Project "River"

After long months of painting miniatures we decided with Kondziu to change the direction for a while, and spent some time on polishing our table dioramas.
We decided to start with a project with goal to create four river sections that will cover the short edge of the table. The decision was stimulated by the fact that one of the  Battlegroup Kursk scenarios requires river. So, my task was to create the river and Kondziu was going to prepare a wooden bridge.

Of course, I could just buy one of the in-the-box rivers, e.g., Battlefront's one, but I wanted to try something a bit different and create it myself. I also didn't like that most of the available river-dioramas have high river banks. It looks weird when you hide tank behind a river bank... and even if you agree that there is no elevation there, it still doesn't look convincing to me.

Here I would like to share with you my experience from that project. OK, I have to admit at the beginning that I hadn't had any experience in that area, so forgive me if I didn't make it according to the state of the art ;)

And one final remark. My criteria for choosing the techniques and materials were simple: cheap + fast + convincing view.

What you will need?

First, I had to collect some products that I was going to use:

• A4 Polystyrene hips sheets: 1mm as base for the river and 3mm with foam inside for the banks;
• PVA glue + sand;
• Paints:
• Primer - I decided to build an ordinary can for general purpose;
• Set of Vallejo paints.
• Static grass - I used a mixture of grass from Gale Force 9 and Polak.
• Water effect - I used a very cheap one - bought at some internet auction - to be honest I still don't know what was that - the guy sell it in bottles without any labels ;)

Step 1. Modeling the river banks

I decided to make it really fast. First of all I got a 1mm polystyrene hips sheet and draw two dots at the end of each shorter side that will make the river width. Then I draw the lines to see the potential shape of the banks. I decided that the river was going to be 12cm wide (12 meters in 1:1 scale). Marking river width is important, because you're going to prepare each piece separately, and they have to somehow fit to each other.

Then, I used 3mm hip sheet with the foam inside to model the banks. You have to cut 1cm-wide stripes and bend them in hand to make the river bank twisted a little bit. Finally, you have to attach it to the base.

Next, I covered the whole construction with the PVA glue mixed with regular sand (of course first you have to cut the base a little bit so the PVA glue stick to it for good).

Step 2. Priming

Of course you have to prime the whole thing at this stage. I bought an ordinary acrylic paint in the can (not dedicated to the model kits or wargaming). It was really cheap and if I only didn't chose a bad shade of brown (a little bit too rusty - like burnt sienna) it would be perfect. Unfortunately, because of that I had to repaint the elements to brown.

Step 3. Painting the river bottom and banks

I used my airbrush to paint the bottom and the banks. Painting a realistic looking river bottom is not an easy task. I decided to start with german grey in the middle, and then choosing lighter and lighter shades of green while I was moving towards the banks. For the fords I chose dark sand and then dry brushed it with beige brown.

For the banks I used pretty standard procedure - dark brown + wash (black + brown) and dry brushing: beige brown and dark sand.

Steps 4. Static grass

As a next step, I had to add some static grass and bushes at the river banks. I used the mixture of Gale Force 9 and Polak static grass. Nothing special about it.

Steps 5. Water effect

Finally, the biggest question mark - the water effect. I was really frightened about using the water effect. As I already said it was sent to me with bottle after mineral water, without any labels... Well, I decided to take the river section into my cellar and do the whole procedure there to avoid potential poisoning from this unknown substance. It turned out it worked really good, but unfortunately, I used a regular plasticine for children to protect the flow of the water. In many cases it was not enough.
After 4-5 days the water became hard. Again, I made a small mistake because I took it into my car early in the morning - there was really cold outside. As a result the water wrinkled a little bit. It wasn't a planned effect, but still it looks quite convincing...

Zvezda Flammpanzer III - a short review

As you know, I have been experimenting more and more with Battlegroup Kursk nowadays.
In order to adjust my army to mid war theatre I had to call for some reinforcements ;) 

Well, definitely the cheapest and quickest way of equipping your 15mm-army with tanks is to buy some of them made by Zvezda. Personally, I was looking for late Panzer IIIs J, L or M. Unfortunately, Zvezda doesn't have such in its offer. Fortunately, they have a flamethrower version of Panzer III, which can easily play the role of Panzer IIIs L. Even the gun (ehh, sorry flamethrower) seems to have quite accurate size for 50L60 gun - especially if you mix them with Battlefront's with bulky guns). So, I decided to buy three of them to field a platoon in Battlegroup Kursk.

