Paw of the Tiger - Fireball on the Russian Front

Jonathan Miller ran our first Fireball game set in the Russian Front at Cold Wars last weekend. It was great test of how range affects are modelled in the new armor rules. The scenario is based on the old Cross of Iron scenario, Paw of the Tiger. Two Tiger Is and three Mark IVF2s take on a mixture of T-34s, SU-76s and SU-122s...about twenty-two tanks in all. The Germans are defending the siege lines around Leningrad in February of 1943. They are all hull down on a series of hills overlooking a fairly open plain. The Russians enter the plain through a bottleneck and must navigate their way towards the Germans...taking fire the entire time. The goal - destroy all the Nazi tanks and exit four Soviets off the table to try and lift the siege.

Turn one - the motley collection of Russian tanks rumble onto the board along a single road. Using a covered way through a woods they try to fan out across the width of the board. They manuver to advance in line and hopefully overwhelm the Germans. As they rolled forward the Tigers began to take aim and fire at long range. One T-34 went up in flames. The distance was too great for the Mark IVs whose shots were ineffective. Undaunted the Soviets continued on singing great patriotic songs. The following turn another T-34 was knocked out. As the range closed the MarkIVs began to hit and more Russian tanks were wrecked.



After suffering heavy losses the Russians finally got to a range where they could possibly take out the Germans. A few of the T-34s stopped and engaged the Germans while the majority continued their mad rush. They headed for some woods at the base of the hills the Germans were defending. From there they could launch a final rush. Two of the Mark IVs were put out of action and things began to look better for the comrades. One T-34 made it up onto the hill and took out a Tiger! The Russians were really feeling good now. But as the remaining tanks rolled up to the woods they were hit by a fusilade of Panzerfausts from German infantry. That took the wind out of the Russian attack. They found that they had only four tanks left...just enough to exit the board and claim victory. Fortunatley one of the T-34s had manuevered up right behind the final Tiger.



The T-34 missed and the Tiger (Crewed by an elite crew) was able to destroy one of the remaining Soviets and thus claim victory.

It was a great game and I felt the armor rules were right on. The results mirrored the results of Cross of Iron. Jonathan really seems to have the numbers right...and it was all played on a 4x6 table. No need for a 10 foot table to do battles on the steps or the desert of North Africa. Ed Stewart, who played, was inspired enough to start thinking about doing Fireball Norht Africa.

I think the armor rules are good to go except from tweaking certain weapons.

In my next post I will address whether we will have a standard set of rules or sceanrio specific rule books.

Mark