Backhand Blow (9-2)

Kharkov, Feb 1943

Steve Brophy

Most of us have been playing wargames for more years than we care to admit to. I remember Man.U. being relegated to the old 2^nd Division; happy days. We came up through the ranks via SPI and AH with their “Igo-Hugo” game turns comprising movement, then combat, then mech. Movement. Our units moved every turn and by checking the CRT we knew that, whatever the die roll, 5-1 odds would kick that pesky unit out of Warsaw.

Well, not with this game you don’t! Fume as your tank corps sits outside a lightly defended city whilst scarce resources are sent elsewhere. Look on in horror as your 10-1 odds attack suddenly becomes only 5-1, and a lousy roll of the dice causes your armoured spearhead to lose 3 steps whilst not even scratching the paintwork of the enemy. True, it can also go to the other extreme of 19-1 and a plus 10 DRM, but somehow that always seems to happen for the other player doesn’t it?. But more of this anon.

What do you get for your money? A nice colourful map 22’’x 34” (for the metric minded amongst you that’s 1ft 10in.x 2ft 10in.) covering from Belgorod in the north to Stalino in the south, and as far west as Poltava, Dnepropetrovsk, and Zaporozhe. There is a series rulebook,(this is the first game in GMT’s Schwerpunkt series) a game rulebook, 7 player aid cards and 342 counters. The Soviet counters are the usual brown for the peasants and red for the Guard units, whilst the Germans are grey for the Heer and black for the SS, but the unit symbols on the German units have backgrounds of various shades of yellow, blue, green, red, orange and dark grey. At first this makes them look rather garish, but you soon get used to it. The background colour is to help you with unit integrity. Instead of getting eye strain trying to read the divisional identity, you merely look on the map for say, the nice lime green background for the 19^th Pz. Div units, and then wonder to yourself, “How the hell did that regiment get there?” Divisional integrity does not apply to the Soviets since their units are all corps.

If the weather is mud, then the 2^nd. Schwerpunkt segments don’t take place, and if it’s deep mud, then neither Schwerpunkt segments take place

The heart of the game is in the spending of C3I points. During the Admin. Segment of each game turn, players receive C31 points in accordance with the turn records track. These points represent the amount of command and control efficiency exercised, together with fuel ammunition and general supplies for that turn. Players spend between zero and three of these points in their Schwerpunkt segments,(zero means your segment ends immediately) and you cross reference the number of points you choose to spend, with a die roll on the Activity table, and this gives you your activity points that you can use in that segment. Each unit that you move costs one activity point and each battle you fight costs three. German units of the same formation stacked together can move for 1 point providing they remain stacked. C31 points can be carried over to the next turn, but activity points cannot. The Soviets have the additional problem that their points have to be split as equally as possible between 2 Fronts, Southwest and Voronezh, and units have to be within 12 hexes of a Front marker to be able to spend the points. These Fronts move zero, one or two hexes per segment depending on a die roll. You have to decide before spending your points whether you will move first and fight second, or vice versa. You invariably don’t have enough points to do all that you want to do, and this is where your tank corps ends up sitting outside a city, as mentioned earlier, because you need the points elsewhere.

In the General segment you don’t spend any C31 points. You can move as many units as you like for free, and you can also fight for free. Unlike the Schwerpunkt segment however, each unit can either move or fight, not both.

Combat is dealt with using a standard CRT with the usual DRM’s for terrain. The uncertainty of combat is brought into play by the use of combat chits, which further affect the drm and/or step losses.

