Delaying Action at Ogledow - Combat Mission: Red Thunder

I have played almost all of the CMBN, CMFI and CMRT battles and I must say this was the most lopsided of them all. I played the Russians. Both Russian entry points (at start and reinforcement entry point) are covered by Panthers. Within a mere 6 minutes I had lost 7 of 11 T-34s, and 3 of 6 JS tanks....game over for me. At start, the Russian player is given 3 x troops of T-34s and two HQ tanks. They appear at start only a couple hundred meters from the town outskirts and 2 of 3 objectives, where the German Panthers sit and wait. I pushed one troop to the left high ground, one troop to the right high ground, and one up the middle. There is almost no manoeuvre area. As my T-34s, seemingly hull/partial hull down as they peeked over the crest, were engaged and most were lost. With no infantry for the starting Russian force, the acquisition by the T-34 crews is poor and they paid the price.
After 5 minutes, the Russian heavy JS tanks appear. My opponent placed one, yes only one, Panther to cover the entry point and within one minute, 3 of the JS tanks were in flames. The first one died in the first 10 seconds and moved no more than about 30 meters. They had zero chance to respond, maneuver, hide. They appeared and were destroyed quite easily.
Obviously, I rate this battle incredibly out of balance. Entry zones should never be able to be engaged by opponents on the first turn when they enter. And this battle has not one, but two of them that get engaged on first turn of entry. Yikes. I really cannot see how any German player could lose this one.

This scenario is a poison chalice for the Allies.

Everything wrong with this scenario has been said already by ChappyCanuck, apart from the added salt to the Allied wound that is the 50 point friendy bonus the Axis get for just playing the Axis !!!

then i ask the both of you, how did the allies win 3 out of 5 times?

weapon2010then i ask the both of you, how did the allies win 3 out of 5 times?

Failure to exploit the Axis advantages

bangersThis scenario is a poison chalice for the Allies.

Everything wrong with this scenario has been said already by ChappyCanuck, apart from the added salt to the Allied wound that is the 50 point friendy bonus the Axis get for just playing the Axis !!!

After looking under the hood of this scenario, I realise it is more balanced than I thought, the reason being the esoteric scoring system involving exit zones.
I have never played a game that uses them before, and once I understood how they worked, I realised the Axis player has to exit units to add to their score, which means they cannot defend in force for the whole game, so there is an opportunity for the Allies to catch them on the move, or capture the terrain objectives at the end of the game, which gives the Axis a unique problem regarding how many units to hold back until the last few turns.
Suffice to say, this negates a lot of the unit balance issues I had with this scenario.
However, I do think the unique nature of the scoring system in this scenario needs to be explained in more detail in the briefings, and I would like to see the Allied set up zones offer a bit more cover to allow for more manouvre options.