Action on the eastern front: 1914 style.

I have just finished fighting yet another WW1 game generated with the Scenario Generation System. The game was set on the eastern front in 1914, with a German Corp attacking a seriously under strength Russian Corp. The table and terrain can be seen below, with the German attack coming from the right hand side of the table. The German attack arrows are shown in red, while the Russian regimental defence areas are shown in blue. The Russian reserve entry point is shown with the blue dot at the centre of the left edge of the board. As I haven't yet completed painting the Russian units, my BEF and ANZAC troops stood in as proxies.


Here the Russian right can be seen waiting for the onslaught. This infantry regiment had a regiment of 76mm guns attached, but each fighting as an independent stand. It was taken with random morale but turned out to be green when it finally came under attack.


The Russian left was more securely held, with troops dug in on the gray contour at the top of the picture. These were also more solid regular troops. The Arab -looking stand was another proxy, standing in for the Corp command stand.


The Russian centre included an outpost of stands waiting in the wooded area through which a German advance was expected. The three companies forming the outpost are seen here expecting to hold up in the face of two entire German regiments ... ouch!!! I wasn't expecting quite such a large force here.. hmm.. that was stupid!! I should remember.. my son always concentrates his attacks well.

The German advance is seen here from behind the Russian left centre. The forest defended with the outposts can be seen at the top right of the photo. Suppression markers can already be seen on both the defending Russian troops, and the advancing German infantry.


The Russian left flank came under extreme pressure as a flank march hit, but the Russian deployment had suspected flank marches on both flanks, and the troops were deployed accordingly. Fortunately the Russian artillery also responded at this time (it had been notably silent up until now!!.. curses from Robin who was commanding the Russians), and the flank marching German regiment was hit by artillery fire from an on board regiment of 76mm guns, and an off table regiment of 122mm guns.. that hurt!!



The Russian centre begins to falter... there is one remaining company resisting in the forest, but the troops are suppressed.. and who could blame them!! There was some fearsome fire coming their way!!

The forward defence in the Russian centre is gone... troops in their secondary supporting position await the onslaught, seen here dug in on the small contour behind the forest position that their outposts had struggled to hold. What's more, at the same time the stands dug in on the heights were forced of the heights by a barrage of small arms and artillery fire. Things were looking very dodgy now.


The game ended with the Russian positions still firm, having driven off both flank attacks. The green infantry regiment on the Russian right had only just managed to hold on, surviving its first morale check. The Russian reserves had been committed and were moving forward to reinforce the Russian centre and right flank.

However the Russian strategy had meant that he had ceded three terrain objectives, in order to keep a tight supportive defence, hoping to inflict sufficient casualties on the attacker to gain victory points through morale checks. The play almost succeeded, but not quite, as he only held one undisputed objective, the other (the bridge) was disputed at the end of the game.

The final result: a marginal victory to the Germans with 7 victory points to the Russian 6.
However, it was another exciting, nail-biting game.. but they always are with the scenario system.