Each unit in the game has a Tactical Rating printed on it In combat, each side checks which of its units has the highest rating,( 5 for Soviet tank corps for instance) and draws that number of chits from a container. The side with the highest rating can play up to 3 of the drawn chits whilst the other side can only play 1. If the ratings are the same, they can both play 2 chits. Roll the dice and factor in the chits. These chits can make a big difference to the combat result. The majority of them either alter the die roll by +/- 1 or 2,or step losses by one. There are, however, some belters in there which can alter the die roll by +/- 5, (the Soviets have 2 of those for the first 5 turns, for independent tank support and artillery support) , tank destroyers and anti-tank support can halve your motorised combat strength and so on. This makes combat more of a lottery than many games. Ok, you are still going to win more than you lose at odds of say 10-1, but you sure can get your fingers burned. Attackers must take losses as steps, but defenders have the choice of cancelling step losses by retreating. One hex retreat cancels one step loss, and a two hex retreat (motorised units only) cancels a 2 step loss. Any losses above that have to be taken in steps, and if you retreat through an enemy zone of control, you lose a step for each zoc you pass through. Enemy motorised units can advance 1 or 2 hexes depending on how far you have retreated, but must stop in the first hex if they move into a zoc. The foot sloggers can only advance 1 hex. Defending motorised units with Tactical Superiority can retreat 2 hexes before combat, the enemy can follow as per advance after combat, but the 3 activity points are still spent. A combat die roll of 2 or 12 has you rolling again on a Random Event table, and a 3 or 11 causes an additional step loss to the defender on a 3, and the attacker on an 11.

The major aspect of the original battle was the withdrawal out of the line of Hausser’s SS Panzer Corps, and its subsequent reappearance counterattacking into the exposed flank of the Soviet advance,(much to the lathers justified concern.) Given the all seeing eye of the players, I was wondering how the game would handle this extremely important point. It uses a simple, yet elegant system of off map Administrative Movement boxes. There are 2 of them, and each segment, a player can, in order, do the following:

There are restrictions on where units can be taken from or put on the map, such as being in supply, not in an enemy zoc, units placed on the map must be placed on or adjacent to a friendly unit, and in the Soviet’s case, the unit has to be within 12 hexes of a Front marker. From turn 7 onwards there is a special rule that allows the Germans to place 5 units on the map as a once only move, providing the weather is frozen. The Germans roll on a special column of the Activity Point table for this.

Reinforcements can be placed on the map or for free into Admin. Box 1 except German variable reinforcements, which have to be placed on the map. These latter are small strength units that are used to rebuild reduced infantry regiments. Soviet replacements come via a die roll on the replacement table, but the Germans cannot rebuild their motorised units until turn 7 and they have to be out of an enemy zoc for the rebuilding marker to be placed on the unit concerned. There are 2 markers, one for the Heer, and one for the SS.

Victory points are awarded for the capture of certain cities, enemy step losses, and whether or not the Soviets have units west of the Donets, and the Germans the east. Be warned: this game can end very quickly and I mean VERY quickly. Soviet victory points are added to the VP total, and German ones subtracted. Every turn on the Game Record track has a victory point spread. If, at the end of a turn the VP total is above the spread, then it’s a Soviet win, if below, then a German one.

The VP spread for the first 3 turns is –6 to +6 for turn 1, -4 to +10 for turn 2, and –2 to +15 for turn 3. Kharkov is worth 10VP and Belgorod 3. The Soviets get 5VP as soon as they get across the Donets but 5VP are deducted if a German unit is east of the river. This stops the Germans running hell for leather to the west edge of the map from turn 1 and also encourages the Soviets to aim for the western cities.

Fortunately, the game can be set up quite quickly (less than 10 minutes) and you are likely to be thankful for this the first few times you play. I am on my 4^th game and hope to reach turn 5 for the first time! (it’s turn 4 at the moment) The games are lasting longer each time I play as I remember all the rules and cut out some of the dumb moves.

So, what are my first impressions? Being brought up on the certainties of the old CRT as mentioned in the opening paragraph, I didn’t take to the combat chit system at first, but now I think it’s great. Nothing is a dead cert anymore, which is how combat is in real life. The small number of counters is also a plus, the game moves quicker as a result. The rules are quite easy to pick up being 10 pages for the standard rules and 11 for the exclusive rules. There are also Designer’s notes and a Historical commentary. You only get 2 scenarios, a 4 turn “Red Army’s High Water Mark” and the 17 turn (I wish!) campaign game but the combat chits will make sure that no 2 games ever play the same. The tightness of the VP’s are my main concern, but with better play, I am sure I will make a better fist of things.

The next 2 games in this series look like being a quad consisting of the 2^nd and 4^th Battles of Kharkov, Korsun, and the inevitable Bulge game, and then a campaign called The Siegfried Line covering the latter stages of the war.

Von Manstein's Backhand Blow

Kharkov, Feb 1943

Steve Brophy