Winter War Campaign continues

All quiet on the painting front lately, but I did manage to squeeze in another Winter War game last week. This was originally planned to be played during Christmas holidays, but due to scheduling problems we only got around to it last week.

The scenario was based on a historical battle where a Soviet unit was lost during a night march and bumped into a Finnish unit guarding a crossroads in the rear.

The starting position saw a Finnish LMG squad and an anti-tank gun defending the crossroads, while two Soviet platoons were arriving along the two roads leading to the crossroads. Would Finnish reinforcements arrive in time or will the Soviets overrun the defences.

 The first turn saw some of my reinforcements arrive on the Soviet flank shooting up a truck and killing off a couple of Soviet soldiers. In return the Soviets proceeded to deal a heavy blow to both squads taking out over half of them with some very lucky dice rolling.

On turn three it started to become light enough for troops to see clearly and at this point the Finnish anti-tank gun started to make short work off the Soviet T-26s on the open in the roads. In return my newly arrived machine-gun team got wiped out in another round of  splendid dice rolling.

Meanwhile on the other flank a Veteran Finnish ski squad arrived eager to revenge their comrades. However my dice rolling continued as usual with only a few casualties caused on the Soviets while once again over half the squad got wiped out in return fire.

Things are looking pretty desperate as the Soviets shoot through the single rifle squad at the crossroads in another show of marksmanship. No reserves in sight so it's pretty much over for the Finns.

 

As a desperate last ditch effort the few remaining Skiing riflemen attack the closest Soviet unit and promptly wipe them out. In return the Soviets attempt to counter-attack only to be killed and driven off the table.

A very solid win for the Soviets. I played a bit too rashly with the Finns being quite confident that shooting with 4+ or 5+ and killing with 3+ would be enough to take down enough Soviets while usually being hit with a 6+ or 7+ and being killed with 4+ or 5+ should have kept me quite safe. It was not to be as I was usually only able to take down a couple of Soviets while many times the return fire from a single Soviet squad would easily wipe out half a squad I had. Skilled dice rolling (or nicely weighed dice :) ) with consistent rolls of 6s all around really made me suffer. If Inexperienced units can start causing damage early in the game they can be really strong as most other armies can't afford to lose many units.