Ukraine '44 game wrapped up

Preamble

Over the last couple of months, Kevin over at the Zhodani Commando blog and I have had a game of MMP's Ukraine '44 on the go. We played using the VASSAL engine and the Ukraine '44 module (which Kevin performed a bit of magic on to make more user-friendly), taking turns recording our respective moves in a VASSAL logfile and then sending them to the other fellow to roll dice, take casualties, etc. It's a brilliant way to play over distance, and the way the turns are broken up means that you don't need too large a chunk of time to do your moves. The most time-consuming thing is working out how you want to approach the board situation.

The game is based on Hube's pocket, in which the surrounded German 1st Panzer Army managed to break out of the encirclement and rejoin their comrades. I deliberately didn't read up on the historical action because I wanted to work out things for myself, so apologies for going light on that aspect!

One interesting thing about the game is that all unit strengths are hidden and strength is only revealed during combat. Consequently, there is a fair bit of guesswork going on early in the game as one gets a feel for where the enemy has concentrated his strength.

The objective for the German player is to break out of the pocket or, failing that, to prevent the Soviets from taking three victory cities while also destroying more Soviet strength points than he loses himself.

The Germans have a number of advantages, including that they get better movement rates than the Soviets, and that their mechanised units get to move again after combat, allowing these to attack from an exposed position and then retreat back to the relative safety of the main lines. They also have force multipliers in the form of two units of tiger tanks which can be attached to any armoured unit and give a very useful 1-3 modifier to the combat die roll on both attack and defence. The Germans also have 'combat superiority', meaning that should they convincingly destroy an enemy formation in any attack, the German force involved is able to ignore the combat attrition that it would normally have suffered.

The Soviets can win by preventing a breakout and by killing off German strength points, with any German strength points out of supply at the end of the game also counting as eliminated. The Russian player can also claim an auto victory if at any time he controls three of the game's four victory cities.

In their favour the Soviets have three things: the number of units, the strength of their tank divisions, and the +2 artillery combat modifier that applies if they elect to do their attacks before they do any movement. But most of the Soviet infantry units are relatively weak in defence, and are therefore susceptible to being monstered by determined German attacks, provided that the German attacks the right units (which, given hidden unit strengths, is not always certain!).

Each side must therefore play quite differently.

Anyway, I took the Germans, Kevin took the Soviets, and we were at it.

The action

This is how things started off after Kevin's first move.

Opening moves
(note that my units' strengths can be seen because the module is showing the game from my perspective)

You can see that Soviet armour (red units) has already seized the key road junctions between the German forces and safety to the west.

Over the next few turns Kevin attempted to complete the encirclement, squeeze the Germans back towards the river, and reduce the German garrison in the victory city of Ternopol in the North.

Turn 3

The Germans tried to kill as many front-line Soviet units as possible, first by giving the armoured units a bloody nose and then, once they were cautious and wary, by directing attacks against the weaker infantry units. Meanwhile, the Soviets attacked a second victory city in the north and threatened a third in the south.

Turn 5

It was only now that I saw Kevin's plan - suck up losses elsewhere, and aim to take the victory cities for the auto win. I did not have enough troops to do much about this; I had not seriously considered this strategy on his part. The cunning blighter had me!

Turn 6

By now the troops in the pocket were relying on supply from the air and were operating at reduced effectiveness. When combined with the advance against my victory cities, the situation looked hopeless. I was ready to call the game at this point, but Kevin encouraged me to continue, and he was right - I had misread the reinforcement entry hexes, and with a bit of luck a counterattack was launched using said reinforcements, keeping the Soviet advance units isolated and out of supply and enabling the recapture of the second of the northern victory cities

Turn 7

With Berezheny recaptured but Chernovtzy in the south about to fall, all depended on whether we could hold Berezheny long enough for the next round of German reinforcements to arrive. In the centre, 1st Panzer Army was on the verge of breaking out, but we needed to hold in the north for two more turns to save the day.

Victory!

But it was not to be. Although almost at the limits of their strength in the north the Soviets retook Berezheny, and with Chernovtzy in the south falling in the same turn, Kevin had the three victory cities he needed to triumph. A mighty success - well done sir!

Conclusion.

The game was, for me, a lot of fun, even though I badly misread Soviet intentions. From the German player's perspective, the actions needed to try to weaken the encircling cordon were great fun to play out, but I don't think Kevin enjoyed the Soviet infantry units being so weak! Nevertheless, despite the desperate efforts of 1st Panzer Army, clever planning and nerves of Red Steel saw Kevin through to his thoroughly deserved win.

I would certainly play this again, but my German strategy needs a bit more work, I think!

Aside from being a strong player, Kevin was an excellent sport and a lot of fun to play against. VASSAL is a great tool, and if any readers like boardgames but lack for local players, I would encourage you to look into it.

