Lindenhof Farm III - The Bear Still Has Sharp Claws.

Having seen a surprise German counterattack retake Lindenhof Farm last Wednesday, tonight, the Soviets struck back!

The game started inauspiciously for the Russians, as their pre attack artillery barrage failed to do much damage, despite rolling two strikes with Plus 2 on the dice roll on each German unit (it didn't hurt that two of the three infantry units were in cover, occupying the farm buildings.) Very indiscriminate fire only managed to destroy one of the two German mortar teams and put a couple of hits on other infantry units. The Panther and Tiger tanks survived unscathed.

After the barrage, the Russians rolled on a chart for initial armoured support, which ranged from a possible 3 - 6 T34/85's - they rolled a 4 and got four of the vehicles.

The first two turns were Russian, and they more or less just used them to advance, turn three saw the Germans rally off a couple of the hits caused in the opening barrage, and their infantry small arms fire caused a couple of hits on the advancing Russians.

The Russians were allowed to roll for reinforcements on Russian turn 1 (the initial T34's) turn 4 and turn 6. The Germans started with the two surviving tanks from the previous game and would roll on German turns 3, 8 and 10. Of course, with the random initiative provided by the cards, turns 2 - 4 could be German turns 1 2 and 3 (although that's not how it turned out....!)

In fact, the Russians got turns 1,2 5, 6, 7 and 8 - game turn 6 being Russian turn 4, on came 3 x ISII heavy tanks to support the infantry advance on the left flank.

Exchange of tank fire on the Russian right flank, meanwhile, had resulted in the destruction of the Panther, and an infantry unit closed up on the farmyard, taking out the remaining German mortar with small arms fire.

Game turn 9 was German turn 3, and they rolled well, getting a reinforcement of 4 PzKfw IV's!

But Game turn 10 was Russian turn 6, and the last of their armoured support appeared in the form of two giant IS III's!

The original four T34/85's moved up the right flank, two smashing their way into the walled farmyard, while the other two flanked the position and moved through the dead ground to the right of the buildings.

On the German left flank, the infantry launched a heroic assault on the lone German infantry unit holding the woods adjacent to the farm, but they were unsuccessful, and the Germans repelled the assault. Meanwhile, the Russians comrades in the farmyard also assaulted the larger house, but the hand-to-hand combat was a stalemate.

The next turn, only one of the two units rolled enough movement to launch a second attack - the melee was inconclusive - and then - the Russians were pushed back with loss again! But the Germans did not have things all their own way, as combined tank and infantry fire power put four hits on the unit defending the smaller farm building, forcing them to retire.

The Tiger finally revealed itself as it moved forward to support the infantry, and the IS II's also advanced to support their comrades.

In a disastrous exchange of fire for the Germans, two of their PzKfw IV's were destroyed by the T34's in the farmyard.

Then more pain for the Germans, the Tiger fired and missed, but the IS II return fire scored a direct hit and took out the giant beast! The Russians failed to rally one of their infantry units on the left flank and it left the field, but the momentum was swinging in the attacker's favour, as two of the three infantry units had four hits on them and were retiring towards the German table edge.

The Russians continued to get the bulk of the turns; they had three in a row on two occasions, which made it hard for the German reinforcements to make their presence felt. Poor firing by the Germans didn't help either - perhaps reflecting the fact that these were newly trained crews rushed into battle without any experience - they certainly paid the price! A German "Event" card brought on a Panther as an "extra" reinforcement, but by the stage of the game shown in the next couple of pics, it was all over for the defenders.

The IS II's took out another PzKfw IV in the woods and the newly arrived Panther was destroyed by one of the trusty T34/85's. Two T34's had been destroyed and a third had a hit on it, but the Russians still had plenty more armour, whereas the unfortunate Germans had still not managed to get to their 8th turn and receive their second batch of reinforcements, which, depending on the roll, might have been another three Pz IVs or even 2 Panthers....

The last two turns of the game were the final two Russian cards - the initiative cards could not have fallen much better for them in this game - and they were able to move forward and consolidate their gains as well as take out one final German tank.

I called the game at this stage - there were still 6 initiative cards left - 4 German and 2 event cards, one for each side. The Germans were very unlucky with the way the cards came out in this game and the Russians could not have had things much sweeter - but that's why the system uses the random initiative mechanism of the cards, rather than a predictable IGO UGO turn about.

Another entertaining solo game that took around two hours to play and has taken me almost as long to document here (mind you, half of that is the excessive time it takes my ancient laptop to upload the images and then how long it takes me to edit them before posting them here!)

I think that is enough of Lindenhof Farm however - next time, either the Russian advance will continue westwards onto a new battlefield or, I might even travel a few hundred miles to the West and get the late war British collection on the table - only time will tell!

Thanks for visiting and double thanks for a comment - Stew, if you comment, YOU will get QUADRUPLE thanks!