A Victory Lost with Piero, first turn

An email buddy and I have just started a play-by-email game of A Victory Lost, the brilliant Eastern Front operational game by Tetsuya Nakamura.  This is Piero's first attempt at AVL, so it will likely be a learning game; but as I've been experimenting with taking screenshots before and after every activation, I'm going to post these here as a record of how events progress.

To get a general overview of the rules and feel of AVL you can take a look at an earlier post, found here, that I wrote on it back in February.

Turn 1, December 17 to December 27, 1942.

The screenshot below shows the positions at game start.  The Soviets have strong forces present in the vicinity of 1st Guard Army, 2nd Guard Army and 5th Shock and 5th Tank Armies.  The German line is weakly held in the centre, but there are powerful panzer divisions scattered about the south.

The Soviet attack commences: 6th Army attacks across the Don, dislodging elements of the Italian 8th Army from their positions and establishing bridgeheads for exploitation.

2nd Guard Army advances in the south, but unfortunate circumstances allow 7th Landwehr and 336th Division to hold their positions.  Stalin will have something to say to the random number generators...

STAVKA is drawn from the chit cup, and the whole of the Soviet line activates.  The Germans are under pressure everywhere.  They are in danger of being overrun in the south, but again the line holds firm.  Grave fears are held for the future of 4th Panzer Army.

The Rumanian 3rd Army HQ authorises a pull-back towards Millerovo and Morozovsk which gives the Germans some breathing space.

5th Tank Army breaks through north of Tsimlinskaia, destroying 8th Landwehr in place and threatening to outflank 7th Landwehr next activation.

4th Panzer Army at last gets the order to withdraw.  The bulk of the panzer divisions are ordered north, crossing the Don to support Hollidt against 5th Tank and 5th Shock Armies.  15th Landwehr falls back to Proletarsk to hold the Manych River crossing and bar the way to Rostov.

1st Guards Army closes in on the German troops in position at Rossosh in the north, driving back one division and cutting the other off in the town. The centre of the German line has been blown open and the north is in tremendous difficulty.

In the south, Hollidt orders a local counterattack north of Tsimlinskaia, giving 7th Tank and 5th Mechanised Corps a bloody nose and driving them back.  The line is briefly restored.

German reinforcements arrive - Kempf rushes north with two infantry divisions while Fretter-Pico sets up headquarters at Voroshilovgrad on the Donets.

Soviet 28th Army is due to arrive on the south-eastern flank of the German position, and elsewhere another tank corps makes its way to support the offensive.

As things are - but dependent on how the chits come out of the cup - the Soviets are primed for success both north and south this turn as there are vulnerable German units at both ends of the line.  That said, the Germans will have 4 chits in the cup this turn, giving them more options and a better chance to fall back to better defensive positions.  Turn 2 will be very important (but they all are, really!).

Stay tuned for more...

(BTW, at the time of writing there are about 300 hits to go before the blog reaches the magic 50,000.  If you want to enter the celebratory thank-you giveaway, go to this link and follow the instructions there.)

A Victory Lost with Andrea, Turn 5

Turn 5: January 28th - February 5th. 

Carrying on from the earlier report (which can be found here) the current situation sees the Germans trying to do three things at once: keep a supply line open through Rostov for 1st Panzer Army's arrival from the south; set up a defensive line in the north; and prevent the fall of Stalino.

The first objective is achieved by virtue of a limited counterattack north of Rostov which holds off the 2nd Guards Army, but further north 5th Shock Army and 1st Guard army isolate and eliminate two divisions.

In the far north 6th Army and Popov's tank force destroy resistance east of Valuyki and take the city itself, but cannot dislodge the 268th infantry division from its position covering the road to Belgorod and thence Kharkov.  The infantry in this sector have, through their sacrifices, bought enough time for Kharkhov to be reinforced and have kept the armies in the north from advancing as quickly as the Soviet command would have wished.

Kempf is unable to extricate himself from a precarious position around Starobilsk, where the 7th and 19th Panzer divisions find themselves subject to a series of attacks by 3rd and 5th Tank Armies resulting in 7th Panzer being destroyed and 19th Panzer forced to fall back on the infantry support. To compound the difficulties, elements of Popov's command turn south from Valuyki to put Kempf's three remaining divisions out of supply.

Towards the end of the first week of February, 13th Tank liberates Stalino from German control, but strong German reinforcements arrive in preparation for a counter attack.

The Germans will have six chits in the cup next turn - two of which will be the magic Manstein chits - but it will be a difficult task to hold off the Soviets long enough to get 1st Panzer Army and Kempf's men out of danger while still be able to form a front capable of holding Kharkov and recapturing Stalino.

9 German infantry divisions eliminated.
4 German panzer divisions flipped.
4 German panzer divisions eliminated.
1 Victory city liberated.
1 Soviet tanks division eliminated.  VPs 21-26

Below is a screenshot of the map showing units in place.

A Victory Lost with Andrea, Turns 1-4

Here is the start of my PBEM game of A Victory Lost, played with Andrea. You can read the background here

Turn 1: December 17th - 27th. 

Hungarian 2nd Army comes out of the cup first, which sees the Germans change their positions slightly in the north.  In response, 1st Guard Army sees the opportunity to strike south, either catching the 27th panzer division at Millerovo or heading east to pocket Rumanian 3rd Army and put it out of supply.

5th Shock and 2nd Guard armies drive west and southwest respectively, catching 4th Panzer Army and taking a step off one of the panzer divisions.  Rumanian 3rd army falls back towards Millerovo, where 27th Panzer is attacked by advance elements of 1st Guard Army, losing a step in the retreat.

