Blossom of Snow
By Mike Bennighof, PhD
October 2007

Panzer Grenadier scenario design is a little different from working on other games. Both the maps and the pieces used are usually generic, so rather than creating a map of the battlefield it's a matter of choosing from the boards we've published. Sometimes the maps we have are close enough that they can just be used to represent the battlefield; in other cases we add special rules to change the terrain on the maps (ignoring certain woods or field hexes for example).

Some players dislike that, and there are other game systems that concentrate on "play balance" with the historical model coming second. I've always wanted Panzer Grenadier to serve first as a historical model, and the random draw of leaders (a very elegant model Brian Knipple added to the system during its original development) makes it impossible to achieve perfect "balance" anyway.

When we did the first edition of Edelweiss, I designed the scenarios to reflect the battles as I saw them, and if they didn't always give each player a fair chance to win, I didn't really mind. That's not what the game system is designed for, and that's also why it's seldom if ever played in competitive tournaments. It's fun, but it's not fair.

That changed when we brought on Doug McNair as a full-time game developer. Doug has handled development of all the Panzer Grenadier games and supplements since Road to Berlin and brought a new vision to scenario testing. We'd always tested them fairly rigorously, but Doug instituted even stricter testing - which is far from the same thing as "play" - and devised ways of keeping the historical force structures and missions I designed into them yet giving both players a reasonable chance to win and have fun while doing so.

Players have responded enthusiastically to his approach, particularly with the recent Iron Curtain and North Wind supplements. Edelweiss has received the same treatment and is now should satisfy both goals: historical accuracy and exciting game play. But have a look for yourself. Here are the summaries for the middle section of the scenario book, with some notes on each:

Scenario Twelve
The Mius Line
2 December 1941
After failing to hold the city of Rostov, the Germans fell back to the Mius River in southern Ukraine. There the 49th Mountain Corps dug in for the winter, and despite the critically low temperatures the troops receives such comforts as a movie theater and a field brothel. But the Red Army had no plans to let them enjoy their creature comforts.

Conclusion
The Germans flung back the Soviet attack, which came poorly-prepared as the green troops bunched into waves and had little artillery support. Later, none of the division’s senior officers would admit to giving the order for a counterattack. Regardless of the desires of headquarters to hold the more defensible river line, the jägers left their dugouts. They captured the town of Dmitrievka and pushed the Soviets back several kilometers from their starting positions.

Note: This scenario uses boards and pieces from Eastern Front and Road to Berlin, and boards from Battle of the Bulge. The Soviet player should only use leaders from Eastern Front.

Design Note: This is actually the oldest scenario in the booklet, designed when I had the rather insane notion that the very first supplement would be about the Slovak Army which was fighting on the southern edge of this action. It's a much larger scenario now than it was in the first edition - and whatgamer can resist "berserk attack" rules?

Scenario Thirteen
Spring Offensive
26 April 1942
In the Loukhi sector in central Finland, the Soviets opened their spring offensive with a flanking attack against the German XXXVI Mountain Corps. The 139th Mountain Brigade, made up of troops left behind when 3rd Mountain Division departed the Arctic, gave way before the neighboring 6th SS Mountain Division could collapse and leave the unit surrounded. The Germans threw in all possible reinforcements, and began a counterattack to restore their lines.

Conclusion
After very heavy fighting the mountain troops stabilized their line and held the Soviet advance. But with no fresh reserves available, the Germans would be in deep trouble if the Soviets attacked again. That is, of course, exactly what the Red Army planned to do.

Note: This scenario uses boards from Eastern Front and pieces from Red Warriors and Sinister Forces.

Design Note: I made this revision very difficult for Doug by changing my mind several times about how to represent snow cover. The Soviets tried to time their attack just before the thaw, making snow effects subject to a fairly wide interpretation. We went with less snow than in the original, which I think is more in keeping with the conditions at the time but does drastically change the way this one plays.

