Russian armour holds bridgehead

The Russian offensive grinds on. Abelard has regrouped with German armoured elements and is tasked with capturing a rail head recently identified as in use by the invaders. It's refreshing to be facing an honest foe, rather than one willing to pretend to be ones allies. He's excited, but confident. There are relatively few enemy troops at the bridgehead, if he moves quickly, perhaps he can capture it without loosing a man.

Setup

Abelard's group form up near an industrial park

Russian armour clusters around the train station

I decided to play aggressively; to avoid repeating the failings in my previous games and it yielded instant results.

2 T-55 are left burning

 I even got reserves on turn 1 (luckily) and a Panther platoon rushed to lock down the centre.

Stu brings on his hind wing

And pops his ambush

This is where I got lucky. Stu neglected to flank my Panthers with his ambushers, leading to only one being bailed. The Hinds also failed to cause any effect.

Pop goes the Russian

In my turn, I abandoned the centre, choosing to push up my second Panther platoon to reinforce the left flank and return fire smoked all the ambushers.

Hinds line up for kill

 Up 'til this point my AAA had been completely ineffective, but as the Hinds opened up on the second Panther platoon, a missile finally found it's mark and a Hind dropped from the sky in flames. The Hinds failed to kill a Panther again, but flanking T-55's landed a shot on the rear of a Panther killing it and force the unit to flee.

And this is when things started to fall apart

I decided to push for the objective, certain of victory. This was first turn when Stu could bring on (delayed, scattered) reserves. I didn't do the maths (it was 8 in 9), but I was pretty sure that I'd have the objective uncontested at the end of my next turn.

I even popped the Russian commander

 Things did not go well...

Surprise reserves!

OhShit.jpg

 Lets just say things quickly unwound after that.

This one genuinely broke my heart, I could taste victory, and it was snatched from me! Other than ignoring the possibility of being flanked by the ambushers (who I could see coming), I think I played the odds correctly, and it went against at the last moment.