The Germans are in a critical position.  Hollidt's men have not moved and are in danger of being destroyed piecemeal.  Further south F-Pico takes over command in 4th Panzer Army's sector in the hope that he will be able to extricate the divisions there, where 17th Panzer is out of supply, from their difficulties.

The situation in the north is reasonably secure, as 1st Guard has gone south.

1 German infantry division eliminated.
2 German panzer divisions flipped.  VPs 25-1.

Turn 2: December 28th - Jan 7th.

Hollidt launches a counterattack to free the 17th Panzer division trapped at Kotelnikovo.  It is a brave but unlucky attempt, and the division is destroyed soon after.  Near Millerovo the 27th Panzer division is also caught and eliminated by 1st Guard army, and another infantry division with it.

Enough time is bought however for a line to be established - flimsy though it may be - on the Donets.  There is stiff resistance put up in the south but 5th Shock and 2nd Gds Armies continue their march.

2 German infantry division eliminated.
2 German panzer divisions flipped.
2 German panzer divisions eliminated.  VPs 25-8

Turn 3: January 8th - January 17th.

Some bold work from Hollidt and F-Pico sees the remaining panzer divisions in the south make it to safety.  Unfortunately, they are not able to prevent the Soviets from getting across the Donets.  3rd Guards army is in the process of clearing the pockets of resistance behind the lines.  Progress is slow in the north, but the Soviets are able to get some tank units across the river which sets them up for a drive in the following weeks.


4 German infantry division eliminated.
2 German panzer divisions flipped.
2 German panzer divisions eliminated.  VPs 25-10

Turn 4: January 18th - January 27th.

A bloody fight is developing over the Donets, with another panzer division destroyed and Rostov captured.  Kempf launches a feint in the north, and while the Soviets scramble to respond an inspirational counterattack (devised by Manstein himself) recaptures Rostov and opens the road for the reinforcing 1st Panzer army coming up from the south.

3rd Tank Army's arrival in the north coincides with an assault on the remaining Axis forces in that sector, opening the railway lines and allowing reinforcements to reach Millerovo.

The situation is (as it almost always is in this game) delicately poised!

6 German infantry divisions eliminated.  

2 German panzer divisions flipped.

3 German panzer divisions eliminated.  VPs 25-15

My Favourite Games: A Victory Lost

One of my favourite boardgames is MMP's A Victory Lost.  Designed by Tetsuya Nakamura, its subject matter is the Soviet counter-offensive launched as Paulus' 6th Army was in its death throes at Stalingrad.  The game starts on Dec 17th, 1942, goes through nine turns, each lasting about 10 days, and finishes on around March 18th, 1943.  It thus includes Manstein's famous 'backhand blow' that stabilized the German front.

The game is very simple: blind pull HQ chit from cup, activate units within range of the HQ, move, fight if desired, pull next chit.  The Germans start the first turn with only 3 chits in the cup while the Soviets always have 4.  As the game goes on and German reinforcements arrive, the German chit count goes up, 4 per turn in turns 2 and 3, 5 in turns 4 and 5, 6 in turns 6 and 7, and then they reduce again to 5 and 4 for the final two turns.  They are also aided by Manstein, whose chit, when pulled, can activate any German HQ.  By turn 6 there are two Manstein chits in play, so they can get quite a bit of momentum going.

The Soviets also have some special rules for their chits.  They have STAVKA, which activates all Soviet HQs at once and is obviously very powerful; but to balance this, at the start of the game the Soviets must secretly select 6 of the 12 HQ chits they have available, with the others being discarded.  The discarded HQs stay on the map but cannot be put into the chit cup.  This means that the Soviet player may only put combinations of these 6 chits into the cup.  One of them of course will be STAVKA, but as you can imagine, deciding which of the others to ready for action makes for some interesting choices.  You will often find that you'd like to have x HQ chit in the cup, but if you didn't choose that one early on, tough luck!  The later game can become a nightmare if you are unable to activate the HQs you'd like.

The game is won by controlling territory and eliminating enemy units.  The five victory cities are worth 5 VPs for whoever controls them.  The Soviets get 1VP for each German (not allied) infantry unit eliminated and 3VP for each panzer or motorized division knocked out.  The Germans get 1VP for each Soviet tank unit they destroy.

The Germans have the advantage of interior lines, greatly superior mobility, powerful panzer divisions and more flexible commands, but the Soviets have numbers and surprise on their side.  It's a very different game depending on which side you play, and even though the rules are simple there is great depth to the strategy.  The usual pattern is for the Germans to get pounded for the first three or four turns, but if they can survive that early stage their powerful reinforcements and increasing chit count will allow them to launch some fearsome counterattacks without the Soviets being able to do very much about it.

The game I'm playing now is with my Italian play-by-email buddy, Andrea.  No matter what game we play, not only is he a thorough gentleman, but he's also a tough and determined opponent.  Although this is his first time playing the Germans (and it really helps to have had experience with them before to be able to play the Germans well) he has handled the situation with no little skill.

This is the set up.  The Soviets' main strength is in the 1st Guard Army, 5th Shock Army and 2nd Guard Army regions.  The Germans have to decide which three HQs they will put in the cup.  Do they try to pull back in the north or concentrate on getting their panzer divisions out of danger in the south?  It can be a tricky choice.

Cities in red type are VP cities.  It's also worth checking out the roadways (crucial for fast movement) and the railway lines (which bring reinforcements).  Bridges across the river are of course very important, as are the supply sources (see symbols in the north for the Soviets; in the west for the Germans). 

You can find the report on turns one to four here.  Hope you enjoy!