FIRESTORM PONYRI STATION CAMPAIGN FINAL TURN, Tigers at Minsk Gaming, and Updates

Wow it's been a crazy last few weeks and weekends but we are nearing the end of the Ponyri Station firestorm campaign!  This past weekend we held a "ceasefire" and even though we played some great WWII gaming (Tigers at Minsk intro games for my group), the Ponyri guns fell silent for a bit.

My group played through 4 (yes, FOUR!) games of Norm's Tigers at Minsk rules, one of my all time favorite wargame rules, last Saturday to great effect.  We ended up playing the excelelnt "37th Guards" scenario, "Follow the Elefants" introductory infantry scenario, and the delightfully suspenseful all-tank "Action at Tomarovka" scenario which came down to the wire.  I am very pleased to report that my gaming buddies really enjoyed Tigers at Minsk and I'm hopeful we are going to play it again.  Who knows, perhaps we can play some TaM action for one of the final Ponyri battles?

Ken commanding the Soviets in Stalingrad as we played through the "37th Guards" scenario!  The Soviets won!

Bitter room to room fighting in the factory!

We broke out "follow the elefants" for some more conventional fighting on an open table.

Germans rushing the right under concealment of smoke

Dave (l) and Alex (R) jump in.  Dave tries something different and weights his entire right.  

Dave tries making smoke but is taking horrendous casualties from the Russian HMGs in the woods and buildings

German platoons stacked up waiting to move!

After a nice, relaxing afternoon of gaming, we are back to the campaign and are getting back into the swing of things! I have updated the map and attached it below.  The Soviets have initiative for this turn so I'm awaiting Ken's orders.  When I receive those I will update with arrows.  Not sure what game we will use to fight the final, apocalyptic battle but we've used varying rules sets throughout this campaign so anything is possible.

The Soviets get to place their attacks first however the Germans will still be able to launch attacks into both objectives simultaneously given the capture of both Shirokoye and Berezovetskoye.  That said, the Germans are short on heavy armor while the Soviets ahve been beefed up with reinforcements! 

From the looks of the map, the Germans had a very successful Turn 6.  Not only did they fend off massive Soviet assaults, they also managed to capture Shirokoye and now have only 1 May and Hill 253.3 to go.  The victory condition for the battle is to hold Ponyri, 1 May, and Hill 253.3 for the Germans to claim a win.  Anything else is a Soviet victory.

This campaign has featured wild reversals of fortune for both sides and has enabled us to fight some very interesting battles as a result, where winning or losing each battle could lead to major advantages or disadvantages in future turns.  I can't say enough how much fun it has been and how much better I like playing in linked campaigns over pick up games.

The workload for me wasn't too bad given a more limited number of participants as well.  I plan on posting an overall After Action Report of the campaign and wanted to throw a few teasers  about what I have planned here on the blog as 2019 winds down and 2020 gets ready to start.

Finishing 2019

• Firestorm Ponyri Station ENDGAME and AAR
• CHRISTMAS MEGAGAME (this is a big secret - only a small, privileged handful of people around the world know what the game is!  I can't wait!)  The Christmas MEGAGAME will take place on December 21st at 1100am Eastern Standard Time.
• 2019 Gaming Year in Review planned for New Years Eve

Starting 2020

• Finally with 2020 we will be starting a NEW firestorm campaign but fast forward 40 years into the mid 80s with World War 3 - Firestorm Fulda Gap!

I have a ton of other gaming initiatives getting ready to kick off in 2020 including a massive Napoleonic project in 10mm, and some other big projects to include:

15mm Ancients  Punic and Barbarian Wars, anyone?  Commands and Colors Ancients?

10mm WWI Commands and Colors Great War anyone?

10mm Fantasy (need to paint almost double the units I have for bigger 1HW games!)

10mm English Civil War / 30 Years War (wanting to play the "Tilly's Bad Day" rules from the Balagan website).

15mm AWI (is this the year?!?!?!)  I am really hankering for a good Black Powder game using my 15mm AWI troopers.  If only I could find the time!

This weekend promises to be full of work as I make preparations for the MEGAGAME and believe me when I tell you, I still have a ton of painting to do in 10 days!  😱