Model quality

As usual, I was impressed with the quality of casting. Zvezda has enormous experience in producing

plastic model kits, and without any doubts you will see it. The model fits into single, small sprue. It doesn't have any extra stuff included, like stowage or commanders. However, you have probably collected some of these so far.

The price is astonishing. In Poland, one costs around 2 Euros, which wipes out competition - especially taking into account high quality of the product (cheap and high quality - isn't that contradict?).

If had to compare Zvezda and PSC models I would say that they both produce the best plastic models in 15mm scale. Zvezda seems to be a little bit better when it comes to details - they are able to cast models with incredible precision. However, PSC has also great casting quality, and they are more historically accurate to me. In addition, they include many extra elements to their models,  like stowage or commanders. Taking all that into account I would say it is draw for me. Zvezda is cheaper, but if I would like to get a platoon of well customized tanks I would go for PSC. But, whenever I need to quickly reinforce my army with new platoon Zvezda would by my option of choice.

Assembling

Assembling these models were a real pleasure to me. Nowadays, I don't have so much time to "fight" with models, so I have to assemble and paint them in ultra fast way. I get the feeling that Zvezda really understands that ;) We - war-gammers, hardly ever assemble and paint single vehicles. We usually have to cope with at least a platoon at once. Thus, models easy to assemble are more than welcome.

For assembling Zvezda's Panzer IIIs you even don't need glue. Of course, I used some to be get rid of even the smallest gaps, but to be honest things were suiting so well that you could easily leave them as they are. All elements that are time consuming to assemble are casted as single units - turret and tracks. It took me maybe 1 hour to assemble all of them. Finally, they are still plastics, so to make them a little bit heavier I put some plasticine with fishing weights.

Dimensions

As always couple of measures:

Gallery

Well, as I told you I don't have time right now to play with each detail and paint it accurately. This is the result of 3-4 evenings:

Counterattack at Polzychy

As Autumn sun lazily dawns over the fields and forests of eastern Belarus on 13th October 1943, the forces of the newly formed Soviet-Polish 1st Tank Corps and 1st Infantry Division are gearing up for a breakthrough attack through the village of Polzychy. As fate would have it though, elements of the 337th Infantry Division have chosen Polzychy as the route of their own advance in an attempt to reclaim the ground west of the river Miereya. Thus, as the early morning sun strikes their battered armor, German and Soviet tanks find themselves jousting in a vicious engagement for a breakthrough.

This is a battle report from a game of Battlegroup Kursk that Mirek and I played recently. We're still new to BGK and playing this battle was our way of getting to know the ruleset a little better - we were trying out various bits of the rules to see how they worked and used our various units in a way we imagined  they should be used... and not necessarily in the way they actually should be played. Still, we probably managed to capture some of the finer points of BGK tank warfare, We knew we were going unwittingly to bend or break some of rules but we also thought, that since we're really amazingly super excited about the game we want to showcase it a little bit. So, since we like making battle reports, we figured we should go ahead and make of this game. We hope you enjoy it despite any of its many hitches. 

P.S. Sorry about the light being so yellow. Blame the lightbulb company.

Background

We decided to choose one of the two non-defensive scenarios - Counterattack. In the scenario board is divided diagonally and player's reserves come from corners. 

Battlefield - two farmhouses at East and West sides of the map. 

