Finnish Armor vs Soviets (FOW)

This is an older battle report I've just gotten around to posting.

With the release of Red Bear and Grey Wolf earlier in the year our local Soviet guru, Robert and I got back to some Eastern front action. I decided not to bring out the ever deadly Jaakari Company and went with a Panssarikomppania. The Finnish with their beg, bought and captured equipment are still my favorite FOW army to run.
The list was:

• 1 - T-26 (command)
• 1 - T-34/85 (command)
• 3 - T-34/85's
• 2 - KV-1's
• 3 - T-34/76's
• 3 - German StuGs
• A Battery of 4 - 105mm Howitzers
• 2 - Pak40's with llomaki and 2 close defense rifle teams
• With sporadic Stuka G's

Robert was relishing using some of the additions in Red Bear, especially the SU-100's being available in most lists.
His army was something like:

• T-34/85 (command)
• 10 - Matildas (we proxied T-70's)
• 8 or 10 tank unit of T-34's with some 85's mixed in.
• Two (yes two units) of 4 - SU-100's'
• A Platoon of Spetsnaz.

We rolled for free-for-all and the terrain was suitably Eastern European. The pictures are rather sporadic, I'm trying to be better at keeping track of the action.

The terrifying Finnish T-34/85's.

The less terrifying Finnish T-34/76's.

85's in the field taking on their Soviet counterparts and the SU-100's.

The Soviet Tank Killer hold each flank.

Finnish 85's are just fantastic.

The KV-1's aggressively hunted T-34's in this village then pushed on to the objective in the back.

The KV's bounced every shot off their heavy armor.

The battle was long and bloody, after a wild furball in the center village decimated the Soviet T-34's things looked grim for the Russians.

Luckily the SU-100's never hit them or their armor wouldn't have been enough.

The Matildas (aka. T-70's) trudged across the board and swamped the Finnish objective.

However, in the end the 10 Matildas overwhelmed the 3 Finnish T-34/76's on the left and took the objective. The StuG's moved to contest, but the surviving T-34's used the new hen and chicks to rush out their max 12" and go for flank shots, which they hit.

After the death of the StuG's, courtesy of the T-34/76's, the Finnish CiC hunts down the last of Soviets in the village.

The Finnish 85's traded shots with the right most platoon of SU-100's for most of the game.

The KV-1's moved to take the center objective and the SU-100 on the left moved to counter them. The Finnish CiC killed the last of the T-34's, but the Soviet CiC was contesting the objective the KV-1's were on. With no one to contest the objective the Matildas had, victory went to the Soviets.

Conclusions 

It was a wild fight, I was relying on air power to help out with the heavy Soviet heavy armor but it had little impact in this game. The artillery bit the  dust early, and I think a platoon of fearless Finnish infantry dug in on one of the objectives would have been more useful. The line of site on the board was very limited so the Pak 40's had few targets for most of the game.

Also my three T-34/85s holding off four of the SU-100's was mainly due to chance. They killed two of the SU-100's and two T-34s all the while not being hit in return, I can't expect that to happen all the time. The Spetsnaz hid in the woods near my right objective the whole game and keep me from moving my T-34s to help in other areas.

In all a great game.