I'm happy to announce a new scenario but this time, from another author other than myself. Boersma8 has created an epic Fury of the Bear scenario called Stalingrad Factory Fortress. You can find it at www.burmmbar44.com.

I haven't even had a chance to play any of the Fury expansion, but this one looks like it will be on my must play list.

Brummbar said:

Don't worry about the scenarios that came with FotB, If you are enjoying the fan created (and your own) ones you will be disapointed by the ones you had to buy. I found with most that after playing we were left with a feeling that there were gaps in the scenarios (many with errors that can be seen without even playing). The most frustrating thing is playing the scenarios and discovering the errors that are not noticable at first glance, its just a waste spending an evening of gaming trying to get through an unplaytested scenario.

I really want to get back into ToI so that I can get back to finishing the scenarios I was working on, But 3 things have made this avery slow process. 1. I have lost motivation with ToI, other games I play have so much more support and the designers are always involved with them (even years after the release). 2. I really only have 1 other person who I can playtest with face to face. 3. My wife recently gave birth to twins, so when I do get the time I would rather enjoy playing agame not playtesting.

Aussie_Digger said:

I have to admit, I haven't gotten into FotB because of the feedback it received from the community. While I don't mind playtesting, you are all quite correct in saying that you shouldn't feel you are playtesting a purchased product. I know ToI scenarios can be difficult to design (unlike M'44, which is easy peasy) but that is no excuse.

I'm still working toward getting something off the ground. I think FFG has a great opportunity here to make use of a great product with solid fan support with little effort required by the company. Fingers crossed we can move forward.

Congrats on the twins…you are likely lost to us for a few years now…but two more will eventually spring up to add to your support! LOL!

Brummbar said:

This one looks great, thanks. Would you be interested in hosting one or two of my creations?

Contact me under klaus.fritsch at netcologne.de.

KlausFritsch said:

You even helped me playtest it, if I recall correctly (-;

Kingtiger said:

Yes, I did, I just did not know that you are Kingtiger on here. :-)

Gladly Klaus!

email sent…looking forward to hearing from you.

KlausFritsch said:

Yes, I am.

I could send you another Stalingrad scenario I'm currently playtesting if you're interested. It's similar to this one, but still sufficiently different to be a lot of fun, in my opinion.

Perhaps you could briefly post your experience with Factory Fortresses? Though it requires a certain investment in time and money (expansions necessary to play it) you seemd to agree with me that it's a lot of fun and balanced.

Kingtiger said:

I'd say it doesn't get much more balanced than this. The many variables mean that wildly different outcomes are possible, but I like it and find it satisfying to play. With 12 Rounds and a fairly complex map, this needs a little more time to play than other scenarios. Players should be advised to study the map carefully and really look at the special rules for terrain. Once committed to a flank, vehicles cannot quickly switch objectives. In my game, even the infantry reached the bank of the Volga only in the last Round.

Regarding the number of expansions needed, in my opinion, ToI needs all the components to be really useful, anyway. The rules still need cleaning up, though. AT guns are not vehicle targets. AFVs did not shoot at AT guns with AP rounds, they fired at the gun crews with HE rounds and MGs.

I am now in the process of familiarizing myself with "I Ain't Been Shot Mum!", which is the same time and space scale as ToI, but better designed with more command and control and hidden deployment / movement. It is easily adaptable to hexes.

Therefore, my time for playtesting is limited, but you can send me the scenario and I will certainly read it.

If the anti-tank gun is placed inside of the building, would a tank shooting at the AT gun be allowed to add the concussive firepower modifier?

In this scenario tanks may never use their concussive firepower bonus against ruins, but they MAY against buildings.So in your example the tank would indeed add its concussive firepower bonus against the AT gun inside a building.

Ok, cool. That's what I had thought for the concussive, but wasn't sure since the main game rules only specified concussive firepower against squads. But the standard rules do not typically allow AT guns to be inside of buildings so my friend and I were playing that the concussive wasn't firepower was not in effect. I'll be very happy to blow his AT gun up next round.