Armies

German Panzer Division (497 / 30 BR)	Soviet Tank Corps (500 / 34 BR)
Forward HQ - 85p / 3BR 1x Tiger 1E Panzer Grenadier Platoon - 115p / 11BR Panzer IV Platoon  - 150p / 9BR 3x Pz IVH Panzer VI Tiger 1E - 85p / 4BR Supply Column - 22p / 1BR 2 medium trucks 1 armored truck Sniper - 10p / 1BR Armored Car - SdKfz 222 - 20p / 1BR Off-Table Artillery (4+) - 10p / 0BR	Forward HQ - 22 / 3BR Tank Platoon - 100 / 9BR 3x T-34/76 mod 1943 Tank Platoon - 100 / 9BR 3x T-34/76 mod 1943 Heavy Assault Gun - 52 / 3BR SU-152 Motorized Infantry Platoon - 58 / 5BR Platoon Commander in Gaz jeep 4x Rifle teams in Zis-5 trucks DShK AA MG team Sniper - 10 / 1BR Forward Observer Team - 16 / 1BR Guards Mortar Battery - 100 / 2BR 2x BM-13
AAA-AG0BA1AB-CBB_B-CBB_C-CB10CB-AB0FAF0HA-AC-BB0IH0JA-AB0	CAA0BA1A-ABB-ABB_B-ABB_C-ABB_D-ABH10CBB_B0DAB0FA0IB-AB0

Pre game

Objectives established; let the battle begin!

Kondziu: The battleground looked like it would be between two well-defended villages, with a stripe of no-man's land in the middle. With regard to this, my plan was to keep my village strongly reinforced with infantry, AAA, and whatever armor I could spare, while trying some flanking maneuvers with T-34s, which were my main asset. I wanted to have groups of T-34s engage enemy tanks in detail (if possible), get into point-blank range and beat on their side or stern armor. Since I was probably going to be constantly knocking on armor then, I figured I giving only 1 HE shell to each T-34 might give me an edge at some point. The thing I definitely did not want to do is to entertain any Tigers with long-distance shooting contests. I had no idea whether any of this was going to be effective, or even at all realistic, but that is how T-34s work in my mind. After a while I'd also have to decide whether I'm going to advance with my tanks and infantry and try to take the other village, or whether I'd dig in my heels and just defend my own village from being overrun. I figured this would sort itself out naturally though, depending on how many smoking wrecks will be littering the battlefield. If this battle plan seems overly naïve, then, in my defense, not only is this my second game of BGK ever, my understanding of tactics is still somewhat tainted by FOW. But at least when the dust settles I will have learned something.

SdKfz 222 probing the area before big kitties arrive...

Mirek: I had a privilege to choose the edge of the table. I decided to stay at East side of the area and use the farm as my operation base. I was also convinced to stay at that side by the wooden fence that went around the place. It seemed to give nice protection to my Grenadiers. The second argument was the presence of small woods that made perfect spot points for my tanks.
To be honest I didn't have a strict tactical plan at this point. The main idea was to establish a solid defense line. Then, slowly advance to push back the enemy. I didn't want to go into close combat no sooner than it was necessary. Still, I didn't realize how mobile T-34 really are... 

Turn 1 (Recce)

Kondziu: The scenario starts with a reconnaissance move before any of the main force arrives. With just my single sniper against an enemy sniper and an armored car I was out-recon'd and I felt it, so there was no point in trying to get into any engagements before I started getting reinforced. Thus, I plopped my sniper on an objective and placed him on overwatch, in case the Germans tried something quick at beginning. I was a little bit afraid Mirek would park both his units on the objectives, making me take three morale chits at the beginning (one for losing the clash of recon and one for each objective) versus the one he had to take from my single objective. Whis would've been really hard on my own personal morale, I think. Luckily, he chose not to take any objectives straight off, so I avoided permanent psychological problems and only drew a chit for having worse recon, and that was 3 points, so not too bad.

Mirek: I ordered the Sniper to hide in the wood South of the Western farm and organize ambush. I also considered the option to quickly drive to the objectives with SdKfz 222, but it would be an obvious suicidal mission. I knew that it is impossible to get to the objectives in one turn, and I was pretty sure that in the following turn at least one tank will enter the battlefield. I decided to hide armored car in the wood - later it turned out that it was its last order...

Turn 2

Kondziu: I got 6 orders and 2 reserve units coming in.

I couldn't decide whether to get some T-34s on the table, the SU, or some officers. I thought officers don't actually give any bonuses if they are off the table (I was later told they do not), so I decided I at least one straight away. In anticipation of huge nasty metal things coming, I also decided to put the SU in and position it for firing in the next turn.When the units came in, I moved the officer into a house, parking his car just outside, and positioned the SU in the field, behind the other house. 

