June 1941. The initial stages of Operation Barbarossa - the German invasion of the Soviet Union - were going well. Army Group North had broken the forces of Colonel-General Kuznetsov, who were now in general retreat... or that is what the Germans thought. In fact, the wily Colonel-General was planning a counter-attack, which the Germans ran into near the city of Raseiniai in Lithuania.

This scenario was the first part of the Barbarossa North campaign from the Memoir '44 Campaign book, and Randy's and my first experience of the campaign rules. We had thought to do the "full" campaign, but - thankfully, from my point of view - we didn't read enough ahead and ended up playing this smaller campaign instead. That was fine by me: we'll definitely play a full campaign in the near future, but it's far better to learn the basics of the campaign rules before attempting the full thing!



As you can see from the set-up picture, there are a lot of units on the board! In fact, both Randy and I then used one of our reserve units to place even more units on the board! (Tanks in both our cases). There were quite a few special rules in play - special units, Russian command rules, Blitz rules. We weren't using the Air Sortie rules yet; they'd come in later scenarios. (Enough to deal with at the moment!)

Actually setting up the game took a fair bit of time, as we searched through the different M44 sets for the pieces. For the second game in the series, which we played immediately following this one, the set-up time was minimal. We need to improve the storage of the game: keeping them in their original packs doesn't work so well when we're using pieces from everywhere as we do in these campaigns!

So, the battle began. Randy has noted that, as a German commander, I use my tanks really aggressively. It's true: I care not for my casualties, as long as they're matched by lots and lots of casualties on the opposing side. So, Randy's centre troops had the wonderful experience of being attacked by my artillery and two of my tank units. One of his units didn't survive the experience; the second took minor casualties.

In response, Randy started moving up his reserves: his tanks, trapped behind forests and a bridge. It was slow going, but not engaging me directly gave him a little more time for them to come into play.



The next part of the battle was fought primarily on my left flank. Randy was moving his other set of tanks up into position as my Brandenburger infiltrators and my mechanized infantry attacked the surviving Russian infantry in the centre, hoping to gain cover in the trees and a good position of strength.

In fact, I was able to drive Randy's tanks back and take up a position with my infantry near to one of my objectives: a bridge in the far left of the battlefield. However, keeping that objective would be very hard with only a squad of infantry - and with many Russian troops surrounding them.

Meanwhile, one squadron of Randy's tanks made their way down to eliminate some of my tanks... our lines were now intermingled.

If you check the picture, you'll notice that my Brandenburgers have walked off with the temporary victory medal that was placed in their starting town! We fixed this shortly after the picture was taken.



Randy had the advantage at this point 3 medals to 2, and my left side was extended and very exposed. And so Randy proved to me in his next set of attacks: bringing his tanks down to bear on my right and eliminating more of my infantry, whilst forcing my Brandenburgers to retreat. I was able to wipe out his forward tanks on my left side, but the infantry I'd hoped to cause a lot of problems near the bridge came under very heavy fire and folded. About my only consolation was that I'd eliminated another of his Tank units... oh, and a Medics and Mechanics had given me back a fully-functional tank unit which was now pressing Randy's troops near the far town.

The score now stood at 5 medals all, with 7 medals needed to win the scenario!



The final rites of the battle came with a great push by Randy's forces towards my left flank: tanks and two groups of infantry in a great wave came towards my artillery and my Brandenburgers. The Brandenburgers lost first their cover and then their lives, and my artillery were completely and utterly destroyed: much to Randy's surprise and just a little bit of disappointment. Randy had wanted to capture the town (which would be worth objective points in the overall campaign), but a "lucky" long-range hit had scuppered that plan for him!

The final score: Russians 7, Germans 5. The Russians had won the first scenario of Barbarossa North: Raseiniai.



Checking the campaign book, we discovered that a win for the Russians meant we'd be moving onto the Ingermanland scenario next: Mines, Snipers and Engineers! What fun!