More questions:

1) My friend connected 2 of the factory complexes by placing 2 adjacent trenches that go from a ruins hex to a sandbagged building hex. So that it is: Building-Trench-Trench-Ruins. The trench markers are located on clear terrain hexes. So the question is this, can a squad enter the trench immediately when it enters the hex? Allowing it to essentially cross between the factories using the +4 cover of the trench system? Or would the squad have to enter the clear hex, then enter the trench?

Option one::

1. Russian Infantry squad leaves the ruins hex and enters a hex containing a trench and enters the trench immediately (1 mp to enter the clear hex and +1 mp to enter the trench).
2. Movement into the hex triggers German MG OpFire.
3. Russian squad receives +1 cover for the clear hex being treated as rubble and +4 cover for being in the trench.

Option two::

1. Russian Infantry squad leaves the ruins hex and enters a hex containing a trench and (1 mp to enter the clear hex).
2. Movement into the hex triggers German MG OpFire.
3. Russian squad receives +1 cover for the clear hex being treated as rubble. They do not receive +4 cover because they have not entered the trench yet.

We felt that Option One was the correct way to play it, however, based on the Fury of the Bear rulebook and the section that describes trenches, we were not sure on when a squad is considered as leaving / entering the trench. So even for the two options listed above, when the Russian squad then moves from the trench into the building, do they first leave the trench and enter the clear hex, and then move from the clear hex into the building? Or does a squad in the trench have the option to move directly from the trench into the building without having to step out of the trench into the clear hex first?

Clear hexes with Roads on Them

- My friend and I had a question on how to handle clear hexes that have a road on them. In the special rules for this particular scenario, a vehicle moving across a clear hex costs it 2 movement points since the clear hex is treated as "rubble".

- According to standard TOI rules you can move from one road to hex to another for the cost of only 1 MP regardless of the surrounding terrain. Does that hold true for the "rubble" hexes? So if a vehicle moves from a clear hex to a road clear hex it would cost 2 MP. But then would the next movement to an adjacent road hex only cost 1 MP because the vehicle is moving from "road" to "road"? Or would it still cost 2 MP to move from "rubble" to "rubble"?

From road hex to road hex it costs 1 MP regardless of whatever terrain is in the hex. I am not 100% sure on this, but I think the exception is going up hill, where it costs 1 for the road plus 1 for the incline.

If you look at a similar thread in BoardGamesGeek I think this one is already answered, and that it should cost 2mp, regardless of road or not in this special scenario.

Grand Stone said:

That is correct. It's an exception to the standard game rules (It's difficult to drive at full speed when the roads are strewn with ruins). (-;

TheKaiser33 said:

The Squad spends 1 MP to leave the trench. This may already trigger op fire. It then spends another 1 MP to enter the adjacent hex and yet another MP to enter the trench in that hex for a total of 3 MP. So I guess it's option 3 (-;. A unit in a clear/ rubble hex inside a trench would indeed get a total of 4+1 = 5 cover dice. Note that as long as it's not (yet) inside the trench it only has 1 cover.

Please let me know the result of your game and what you thought of the scenario!

Thanks for playing it!

TheKaiser33 said:

Just to expand on this a little: The AT gun is treated as a vehicle as per standard game rules and normally speaking vehicles (including equipment-which should be a unit type of its own if you ask me-) are not allowed to enter building terrain. In this scenario they are. Also, normally speaking concussive fire can only be used against squads inside buildings and pillboxes. However, as we've seen, these units normally can't enter buildings. I feel that a building that comes crumbling down might certainly damage such a gun and especially its crew, though in TOI that would be a squad also inside the building. Therefore I feel it's justifiable to use the concussive firepower bonus against an AT gun inside a building hex.