Mirek: I got 6 orders and 6 reserve units.

What a lucky start, I thought... The idea of immediate assault came to my mind once again. I was able to bring all my armor forces from reserves and push them forward as far as I could. The Tiger 231 and two Panzer IVs 141 and 142 were ordered to advance along the road, while the second Tiger 232 and Panzer IV 143 were supposed to attack from the Southern direction. I felt that with a little bit of luck I would be able to reach to the objectives and destroy whatever will pop-up from reserves. Unfortunately, from that point I used the word "luck" for the last time (without prefixing it with another word "bad").

German column ready to advance...

German left flank...

Turn 3

Kondziu: I got 5 orders and 6 reserve units.

The decision with respect to what units should go in was fairly easy: Bring in all the T-34s!

First I moved up the SU and took a pot shot on the Tiger in the village. A miss, but I think there might have been a valuable psychological effect to that. However, since I had no supply units, that got rid of 1/3 of the SU's ammunition. Two of the T-34s rolled behind a cottage. Tank 123 hid completely with the intent to charge out in the next turn. Tank 126 tried shooting some HE at some enemy vehicles, but since they were not huge, immobile, and neon-lit, there wasn't much effect to it. The third tank was experimentally left on reserve move.

Next, I decided to put each platoon of T-34s on each flank.On the eastern flank, I moved up two T-34s into cover and left one in the rear on reserve move, to maybe try something depending on what happens. The T-34s on the western flank moved up on Stal! Stal! Stal! in an attempt to catch the single Tiger and Pz IV there separated. I think I accidentally cheated a little, and moved more than I was supposed to, but I only realized that much later. Anyway, it was to my disadvantage, because I wanted to stay in the fields, but I ended up in the open. I guess cheating doesn't pay. But I thought I would be moving up aggressively even more next turn, so no big deal.

They shot me!

At the end of Stal! I halfheartedly fired an HE round from each T-34 at the Tiger in the south, with the intent to pin it. One shell hit and indeed the Tiger was pinned. Whee! At this point Mirek and I both had the realization that HE is much more useful than we initially thought and I immediately started regretting I took only one round of it per tank.

Mirek: I got 6 orders and 5 reserve units.

I was a little bit surprised when six T-34s came out from reserves, but I was nearly shocked when they started to stal! stal! stal! and shot HE rounds at my tanks. They pinned down my Tiger 232 making it out of combat for a while. Needless to say, I had to reconsider my initial plan...
I decided to keep the enemy tanks at long distance and rely on my firepower to knock out as many as I could before they get into point-blank range. I was pleased that the entire enemy formation was split into two groups - three tanks each. I thought that together they would be more difficult to stop. Unfortunately, hitting moving targets was not an easy job...

Kondziu: At the end of Mirek's turn I moved my T-34 on reserve move through the fence, onto the road and charged at full speed at the Tiger. At the beginning of my turn I would right there in its grill. I also took two chits, one for each objective the Germans took. One was a three and the other was low ammo, which I put on the sniper for lack of a better choice. He had one more shot and that's it.

Half a league, half a league, half a league onward!

Into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell!

Turn 4

Kondziu: 2 orders and 6 reserve units. Boo! Cheat-hacks! 

Yeah. So. At the end of Mirek's turn I had a pretty cool situation set up. I wanted to rip forward and put some shells into those tanks in the South and rip forward with tank 127 on the road in the North, and, with some fire support from the other tanks in his platoon and a modest, but admittedly not insignificant amount of luck, try to take out the Tiger in the village. And I rolled 1 for orders. Because we didn't know that officers apparently give an order boost regardless of whether they are on the table or not, that meant I had a total of 2 orders. If only there were some way for me to re-roll my order die, say through a special ability of some unit! I'm not greedy, once a game would be fine! Oh, how wonderful that would be at this point in the game! Alas! (If you didn't get the subtle sarcasm, we derped out and forgot about senior officer abilities at this point.)

