A Victory Denied AAR Turn 1/p1

Recently I had a nice chat with Lynn and we talked about the challenges for the Russians. We agreed on some aspects and disagreed on others. He was kind enough to provide a step by step play of AVD, with lots of images and details to show how he approaches the game as the German player. This might also be a nice walk through for new players. The posts will roll out over the next 3-4 weeks, as I need to edit for size constraints on my storage with WordPress.

A Victory Denied AAR using VASSAL images.

Lynn Brower

Game Setup

Soviet player activates 20 Army and 22 Army Command Chits. German player activates 3 PzGrp, Guderian, and 2 PzGrp Command Chits.

Game Play will be followed by each individual activation starting with the automatic 2PzGrp special combat phase and the automatic 3PzGrp initial activation.

Commentary on setup and initial moves.

Soviet: The soviet player can initially activate only two command chits on GT1. He needs to activate 3 to cover the whole map. The soviet player chose 20 Army and 22 Army to cover the central and northern sectors. If 21 Army is chosen in the south and activated early in the game the soviet player can strat move an infantry unit to hex 2011. However the Timoshenko HQ and Command Chit will enter when the REINF chit is pulled and the farthest advance from the Timoshenko group is also hex 2011. In this case the soviet player opted to wait for Timoshenko.

German: The German player’s first two activations are set. 2 PzGrp will attack and 3 PzGrp will activate following this attack. The choices for the German are uses for STUKA counters and where does the 3 PzGrp go; North or South of the Western Dvina River.

The next image shows the 2PzGrp activated for combat only. The German player adds Stukas to two Soviet targets.

The 2PzGrp after combat.

3PzGrp is automatically the first activation on Game Turn 1. Here are the starting locations of 3PzGrp.

These are the positions of 3PzGrp after movement. The German attacks are shown with red arrows.

Here are the positions of 3PzGrp after combat.

Following 3PzGrp activation the first Command Chit pulled from the cup is SUPPLY. No HQ’s are relocated, no German units are OOS and 3 soviet units are isolated.

The second chit drawn is Soviet 22 Army. The following picture shows the units activated with 22 Army HQ.

The choice for the soviet player is withdraw or advance 22 Army. First no unit of 22 Army can reach the Velizh VP city so the soviet player decides to occupy Polotsk to hold the bridge and advance to tie up 19th Pz and 14 Mot in ZOC. This choice puts both soviet units out of command. 62 Soviet moves to hold the bridge north of Vitebsk and 22 Army HQ relocates to the east to keep two units in command.

 

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