Scenario Fourteen
Sinking Skiers
6 May 1942
During the Soviet spring offensive, the 8th Ski Brigade drove deep into the rear of the Axis position in front of Kesten’ga. But the movement became a death trap when the German-Finnish front held, the snow melted, the ground turned swampy and no advancing troops came to link up with the skiers. German and Finnish units began to methodically hunt them down, driving the ski brigade and a regiment of the 186th Division (a unit made up mostly of convicts) into an ever-tighter encirclement.

Conclusion
The Germans and Finns tightened the noose on the trapped units and wiped them out. Less than 400 men escaped to the Soviet lines. After a promising beginning, the Soviet spring offensive had ended in dismal failure. They would not try again for two more years.

Note: This scenario uses pieces from Eastern Front and Arctic Front, and boards from Eastern Front, Road to Berlin and Battle of the Bulge.

Design Note: I frazzled Doug again by changing snow conditions fairly late in the development process, something that violates all of our process rules but then, I wrote those rules so . . . Lack of snow, however, was exactly what led to 8th Ski Brigade's entrapment. The revised scenario is much improved and covers a larger area (six maps this time), and features the Brandenburg commandos who we didn't have available to put in the scenario the first time around (so I just chopped that part of the battle off the original's map, which was not a very elegant design solution).

Scenario Fifteen
On the Shoulder
17 May 1942
Marshal Semyon Timoshenko's attempt to re-capture Kharkov began to go wrong after only a few days. The German and Romanian forces held their positions on the "shoulders" of the penetration, and then began their own counter-offensive behind the Soviet armored spearheads. First Mountain Division, at the "hinge" of the southern attack, went forward with large-scale support from heavy artillery and dive bombers to make up for its lack of tanks.

Conclusion
The attack went off exactly as planned, and the Soviets fell back in some disarray. The jägers began their pivot to the west and took up positions to cover the flank and rear of the advancing 14th Panzer Division on their right. While the Soviet 9th Army command realized its danger, a German air raid struck its communications center just as the radiomen began to send out re-deployment orders and the Red Army's response was local and disjointed. Reinforcements that had been requested and approved never received marching orders.

Note: This scenario uses boards and pieces from Eastern Front.

Design Note: This is a new scenario, one I'd placed aside while writing scenarios for Road to Stalingrad. It places mountain troops on the attack, across a river, with massive support. And they'll need it - the defenders outnumber them.

Scenario Sixteen
Pale Riders
18 May 1942
A day after the German counter-attack, the Soviets finally got their own responses under way. Marshal Semyon Timoshenko issued stern orders to Gen. K.P. Podlas of 57th Army to launch his own reserves against the German flank. Podlas had already been killed in action, rallying his troops with pistol in hand, and it was some hours later that the remnants of his Army staff got the attackers moving.

Conclusion
The Soviets launched a series of concentrated attacks, but gave little artillery support while the Germans enjoyed good artillery plus occasional Stuka strikes. One Guards Rifle division and two regular army cavalry divisions launched separate attacks on different parts of the division's line, and all met the same fate. The attackers reeled back in disorganization and the panzers continued to drive forward without fear for their lines of communication.

Note: This scenario uses boards and pieces from Eastern Front, and pieces from Road to Berlin.

Design Note: Another new addition, also from the Road to Stalingrad project. Doug asked for more scenarios featuring mobile forces, and an attack by a cavalry division on a little mroe than a mountain battalion seemed to fit the bill.

Scenario Seventeen
Goitkh Pass
1 November 1942
As part of the German offensive into the Caucasus, the 4th Mountain Division received the key assignment of taking and holding the port of Tuapse along the Black Sea coast. The Soviet 18th Army stood in the mountain passes above the port, refusing to yield and counter-attacking vigorously. With only part of its force – one regiment had been attached to the 1st Mountain Division – the “Enzian Division” had a difficult task ahead.

Conclusion
The 9th Guards Rifle reported 8,000 German dead, more than were engaged in the battle. But inflated claims aside, the battles in front of Tuapse represented a German high-water mark. The drive to the east would advance no farther on this front.