So what can I do with two orders and my backside hanging out? 

The forlorn hope moved up and fired from what can only be described as extreme short range. The very necessary portion of luck completely failed to arrive however, and the shell bounced off harmlessly, undoubtedly augmenting to the heavy metal component of Belorussian earth by a small amount. C'est la vie, alors.

Lacking better ideas, I decided to put some of my remaining HE rounds to good use and try to pin the other Tiger, so that my reckless charge wouldn't be instantly annihilated. To no avail. 

To be fair, that piece of flat ground looked exactly like a Tiger...

Three stationary tanks in the open. This can't end well.

Mirek: I got 5 orders and 5 reserve units.

This turn I realized what the reserve move is used for. Kondziu made a brilliant move passing his T-34 (127) forward at the end of my 3rd turn. Then he continued to rush forward reaching the Tiger 231. Fortunately, he was not able to flank the Tiger and rounds bounced off the frontal armor. The prompt response from the Tiger changed the T-34 into a fireball. The explosion was so powerful that the Tiger suspension was badly damaged (yes, Kondziu draw a BR counter for loosing the tank, and surprise, surprise it was the break-down event...). Poor Tiger commander rushed a little bit and didn't move his tank back before he shot back at T-34. Indeed, it was an epic charge.

Meanwhile, I continued to shot back at T-34 and the Panzer IV 143 took his first kill...

I also started to feel the pain of insufficient number of orders. My reserves stuck at the edge of the table. The good point was that I had full battlegroup ready for action.

Kondziu: When Mirek took out two of my T-34s, I drew a counter for each: 1 BR and breakdown. Giddy with excitement, I placed the breakdown token on the Tiger in the village and rolled a die: it would not move from now on. I'm not surprised either - if a T-34 just charged into me, I'd call in sick too. But that meant it would have to spend the remainder of the game with a smoking wreck of Hero of the Soviet Union tank 127 right in front of it, blocking the most important part of its field of vision and thus effectively neutralizing it. 

Turn 5

Kondziu: 6 orders and the rest of my reserves.6 orders and the rest of my reserves.

I had my Katyushas and observer all on the table now, so I figured I would make some trouble this turn. But the order failed to get through and artillery did not engage. As for tank warfare, each platoon of T-34s lost one tank at this point. I decided to withdraw and regroup to the West, so the tanks fired at both the Tiger and Pz IV and moved back into the fields. 

Tactical withdrawal.

In the East, I decided to move the platoon up through the fence near the house and into the woods. (Man, these T-34s are nimble!) Since I just learned (was reminded) that the immobilized Tiger was the CC, I thought I'd try to take it out. Anyway, destroying Tiger tanks is an aim in itself for me. I'd wait for some of the Pz IVs to get pinned first though, probably with the consolidated T-34s from the other platoon. 

I also depleted the remainder of my ISU-152 ammunition, trying to get one of the PzIVs that moved up into the woods in the center, but I missed both shots. Since I couldn't afford any supply trucks, the ISU now became a giant paperweight and was pretty much forgotten by both sides until the end of the battle.

Fire...

...and miss.

Mirek: I got 7 orders.

This turn didn't change the tide of the battle. Both sides started to fire all they had without luck. The great news was that the SU-152 was out of ammo after that turn.

I received plenty of orders, so I decided to spare this turn to reorganize my reserves.

You probably didn't notice the Opel Blitz at the Southern edge of the table. He received orders to go through the wood and resupply the brave Panzer IV 143, which at that point nearly run out of ammo. It took him two turns to just move couple of inches. As soon he went out of the wood, the Panzer IV was issued another order...

Turn 6

Kondziu: 8 orders for me. Alright!

This turn I did manage to communicate my need for the Katyushas to actually fire rockets at the actual enemy to the artillery crews. They didn't do bad either: the spotter round was carried away just a couple of inches and the bombardment was very scary, if not very destructive. But pretty much everything in that central forest ended up pinned. I was disappointed that you can't have multiple pin markers on a unit at this point (AFAIK). 

The barrage.