Ukraine '44, turns 3 and 4.

Here's some more of the action from my solo game of MMP's Ukraine '44.

(Note, all photos can be enlarged by clicking on them)

Picking up where we left off here, the Germans continue to fall back in the eastern sector under Soviet pressure. Panzer divisions are used to keep the corridor to the west open and maintain control of the all-important road junctions, vital for supply.

The Soviets continue to press the ever-shrinking German perimeter, making gains west of Terabovlya and contesting Kopychintsy.

With their supply roads under threat, the Germans mount an efficient counter-attack north of Chertkov, destroying one Soviet division and opening a gap in the line which the Soviets will have to divert forces to plug, 

Elsewhere the pull back continues.

After the attack, German motorized divisions in the western areas reorder to defend the Chertkov-Kopychintsy line and those in the east that can be safely pulled out of the defensive perimeter withdraw into a more central position.

The Soviets continue their advance, making headway all along the line, putting particular pressure on in the north.

Successful Soviet attacks destroy two infantry divisions and open up three clear avenues of advance. An assault in the south forces the defenders out of Brichen Sat, while the siege of Ternopol continues in the north.

The German road network is now under direct threat. If they wish to keep the ground supply corridor to the east open, the reserve panzer divisions will need to be committed to the front lines around Kopychintsy immediately.

Map of the area.  Boxes show where the key struggles are underway.

Ukraine '44, turns 1 and 2.

Details of my solo game of Ukraine '44.

Turn 1 - Soviets attack all along the line east to west, while driving north to south in an attempt to reach the Dnestr.

Turn 2 - Germans pull back and try to set up a defensive line to hold a line north to south and prevent a breakthrough to the Dnestr.

Soviets test for cracks in the line, besiege Ternapol in the north, and look to isolate the defending Germans south of the Dnestr.

Minor losses on both sides.

Turns three and four continue here.

Learning Rules

Well, given that I teach for a living, you might think that I would say that!

Nonetheless, I find that learning rules generally pretty much sucks. I have a four stage process that I seem to follow. It starts with irritation, proceeds quickly to outright disdain but will, if I play the game a few times, likely gradually turn into grudging admiration, and assuming I continue to  play, become a lapdoggish sycophancy which causes me to growl if anyone says a bad word against either the designer or the designed.

It therefore fills me with suspicion on those rare occasion when I do find a ruleset that I like from the outset. As you can perhaps guess, I encountered this rarety last night. The game is Ukraine '44, by Yasushi Nakaguro, published by MMP, and on the topic of the Kamenets-Podolsky, or Hube's, pocket.

Map is a screenshot taken from here.

The rules are short, very clean (ie, you don't need to download screes of errata), and they make excellent sense. It's true that they are very much standard hex and counter with few bells and whistles, but the little things that have been added really appeal.

For example, the game keeps unit strength hidden. Units are placed on map on their generic side which shows just nationality and unit type, and they are only turned over when a combat is declared. After the combat they are turned back to their generic side again.

Simple but effective.

As another example, unit stamina is variable and losses incremental. It's not your standard 'take one hit, flip counter; take a second, remove counter' system. If your unit has, say, 6 steps, you simply record losses by means of a marker hidden under the unit counter.

Again, simple and effective.

In bigger games this would seem like an invitation to counter clutter, but as in this game there is a stacking limit of only one unit per hex, it is not a problem here at all.

The third thing I like is the combat system. It looks like your usual CRT is in play (calculate odds, find column, roll die, apply results) but it's not.

It includes flanking - which gives a positive or negative die roll modifier - and lovely rules for when odds are lesser or greater than those on the CRT. In most games, odds over of the maximum on the CRT (in this case 4:1) would be wasted. Here, they are not; a 5-1 simply means that you add a 1 to your die roll. A 7-1 means that you add 3.

Once more, simple, effective, and this time intuitive to boot!

There's more to this CRT than meets the eye...

Anyway, having apparently skipped most of the rules learning process and jumped immediately to the lapdog sycophancy stage, I've set the map up, and I'm genuinely excited about giving it a whirl. The only problem I can see for a solo game is what to do about the hidden unit strengths.

Do I...

a) Play it as is, allowing both sides to check their counter strengths during their own moves, and then try to forget that information during the other side's turn.
b) Play it as is, but don't allow myself to check the counter strengths until combat is declared.
c) Play it with the counter strengths revealed throughout.

I'm leaning towards C, but I think I'll first have a browse on boardgamegeek and see if anyone else has tried to play solo and see what they did.

And the reason why I can actually play a game?  Because I spend the weekend putting in a new wall of shelves in the little closet room we have off the master bedroom, meaning that a lot of the junk that was cluttering up the hobby room floor space could be moved in there instead.

Happy days!

I put together a shelf, but do you think they call me the shelf maker? No...