Drive on Minsk

My gaming friend in Finland, Eero, has restarted up his Drive on Minsk campaign. I understand that this campaign is based on one of the Skirmish Campaign series of pamphlets. I believe that Eero started this campaign in 2018, you can find a report on the 1st AR and the 2nd AR on the Wargamers Forum. These reports are well worth a look for their terrific photography and Eero's engaging narrative.

The games are played using a combo ruleset called Battleground Command, of Eero's design where he has taken Big Chain of Command and an older game Battleground WWII and welded them together into quite an extraordinary playing experience. It is a pretty complex ruleset but with Gamemaster Eero the game flows smoothly.

This campaign is based on the summer 1941 initial German attacks in and around the city of Minsk at the start of Operation Barbarossa . We started the playing the 3rd game in the series last week. I have been assigned a Tank Command (not yet time to reveal my actual units). The first battle was won by the Germans, but the Soviets won the 2nd battle and were given the option of defending table 2 or attacking table 1. We opted to attack table 1. There are 4-5 players on each side with an overall ranking SL directing operations.

As you can see we are attacking from the right. The game involves hidden movement and spotting tests, so we had no idea at the start of the game where the German units were, all our units started off table. We played for 2-3 hours and although a little slow at first, one I got some of my units on the table the experience became quite immersive. I think I might of been a little hasty in deploying, as 2 of my T-26's have already been spotted. Anyway, it is what it is.

This is the first time, I have engaged in such a wargaming endeavour, and I have to say it was a lot of fun. We are playing on Discord so by using separate voice channels it is easy enough to communicate with the other commanders on your side. It was quite cool. I am really looking forward to our next playing session (it would appear that each game may take several sessions). 

Some excellent photos and a detailed report can be found here.