Since everything was pinned, there was my opening for taking out that damned Tiger. First I fired a shot from each tank at a Pz IV though, because I thought at this distance they're much more likely targets. They managed to take out one of the Pz IV too! Then both tanks moved up. If they survived, they'd be able to do some harm... maybe. The tanks from the other platoon moved up East to give fire support later on to make that more probable.

Mirek: I got 6 orders.

I have to admit it was a Kondziu's brilliant action. With a little bit of luck he was able to range-in with his on-table battery of Katyusha. It is really a devastating weapon. The barrage was successful and pinned down all of my units in Eastern wood. This made my right flank defenseless.

He coordinated the barrage with fierce assault of two T-34s, which came out of the Northern wood and took a kill on my Panzer VI 141. I lost one tank and one officer... Both Tigers made attempts to hold the advance, but they were able to knock out only one of the incoming tanks. I had to quickly react to the situation by sending the Panzer IV 143, which was waiting for the supply truck.

Kondziu: I must have taken a counter when tank 126 blew up. I don't remember the value though. I still had quite a lot BR to work with though at this point, so I wasn't worried.

Turn 7

Kondziu: 6 orders. Not bad.

So I had tank 123 destroyed during the charge on the Tiger, which was rather unfortunate. That's not important though. The important thing is, tank 126 did indeed manage to rush in a little further and fire to the side of the Tiger, hit, and make it explode! Whee! Mission accomplished and another destroyed Tiger tank picture for my Destroyed Tiger Picture Gallery. However, while I was extremely happy to snuff out a Tiger, I was very aware that all of my tanks were now in rather precarious positions with respect to various Pz IVs now, and I'd need a lot of luck even to pull them out. Thus this was probably the last Tiger I took out today.

He shoots...

... he scores! The crowds go wild!

But Mirek took two chits for the tiger this round, and he began to look a little uncomfortable. So I figured despite my heavy losses I could still win, if I knocked out a couple more units or pin him a lot. Obviously destroying things is better than just pinning them, because they blow up, so I'd go for that. I wanted to concentrate on Pz IV from this point forward, and maybe try flanking the too. If I had anything to flank with, that is.

Mirek: I got 6 orders.

This was a very interesting turn. The T-34 126 was able to flank the Tiger 231 and knock it out. It costed me the Tiger itself, but what is more important also my Senior Officer. Fortunately, the incoming Panzer IV 143 was able to take revenge on T-34. Nevertheless, the whole action made my second Tiger 232 left alone at my left flank.

I also had to take two BR counters. I draw 1 and 4, which made me 23/30. I realized that from now on I had to really think twice before I decided to rally my troops and take additional counters. On the other hand, I lost only two tanks at that point, and the victory was still somewhere near...

Kondziu: To the audible groan of my opponent, I managed to pull out an Aircraft chit for the destruction of tank 126. Apparently that tank purports to be as menace to the fascist invader even posthumously. I also took a 4 counter for one of the other tanks at this point. But my BR was doing OK still, but I did not have a lot of tanks anymore. Tank 117 survived though, so I wasn't completely defenseless.

Turn 8

Kondziu: I don't remember exactly how many orders I got, but it must have been about 3 or 4.

Aircraft did arrive and it did so in the form of an Aircobra (unfortunately, I didn't have any 1:144 fighter models, let alone a P-39, so no model). This wasn't excellent news, but it was something nonetheless. We read up quickly on the rules for all that stuff and I tried to pounce on one of the Pz IVs with the 37mm guns, but the plane missed. It's actually quite hard to hit anything with those things, since the plane always gets a negative modifier for moving, so this ineffective strafing will be a constant.

Since the Tiger was creeping up my flank, I decided to withdraw the CC's jeep and hide tank 117 behind the building (with an inefective potshot). The Katyushas just finished reloading, so if they survived the Tiger, we'd be good for another barrage.

Mirek: I got 5 orders.

Turn eight didn't bring any visible change. I decided to spent some of the orders to reorganize my reserves. I also decided to quiet the nasty Katyushas. It was a priority mission, because I just couldn't let them freely pin down my units. Arrival of an aircraft forced me draw a counter once again, which made my army one step from fleeing 26/30. 

Hunting Katyushas...

