The Let's Play Archive

No Retreat! The Russian Front

by Tevery Best

Part 1: Turn 1 - June 1941

V. Illych L. posted:

Aaah fuck it, I'll be Chief of the Northern Section. Urrah! Leningrad!

...we're all fucked, you realise.

"Have confidence in Party's forward-looking decisions."


It is now June 21st, 1941. The German Army is preparing to strike against their most crucial ideological enemies - the bolsheviks of the Soviet Union. In this, they shall both destroy the ideas they find so aberrant and liberate the lands that the greater German people can inhabit, free from their ancestral foes and with all their vital needs satisfied. The strike will come soon, now is the time for the final preparations.

Or making up the plan at the last minute, actually. General HerpicleOmnicron V has only now realised how much he has to prepare on a very short notice. His memory instantly returns to his college days and the eternally "broken" printer.


Turn 1 begins with its Housekeeping phase. The Germans receive three Blitz! markers, which are now at the disposal of General HerpicleOmnicron V. The weather is clear and not variable. The turn events are as follows:
- Limited Rail Moves. On each side, only one unit can move into the Rail Movement Box. This is because of the Soviet logistic SNAFU amid the total surprise of the early war and the German problems with adapting the Soviet railways to their needs.
- No Axis Replacements. The Axis cannot replace or improve their units until the end of 1941. They are not prepared for a long war - they expected a rapid blitzkrieg that would bring the entire Soviet Union down in mere weeks!


Sorry for not zooming in, I will make sure that the cards are properly magnified from this point on.
The Germans draw 6 cards. They immediately play Unseasonal Weather, but neither this nor the next turn have Variable Weather, so it has no effect. They draw a replacement and now have to discard 2 cards. They have no set time limit, but I will enforce one once the OKH is fully staffed.

The Weather Bureau reported some mysterious cloud formations and reports from the U-bootwaffe mentioned something weird happening in the depths in the South Pacific, but nothing of immediate importance to the campaign. Relieved, General HerpicleOmnicron resumed his planning. Or, to put it more precisely, he hoped his staff did.