formation in sight or line the border with anti tank units!.
I kick myself for not making it one of the "house rules", but good on "hardluck"for bringing it to the fore & Manstein 63 for making it a rule & I will be insisting on it for now on.

Yes, I put the question to the community about the Finnish border garrison. Trying to get a feel on what the communities consensus is on this. Normally I play Germans 9 out of 10 games because so few want to play them. Having said that I have played a great many many many games since 2010 when the game first came out where the Soviets does 1 of 2 things. They either defend the river line heavily at the north edge of the map or they pull all of the units out and build forts (old school way of blockers) or now days Soviets put AT brigades (which they get a ton of) as blockers on the "no attack" border. I didn't mind so much back in the day because of the forts cost in AP. Then recently with the current patches the Soviets get many free AT brigades which they now use to man the Finish "no attack" line. I did this in my current Russian game and after doing it has pushed me over the edge to also make a house rule that the Soviets need to garrison that border with Divisions with at least 75% Toe if they are going to defend at all. I would even consider a few hexes of Airborne brigades to be OK too. But no longer will I settle for Forts and/or AT brigades manning the Finish "no attack" line. Just my 2 cents.

I think I am going to defend Lake Janis. I did this in my last two games as Soviet. It worked well. But I have to access Sean's opening moves first.

ORIGINAL: Michael T

I think I am going to defend Lake Janis. I did this in my last two games as Soviet. It worked well. But I have to access Sean's opening moves first.

I concur with you that defending forward around lake Janisjarvi is an excellent solution. Better springboard into Finland for your future offense

Bit of a delay on this as Sean has had some Windows 10 issues. I should have his move in a day or so.

hope it is going to last a bit longer this time. the much anticipated MT vs silly was a bit of an anticlimax.

Sorry Eric

ORIGINAL: Michael T
My opponent is Manstein63 (Sean). He is an unknown quantity for me. I know he has been around WITE a long time. So I expect he will be a tough opponent.

This is a different Manstein

Anyone with a tag of Manstein must be tough [8D]

Der Manstein kommt!

I recently had the privilege of spending a long semi-formal dinner sitting next to a senior serving Finnish general, who turned out to be a WWII history lay expert, and a passing gamer. We talked at length about Finnish WWII decisions, Leningrad, Ladoga-Oneida front, and even whether the no move lines in WITE made sense. ( they sorta kinda do ). The Finns were expert at woodland operations, and achieved 10:1 kill ratios, but self-admittedly had no interest or training in urban warfare. They acknowledged the German superiority in this field ( offensively) and Russian (defensively). If only for purely military casualty ratios for a small country, they were never going to attack Leningrad, and political farsightedness tempered other expeditionary tendencies. As a "what if", once Leningrad had fallen, and the defeat of the USSR probable, then it was a reasonable hypothetical in a game to have the Finns join and behave as they do in WITE. The loss of Finnish morale ( in the game ), once one accepted the hypothetical makes no sense as operations would be seen as payback, euphoria etc. On the other side, Finland did well under Czarist Russia, with significant autonomy save foreign policy. Finally, the Finns acknowledged that the Germans, whom they thought lacked skill in the boreal forest, had become quite adept by 1944-45. By terms of the peace with Stalin, if the Germans did not retreat fast enough out of Finland, the Finns were obliged to attack them, which they did. There were only able to achieve 2:1 kill ratios against the Wehrmacht, and wished the teacher-student relationship had not been so fruitful Although the game is USSR favouring IMHO, the takeaway is I assess Finns should not be able to cross any no move lines until Leningrad falls, meaning no Garrisoning requirement,

Turn one is done but I am unable to upload the map for some reason. I will try again tomorrow.

End Soviet T1 (22nd June 1941) Clear Weather

Manstein63’s opening has left me scratching my head a little. It seems he may be using the tactic of not closing the Lvov pocket on T1 so that the units that are effectively trapped still suck up manpower and armaments. They are then closed off on turn two.

But elsewhere I opened up the north and Kovel. I also managed to slip out a couple of divisions from the Lvov pocket along the Rumanian border. I cut off some leading Panzers but as they most likely have HQ’s nearby with lots of fuel this won’t make difference this turn.

The turn was spend mostly on starting a reorganisation process and beginning defensive works around Pskov and the Land bridge.

I shifted 3 ID’s north to Lake Janis to start preparing the stop line for the Finns (well hopefully a stop line). In some emails Pelton reckons he can easily bust up the Janis defence.

Old H V AI player new poster.

Not a very good opening as south is generally the key H v AI both sides and what I have read on forums HvH

I am not sure what happened in the south. Whether he just got in to trouble OR he is playing at this:

tm.asp?m=3890124

with that opening hes in for a hard fight.

Very much looking forward to this AAR. Based on previous performance by Michael, I think he gets only two stars if he doesn't take back Minsk by December.

ORIGINAL: Michael T

In some emails Pelton reckons he can easily bust up the Janis defence.

It can be done but if you wait to long it isn't easy.