Turns 9-15 (stalemate)

Kondziu: During these turns nothing much happened. Mostly because Mirek didn't have the orders and spare BR and I didn't have the armor. So just a quick run down from my point of view. The Tiger tried to destroy the Katyushas and managed to take one out, but the other unpinned and fired a mostly ineffective barrage.  

My infantry moved up and tried to pin the Tiger, with a couple of successes, making Mirek take a chit, and more nervous with each one. The Tiger and Mirek's sniper tried taking out some infantry, so I had a couple of pins and casualties, and even a successful Beyond the Call of Duty roll on one of my infantry squads. It's nice to see though that, while the infantry can be a nuisance to armored units by pinning them, and maybe doing a very uncertain attack with AT grenades (if the player was actually far-seeing enough to take some, which I wasn't), it's not suicide to attack to attack infantry with medium tanks, like it tends to be in FOW. The aircraft flew around trying to gun down tanks and infantry, but it almost always missed, or the shells bounced off. This went on until it ran out of ammunition and left. Fat lot of help he's been...

On the other side of the table ISU-152 moved off the table and a T-34 was sulking behind a barn almost the whole time. 

At one point Mirek resignedly said this is the last chit he's taking, but he was lucky and ended up exactly on the edge. So I'd have to make him take one more chit (unless it was some event, like aircraft, then more). My original BR of 34 was decreased by 26 at this point (so... 8?), so not terrible, but not very good either.

The final turn

Kondziu: I don't remember how many orders I got, but I needed just one and still had two officers, so it was irrelevant.

Around turns 14-15 my last tank moved up behind the forest, like the previous T-34s did, and it moved out behind the wreckage, to avoid too much exposure. Then, in a last-ditch effort to force the enemy to withdraw, tank 117 moved up and fired at the Pz IV in the forest.

The final push.

Mirek: Around the end of the battle situation was quite funny for me. I lost only two tanks at this point, but most of my force was pinned down and I couldn't rally them. Turns were passing one by one, and I tried hard to force Kondziu to take more BR counters. Finally, there was one, last, dynamic action that involved the remaining T-34 and two Panzer IVs. The T-34 was able to flank and destroy the Panzer IV 142, shortly before the Panzer IV 143 destroyed the T-34.
We ended up late at night (after 2 AM). As far as I remember, I played for quite long time being at 26/30 and I ended up with 30/30 on my BR. My battlegroup was nearly broken... For sure, I couldn't call it a win.

Therein lies the last hope for a Soviet victory. Dead.

Kondziu: I took a counter for my last tank being destroyed and I said I no longer have any offensive force with which to cause any armored units to be destroyed. I'd have to find some infantry to kill, take an objective, or pin every single enemy unit. None of these options seemed particularly realistic. Furthermore, it was 2 AM in the real world now. It was a little disappointing and maybe even a little frustrating to end up in this stalemate, but continuing to fight on would be even more so, and even a victory in those conditions wouldn't be particularly satisfying. No. I offered to withdraw.

Summary

Even though no side managed to break through the enemy lines, as the noon sun shines above their heads, the bloodied and battered forces of the 1st Tank Corps withdraw from the field of battle leaving the badly shaken German victors to nevertheless hold their ground.

Losses:

German Panzer Division (69 men)	Soviet Tank Corps (93 men)
KIA, MIA: 18 men (~26%) AFV:	KIA, MIA: 39 men (~42%) AFV:

Kondziu: Even though the battle ended in a bit of a bog, I had so much fun at the beginning of it that the stalemate didn't spoil it. It was also a good introductory game, since so many elements of the system came into play. The stalemate is a bit of dissatisfying ending to it all, but then again, butting heads against someone as tactically adept as Mirek is always a job and a half, so the way I see it, if I didn't utterly lose, I did alright. 

I, unfortunately, learned a lot about tactics, losses, and rules. I certainly see that killing off the heaviest tanks might not be the way to go, certainly not if I don't have overwhelming odds. Instead, softer targets like trucks and the SdKfz 222 could have been a better target. But I think I used my mobility fairly well, and I managed to get a grip on the initiative for most of the game. I am also proud of myself for withdrawing and consolidating my two T-34s on the Western wing. I could have used them better later on, but giving ground is something I'm not used to doing. (It's Ни шагу назад after all, isn't it?)