Note: This scenario uses boards from Battle of the Bulge and Road to Berlin, and pieces from Red Warriors.

Design Note: This is another very old scenario that pre-dates the first Edelweiss. It's been expanded to four boards from two, but shortened to force action on the German player.

Scenario Eighteen
Mount Doom
17 April 1943
In February 1943 the Soviet 18th Army tried to seize the Black Sea port of Novorossisk with a bold amphibious landing. The Romanian and German troops holding the area contained the attack, but could not drive the Red Army back into the sea. The 4th Mountain Division headed south to try its luck at wiping out the beachhead. On the wooded height known as Myshako, the unit met fighting as bloody as any First World War trench battle.

Conclusion
The mountaineers launched repeated attacks but could not dig the Soviets out of their hilltop positions. The well-led and resolute defenders retook every inch of lost ground. “Should I be killed in the fight for the workers' cause,” read a note found on the body of a 15-year old Soviet volunteer, “I would be grateful if the commanders Vershinin and Kunitsin would take the first opportunity to see my mother in Yeisk and tell her that her son died for her country’s freedom and give her my award, Komsomol card and this notebook.”

Note: This scenario uses boards from Road to Berlin and Battle of the Bulge, and pieces from Eastern Front.

Design Note: This one's also heavily revised, with more map area and a longer turn length. And like all of the original scenarios it has completely new victory conditions, in this case preventing the Soviets from winning by sitting all their forces on top of the German objective. And like all of them, it plays much better than the old one.

Scenario Nineteen
Novorossisk Breakout
10 September 1943
For 225 days, the 4th Mountain Division fought to hold the Soviets around the Black Sea port of Novorossisk. Finally, the Soviet 18th Army launched a bold offensive to break the deadlock. While one pincer attacked from the north a landing force headed straight for the heart of Novorossisk’s harbor, and a Soviet advance from the south (out of a small beachhead held since February) threatened the Germans with encirclement. This had to be stopped if the jägers were to survive.

Conclusion
The Guards’ attack almost broke through the hastily-arranged German defense, but the Germans managed to stem the tide just in time. The 4th Mountain Division finally withdrew from Novorossisk, an action made famous in Willi Heinrich’s novel Cross of Iron.

Note: This scenario uses boards from Eastern Front and pieces from Red Warriors.

Design Note: An original scenario, this one needed revisions to the victory conditions as Soviet players could simply scurry along the edges and escape with a cheap victory.

Scenario Twenty
The Trash Division
12 September 1943
In 1941, the Waffen SS decided to form a mountain division from ethnic German volunteers in the Balkans, for occupation duty in Yugoslavia. Unable to find enough recruits, they resorted to conscription. For two years, 7th SS Volunteer Division repressed civilians, and its official marching song celebrated its main occupations: rape and murder. “Our trash division! And many Serbian skulls, and many Serbian maids, will I soon see fallen.” But in September 1943, Italy changed sides, and the division was rushed to Split in Dalmatia to face someone other than unarmed villagers.

Conclusion
The Italians fought with a frenzy bred from years of hatred for their arrogant allies. But the Germans slowly ground down their resistance, and captured Split after 16 days of heavy fighting. The Bergamo Division surrendered, and the Germans promptly murdered its commander and 48 other officers before beginning an orgy of massacre and destruction against Split’s civilian residents.

Note: This scenario uses boards from Battle of the Bulge and pieces from Eastern Front and Afrika Korps.

Design Note: Nazis. I hate those guys. This is a scenario from the original set, and it's also had some revision. There are fewer Italians, as the Aryan heroes (many of them hard-case inmates from Romanian prisons, merrily declared "ethnic Germans" by their government and shipped off to die for the Fatherland) were being squashed pretty easily. I didn't really mind that, but it's doesn't square with the historical result and it's obvious I credited the Italians with too many troops. The comparative morale values are about right. Victory conditions have also been revised to give the Germans some objectives they can actually accomplish.

See the first part of this preview here, and the third part here.

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