Last weekend my mate and I purchased our tickets to the Battlegroup Kursk campaign weekend at Stafford games. The campaign is set around the assault and counter attack at Ponyri. It's not a tournament but a series of games where your team (in our case German) of 16 players attempts to win the most campaign points. Of course someone can still win the most games etc.
We'll get to play 3 games using 600 points. 2 on Saturday and 1 on Sunday. 2 army lists can be used, 1 for Saturdays assault and 1 for Sundays defense. No Tigers as they will be allocated by the umpires.
I've never played in a tournament or something like this and I'm looking forward to it. I've already made a stab at an army list and it is quite difficult to build a balanced army. I am debating building something that has a specific task e.g. infantry assault or tank. At least I have time to play around to get it right. I also need to make sure it matches my playing style which unfortunately isn't subtle! I should have been Russian but I have more of the correct Kursk vehicles in my German collection.
Historical Background: Ponyri – July 7th-8th, 1943
As part of ‘Operation Citadel’, the 41st Panzer Corps (of Army Group Centre’s 9th Army) has the objective of capturing the important town of Ponyri. The Russian 13th Army occupies the town and its surrounding area against the German assault and must hold out, to prevent the Germans driving a wedge between the neighbouring 42nd Army and itself, and thus threatening a breakthrough towards the town of the Kursk, further to the south. In 1943, for four days, fierce fighting raged in the fields and woods around Ponyri and into the town itself, as the Germans attempted to surround it and then broke in, fighting from house to house. The Russians offered determined resistance and their 2nd Tank Army launched repeated tank counter-attacks to blunt the German attack. With heavy losses on both sides, the Germans finally withdrew. Ponyri never fell.
