AAR: J106 Marders Not Martyrs

Rupert B

Germans: John Hyler
Russians: Rupert B

John Hyler and me faced off on J106 Marders not Martys from J7 last night. Since it was my turn to host, I took the Germans on defense.

Scenario has a small German infantry force of 5 squads and two Marder 1f setting up on Board v (the new board that comes with J7) to repel a horde of Russians who have to exit 17 VP off hex row I. One 9-1, one 7-0 leader and an 8-1 armor leader, along with an HMG and two LMGs round out the Germans.

The Russians set up on board with 10 squads and have 4 KV1Es enter on turn 1. This negates most of the German concealment gaining at the start. The Russians have a 9-1 leader, an 8-0 leader, an MMG, two LMGs and a 50mm mortar.

Interesting point (to me anyway) is that this is a 1942 Russian attack with better leadership and better armor attacking a German defence which is unconcealed at start !

John's attack struggled from bad luck on the dice from the start. One of the KV's was toasted on the first turn at long range, and the return fire was ineffective against the Marders. Long range HMG fire broke the mortar squad and so John pushed forward to grapple with the infantry mano-a-mano with little covering fire.

Another KV received a shock result, then an UK but finally recovered. A second KV was toasted but at the cost of both Marders. With no anti- armor weapons left for the Germans, and with time running out, John pushed forward but suffered a lot of infantry breaking to small arms fire. A rally of a HS did result in battle hardening (woo hoo !), an a nice sniper attack broke a German squad at a bad time.

The climax of the battle saw the remaining two KV's freeze the main German defences with VBM sleaze (boooo - hiss) and infantry closing in behind. The first frozen German died in a hail of fire and it looked to be over. However, with no sound of the fat lady singing, we moved onto the second stack and the Germans fried the KV by attacking down the stairs (more on that later). The next turn saw devastating small arms fire from the Germans and three (yes - three) boxcar rolls by John on his MC's. John did manange to create a 6+1 leader elsewhere, so it wasn't all bad !

At that point, with my hot dice, and insufficient VP left for John to win, we called it. However, post game discussions revealed that my CC attack that fired the tank was illegal and should not have been not allowed - not my turn so I couldn't have advanced into the attack.

We rolled a few dice and pushed counters around and concluded that I was still in a strong position if I could survive the def fire and advance and kill the tank in my turn. John could have got enough points off to win, but it was not a forgone conclusion.

So - I technically won, but don't feel as good about it as I should cos it depended on an illegal attack. Fun game, though ! Hot dice when it counted, and bad bad dice for John when he really didn't need it !