Smoke drifts from the hull where the round impacted, but the Commander doesn’t see any flames – hopefully they can get the fire out quickly. 

Across the battlefield, the Commander sees the Stug moving into a flanking position, it won’t be long until he stops and aims at our weaker side armor! We need to find a better position. The PZ IV turret is rotating, scanning the battlefield and looking for targets. Thankfully he hasn’t appeared to focus in on any of his tanks. 

His tanks… are just sitting there!

“Move it everyone! Move! Don’t just sit th….”

The words are drowned out by another impact that rocks the SU-100, almost throwing the Commander out of his hatch. Something knocks his headset off, he flinches well after the shrapnel nearly took his head off. Battered and dazed, he slowly looks around to see smoke coming out of another hole in the hull, this time on the driver’s side.

Where did that come from? The Panther!!!!

 “Status!”

“Driver wounded, still on Fire – we have to get out of here!”

The Commander pauses for what feels like minutes though he knows it is only a few seconds. Assessing the situation, it isn’t good. We are on fire, the Panther has us in its sights, the Stug is about to flank us and I don’t know if we can even move…

“Bail out, bail out!”

The crew bails out, dragging the wounded driver out with them. The Commander jumps down, and leads his rattled crew deeper into the gully, looking for better cover and a spot where he can watch the battle.

He notices the T-34/76 finally moving, attempting to flank the Panther! But the Panther notices the T-34/76 and rotates to keep its front armor and gun facing the T-34/76! That is an incredible crew… The T-34/76 is still searching for cover, while the T-34/85 just sits there. What are they doing? The Commander notices the Stug stopping and zeroing in on the T-34/85…”Move!!! Move!!!” but his shouts are useless. If only he had a radio.

Behind him, his loader shouts that another SU-100 is moving forward to shore up this side of the battlefield. They need the help, the Germans are threatening to capture the High ground and gain control of this battlefield…

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On to Round 6:

I draw cards to replenish my hand, but 2 fewer due to the on fire and broken SU-100. I don’t have enough Order Icons to put the fire out or rally the crew, so the SU-100 may be abandoned this turn. It was a pretty lousy hand refill – no fire cards, not much cover, it is going to be a hang on phase. Going to try and have the T-34/76 move on a hill, flank the Panther and enter woods, while the other two won’t do much as I am holding 2 tactics cards to try and reduce the chance of being hit. I decide to try and go later in the round and choose higher Initiative numbers instead of wasting what few lower number (and better) cards I have. We shall see how this goes though I think I may pay for this.

Robata Peril and Initiative: Stug peril 0: passes, chooses lowest: 26; PZ IV peril 0 passes, chooses lowest: 6; Panther Peril 0, passes. Chooses lowest, 59.

Shuffle card drawn during the Robata Initiative checks – end of deck 2! 

Due to initiative, Robata will go three times in a row, then the Russians. This could be pretty bad.

The PZ IV goes first: Spots the T-34/85 with a leadership action, I have to discard one card at random as well. Spots the SU-100 as a secondary action.

The Stug is up next. Attempts to move as it has a revealed FLANK Card and the priorities dictate Robata will have it move and flank. No cover drawn, but that doesn’t stop the attempt. Has 2 successes and a flank card. Moves 400m to a Hill and flanks the SU-100. I don’t even think about countering it as I don’t think the SU-100 will be operational after this turn. The Stug spots the T-34/85 as a secondary action. Ends in motion.

The Panther goes next. +1 VP for being on the hill. The Panther has a High Quality shot, but a Fire 8 card (-5 to hit) is drawn. Decides to fire at the SU-100 as it is the only tank it has spotted. Has 2 successes, chooses to target the Hull as it has less armor. The Panther stops (was moving, so auto stop per the rules) in the field and Fires!  ~61% chance, I play a Tactics card, Robata fails to counter, so 41% chance to hit. I pull a card and it Hits! +7 (+1 from Hill) on penetration due to APCR round being loaded. Pen mod of 0, so it penetrates easily. Light damage to the Hull. Pulling a Damage card results in the Driver being wounded and a Fire check – Fire does not grow out of control! But the crew Breaks again so they BAIL OUT – between the fire and being hit twice, they have had enough! The Panther loads another round of APCR as a secondary action. The Panther gets +5 VP, and I discard half my cards. All the crew survive since the fire wasn’t out of control. For clean up, I remove the Flank counter from in front of the SU-100 since it was abandoned and any spotted markers on the German side.

I only have a couple cards left and no terrain cards now, what to do…

The T-34/76 goes next. Moves to a hill, and tries to flank the Panther. Robata draws a tactics card, negating my flank! Oh, that is not good. The T-34/76 ends in motion as my woods card was discarded when the SU-100 was destroyed. Not sure I should have done this but I really want to get rid of that Panther and sitting around isn’t working that well. Hopefully Robata doesn’t get a Mud card next turn before I can do something with the T-34/76. The way Robata has been playing though has concerned, has had some very good card pulls.

The T-34/85 does nothing, I have no cards left, can’t do anything but watch the battle at this point.

Reinforcements:  SU-100 sets up at 800m. 

End of Round 6: Russians 33, Germans 29. Been through 2 decks (of 4 reshuffles). Germans have two hills, Russians have 1. That Panther is a beast.  I need to knock it out.

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