The Guards Belong
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
March 2016
Long ago, we published a Panzer Grenadier game called Heroes of the Soviet Union. It went out of print, but many pieces were left behind. So we published Panzer
Grenadier: Red Warriors, a supplement for our Eastern Front game using those pieces.
With Eastern Front now out of print, Red Warriors is left obsolete both in terms of its scenarios (since they require the old game for map boards and often for playing pieces) and presentation (the comb-bound booklet, a style that we’ve since abandoned). We’re giving players one last chance to pick up this supplement, then we’ll discard the pieces for good.
Anyway, here's a last look at the toys of Red Warriors.
Front Line
![](./Red_Warriors_Pieces_files/RedWarr_Sov_HMG.png)
The Guards rifle platoons are better than the regular line infantry of the
Red Army of Workers and Peasants, with greater direct firepower and usually
higher morale. We changed the design slightly for later games, for
better visibility and to give the Guards a different insignia than the RKKA.
Along with the higher-firepower infantry, the Guards cavalry and machine gun
platoons are also slightly stronger than the equivalent regular army units.
They usually have the same weapons as the RKKA,but are better supplied with
them and their rosters are more likely to approach full strength than the
regular units. "Guards" reflected more than an honorific; soldiers in Guards
units received better pay and burial benefits (not a minor consideration in
a primarily agricultural society, where a family could be devastated if
charged for a soldier's funeral) and were more likely to be literate.
Leadership
The leaders in Heroes of the Soviet Union are actually very different than
the original game designer intended: the morale and firepower modifiers were
to have been reversed. But Brian turned in the counter manifest with the
firepower modifier in the right column (it's on the left side of the
counter) and the morale modifier in the left column (it's on the right side
of the counter). Peggy Gordon laid them out the way they were on the sheet:
left number on the left, right on the right. Brian signed off on the proof.
Their resulting disagreement over who was at fault was an ode-worthy epic.
I didn't have much of an opinion, then or now. None of them have a modifier
greater than 1, and the grand total is 11 left-side modifiers and 9
right-side modifiers — did it really matter? I did find the whole thing
pretty amusing; I don't think Brian knew that Southern women would use words
like that.
Heavy Weapons
We've changed our outlook on these since the publication of Heroes. Or more
accurately, I've reached an opinion (I didn't have one at the time). Brian
gave Guards 76.2mm artillery slightly better anti-tank capability than their
RKKA counterparts; I tend to think the weapons ought to remain the same and
we should show the difference in better morale and leadership (soft rather
than hard factors).
With some exceptions, Panzer Grenadier shows "hard" factors (firepower,
speed, armor) on the counters and "soft" factors (morale, initiative,
leadership) in other ways. That's an intentional split; a few units get
better firepower because their guys are just that much better (or inversely,
lower ratings because they really suck). But mostly, counter ratings are an
exercise in cannon-counting.
Tanks have all the same factors as their RKKA counterparts except for direct
fire, which is usually one higher than the RKKA. I kept that in Road to
Berlin, rationalizing that Guards units had better ammunition supply and
were more likely to have anti-aircraft machine guns mounted, but I'm less
sure of this now and if I had it to do over again would probably keep the
tank ratings the same for both Guards and RKKA. But you can make a case for
the better Guards numbers, and that's how Brian chose to rate them.
Secret Weapons
There are a handful of RKKA units in the mix: penal troops and Katyusha
rocket launchers. The prisoners have special abilities, and are assigned
almost exclusively to suicide missions of some sort. The rockets are
powerful weapons and the Germans usually have no answer for them.
The Germans
There are 52 German Army pieces in the set, and they were included to
support those dozen scenarios in the original Heroes mix that did not draw
on parts from the first game in the series. In hindsight this was a mistake:
I should have let Brian use the full 165 pieces for new units and draw on
the original Eastern Front for German tanks, infantry and leaders. All of
the Germans reproduce units found in Eastern Front.
The Air Force's Army
![](./Red_Warriors_Pieces_files/RedWarr_Luft_Maj.png)
The German Air Force fielded its own ground forces during the Second World War,
and they make their first appearance in the Panzer Grenadier series here.
There's just one battalion's worth, and they are truly bad troops with
terrible leadership. They do have an 88mm anti-aircraft unit that helps a
lot. But mostly they're in the set to give the Soviets someone to stomp all
over.
Click here to order Red Warriors TODAY!
Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and award-winning journalist, he has published over 100 books, games and articles on historical subjects.
He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children and his dog, Leopold. Leopold is not obsolete.
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