Winter Fury (2nd Edition)

Winter Fury re-creates the twin battles of Tolvajärvi and Ilomantsi from 1939, as well as the 1941 Finnish offensive over the same ground - resisted by the 71st Rifle Division made up of the Red Finnish survivors of 1939. It uses a “variable impulse” game system to model the two armies’ very different capabilities. Each turn, each player puts a number of markers into a common container. These are then drawn one by one, the number drawn varying with the current weather condition. The Finnish player has weaker forces, but will usually draw more markers and these allow the Finns to conduct more operations. The good Finnish units are better than the Soviet ones, and more mobile in the forests. The Soviet cannot move his or her divisions together, complicating the Red Army’s efforts. But Soviet artillery is very powerful while Finnish guns are little more than a nuisance. The Soviet player also has tanks and armored cars, which not only are powerful in battle (at least on the roads), they also might cause the Finns to panic and run away.