But I don't know what it is about this game, I find myself caring less about the end result than about fun stuff that happened during gameplay: the excitement, of tanks hitting, tanks missing, rushing here and there, dodging overwatch, rockets raining from the sky. It's all just a lot of good fun.

Mirek: First of all, I had to say that it was enormous pleasure to play the game with Kondziu. It reminded me my best times of playing FOW - playing just for fun without any tournament pressure.
I had to say that Kondziu played very well. He made very confident moves, and to be honest he had initiative through nearly whole game. I suffered from lack of orders, which disabled my reserves. I also had to frequently issue reactive orders just to defend against frenzy T-34 assaults. Morally, I certainly felt defeated...

(Some more) thoughts on BGK

Kondziu: Basically, I got into Batlegroup Kursk because I got fed up with Flames of War. I got tired of the gamy and fiddly rule set, the magical heroes and special rules and their popularity, the overpopulated tables, the weird company compositions... At some point, when you're taking fire at point black range from advancing Hummels, or have to throw your infantry at a rank of Bren carriers standing shoulder to shoulder, you're beginning to doubt that you're even playing a WW2 game. I could go on, but that's not the point. (In fact I did just write a long flaming rant, but kindly and conscientiously deleted it.)

The point is, that Battlegroup Kursk is a game that balances realism and gameplay well for me - you care about where your tanks' rear armor will end up, infantry being in cover, setting up AAA positions... hell, there's even some logistics wrt to ammunition supply. And still, the gameplay is very simple. Sure, you have to look things up in tables from time to time, but it means you have to remember fewer relations between things and do less ad hoc math, while you can have more subtle stats than you would have otherwise. More importantly, the gameplay feels intuitive and, for lack of a better word, historical. a T-34 is nimble and vulnerable, a Tiger is really tough and dangerous, an assault gun is not a front line unit, a team of infantry can't just take a tank apart, but a heavy machine gun can simply open up and stop infantry in its tracks. This is how those units work in my mind, how I think they used to operate, and this is how they are in this game.

Battlegourp Kursk also has some well thought out mechanics. Overwatch is nothing new, I know, but giving a firing overwatch and a reserve move makes the game really interesting. It makes you keep interlacing your and the enemy's turn, which makes the game flow less like a typical you-go-me-go game. You keep thinking, which units you want taking a chance now versus taking a chance in the enemy's turn, when he may force you to commit too early, but when you're not susceptible to his overwatch. 

Last, but not least, the battle rating mechanic is just brilliant. Not only does it force you to balance your battlegroup (and so make it more historically acceptable), but it is an amazing way to control the morale of the units on the table. It simulates company morale, something that tends to be maybe a little oversimplified in other tabletop games, and does it in a way that is elegant and clear and with a cool unpredictability and twists (are you drawing a 1, a 5, or an Aircraft counter?). It means that you can't necessarily just unpin your entire army after a barrage, and you don't necessarily have to destroy every single enemy unit. I can certainly see games where there are few losses, but the firepower is so overwhelming that the company just calls quits. Again, I think this is quite the way it should work. I mean, how far would an army march if it receives 50% losses to achieve victory in every battle? (This was a rhetorical question, but the answer still is probably something like "just outside of Rome and then back to Epirus to rain up the core phalanx units.")

Yeah, so sorry for the love-letter. It's just that I'm really impressed by what I saw. In fact my only problem with BGK is currently, that we don't have too many generic scenarios too choose from, and that it's not necessarily set in the time period I like (I can haz BG: Bagration?). Oh, and the typesetting of the rulebook is absolutely terrible. So not big problems.

Mirek: I agree with what Kondziu said about the game. It is really a nice battle system. I'm sure we are going to spend much more time playing the game. What I'm very pleased about is that the authors of the game are working on other books, which is great because each of them is concerning specific theatre of war.
It turned out that system works very well. We learned couple of things about the mechanics. I'm really looking forward to play next games.