Summary
Boring, sadly
The Good
If there was ever a scenario that lent itself to the original VforV engine, this is it. Air power had little effect on either side, terrain/weather was one of the most important factors, supply levels varied widely, and German forces were entered piecemeal over time. Better yet, the Soviet side has overwhelming numerical superiority, so the computer's poor AI isn't as much of a factor as it would be in more evenly matched battles.
The Bad
Unfortunately the game has a sort of built-in catch-22.
If you play as the Soviets the game is simply overwhelming - there's too many units that have to be micromanaged in order to build your offence. It works much better on the German side, where the unit counts are much more tractable.
However, this counters with the fact that the Germans don't have enough units to do anything other than hold the line. Now that's easy enough in the campaign, but in fact it's too easy, and the German lines stabilize much further to the west than they did in history.
Generally I found the game invariably settled down quite quickly around Velikiye Luki, and as additional German units arrived, I was able to introduce them on the west bank of the Lovat river (the key to the campaign) and push the front line into a diagonal running from the city in the north to the southwestern corner of the map. Small-scale offensives were possible, but any sort of strategic win seemed impossible.
Another nitpick is one that more seriously effected other VforV games. In setting up the units and their introduction into the map, the authors simply looked up an order of battle in a book and put those units in. What they DIDN'T do is consider that the vast majority of these units were nowhere near their muster strength. That means that the Soviets have an overwhelming advantage, whereas in reality their units were heavily attrited when the battle started. This isn't too bad in this game, where the Soviets really need the extra manpower, but it was overwhelming in Market Garden, which would otherwise be almost perfect.
The Bottom Line
I consider VforV to be the highlight of hex-based wargaming, but this particular mission is simply boring.