'While developing the scenario I wanted tanks to both useful and vulnerable in this urban setting. The way I've mostly tried to accomplish this was by allowing them to retain their concussive firepower against units inside buildings, but disallowing it against ruins. At the same time I've greatly reduced their mobility by the rubble special rule (clear and clear road terrain are 2 MPs for vehicles) and while ruins are THE best place for a defensive position for a vehicle to be in (at least 4 cover + any extra cover granted by added entrenchments, i.e. fortified ruins apart from the vehicle's armor), there's a chance it will be immobilized for a round which might allow enemy units to catch it in the open (rubble doesn't give extra cover to vehicles). I feel this way the tanks are both useful and vulnerable at the same time and that was the idea.

We are hoping to get together sometime this weekend to finish the scenario. We're on about Round 7 of 12 I believe. I was misunderstanding how Trenches worked, thank you for the clarification. So basically, it sounds like "Trenches" are more glorified "Entrenchments". In that they are not trench systems spanning multiple hexes, but rather, an isolated single trench contained within a single hex. They offer better cover than an entrenchment, but otherwise they sound like they have the same characteristics as far as entering / leaving, etc.

TheKaiser33 said:

Yes, that's also how I see it. Of course it could be a scenario specific rule sometime that they are to be considered connected.

TheKaiser33 said:

Have you managed to finish the scenario?

Kingtiger said:

No, we haven't finished it yet. We got another 2 rounds in on Sunday. Round 8 was swinging in the Germans favor. A bombing run knocked out a couple of Russian squads holed up in a Balka and a couple of squads led a successful assault into the factory by the balkas. Round 9, however, the Russians were able to counterattack across the line and knock out some German squads. Then they bought 3 reinforcement squads with reinforcement cards and rolled for 3 more squads. We will start round 10 next time we get together. It's really not looking good for the Germans though. They only control 3 hexes along the border and just lost a lot of the squads that were slated to pick up hexes over there. The Russians have lost of lot of men and are being compressed more and more towards their reinforcement point, but I think they have inflicted enough casualties against the German squads that it is about to the point where the Germans won't be able to take enough hexes to overcome their Victory Point lead.

TheKaiser33 said:

OK, thanks for the update!

It's indeed a bit risky to amass a lot of squads in a balka hex (-;. Airstrikes and/or artillery bombardments can be quite devastating in a hex with no cover.

I see the germans didn't elect to use the "Luftwaffe over the Volga" option to reduce the number of reinforcing Russian troops a little?

Of course it's possible the scenario results in a Russian "win". Historically that was of course also the result.

Note that the German VP's for the baseline hexes are not calculated until the end of the game, but hexes can be claimed at the end of each round. You're right that the Russians can reconquer them.

Hope you're enjoying the scenario! Usually the germans can claim a few more VP baseline hexes in the last round. They still receive a number of reinforcements on round 9 (?) as well, f I'm not mistaken…

Kingtiger said:

Yes, I enjoyed blowing up the Russians huddled in the Balka. They were safe from tank fire, but the bombing run and zero cover played well to my favor. I have been using the "Luftwaffe over the Volga" but that hasn't reduced the number of Russian troops by much. I normally only got a couple of hits against those troops. And I don't think I can use that attack against purchased reinforcements, can I? My friend has rolled quite a few 3 squad reinforcements on many turns as well so it has been a steady stream of Russian bodies coming in to plug the gaps.

The left factory complex fell to the Germans by the second turn. I was poised to assault in and conquer the center factory, but he tossed down the instant mines and then super-fortified some hexes in that complex with his engineer squad as well. Trying to overcome the 9 cover dice after my flamethrower unit was assaulted by some Russian cannon fodder has been difficult. The center factory has become a meat grinder that slowed me down enough to probably tip the victory in the Russians favor. He'd placed enough high value units in there such as AT gun and mg squad that it wouldn't have been too good to try and bypass it.

The 6 reinforcement infantry squads were just placed at the end of round 8, however, I'm not sure how much good they'll do with the Russian reinforcements on that back line. It will take them 2 - 3 rounds just to run over to the back line and that's without any opposition.

It has been a fun scenario so far.

TheKaiser33 said:

You ARE allowed to use the Luftwaffe over the Volga option against rolled AND purcahsed reinforcements (abiding by the restrictions given)!