MEMOIR 44: EASTERN FRONT.

During my never ending attempts to de-clutter my flat, I came across my Memoir '44 collection.I keep a notebook with the results of past games. It showed that the last time I had played was 8 December 2011!

To put that right, our Thursday game a couple of weeks ago was the Suomussalmi scenario from the Russo - Finnish war (scenario 38). This saw a Soviet held village being attacked by Finnish ski-troops, with a Soviet relief force trying to break through the Finnish defences. We managed to play the game twice during the evening. I took the Soviets first.      

The set up. The Soviets hold the village. The Soviet relief column is at the bottom left.

Early in the game, the Finns attack.

The Finnish attack, well under way. 

The Soviet forces whittle down the attacking ski troops whilst keeping pressure on the roadblock.

The first game ended 6 medals to 2 in the Soviet's favour.

For the second game, I took the Finns. 

The Soviets got good cards and my dice rolling was poor. I managed to whittle away at the Soviet units, without getting decisive die rolls needed.

In the end the Soviets ran out winners by the same score as in the first game: 6-2. 

It was good to get back into the game. This scenario was a bit of a challenge. After game discussion came to the conclusion that the only way for the Finns to win would be for them to concentrate on getting medals, rather than taking the village. The results recorded on the website seem to fall 50/50, which does not bear out our experience.

However, I think it has inspired us to continue playing. There are a lot of scenarios and expansions to get through!