Hopes dashed at Boulder Dash -- An Axis & Allies minis session

I've been wanting to get to this little scrap since last weekend, which would have been the 70th anniversary of the battle, but holiday tasks took priority and it was only on Christmas Eve that the Young General and the Old Warrior were able to sneak in a game of Axis & Allies Miniatures, Scenario WW-1, "Bolder Dash."


This firefight, from the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union, depicts an action fought on Dec. 19, 1939 at Summa, Finland.


The Soviet order of battle is very straightforward, with three commissars leading 11 squads of Soviet Moison-Nagant riflemen from the 138th Rifle Division against a fortified Finnish line. Helping the troops out is a KV-1 heavy tank that arrives on the second turn. By 1939 standards the KV-1 is a monster of a tank, with a defense factor of 6 all around and the Heavy Armor special ability, which allows it to ignore the first Damage result. About the only drawback to the tank is its relatively low speed of 3, which is further reduced to a 2 by scenario special rule to account for the deep snow. On the other hand, it's a small battlefield, so even that speed is sufficient.


The defending Finns at the start are comprised of troops from the 6th Division represented by German pieces for the most part: Two MG-42 machine gun teams, one PAK 38 37mm Anti-tank gun and one light mortar. There are also three infantry units, but I replaced the German Mausers shown on the scenario sheet with three Finnish Infantry that were not available when the scenario was originally published. They have identical stats so there's no game effect from the substitution. The final element of the Finnish force are two tank hunter teams represented by German Panzerfaust pieces, although there were, of course, no Panzerfausts in 1939. "They represent the bold troops who tackled tanks with satchel charges, Molotov cocktails, and by opening hatches and tossing in grenades."


The battlefield was mostly flat, with some trees and a small knoll on the Soviet side of the map, and two larger hills on the Finnish side. The dominant terrain features were a pair of parallel lines of antitank boulders that stretched across the whole field from north to south, separated by two hexes of open ground. The Soviet objective was to capture and hold at least three hexes of the antitank boulders closest to the Finns. The boulders had no effect on troops, but the KV-1 would have to stop upon reaching one and needed to roll a 1-4 to leave a boulder hex.


Young General decided he wanted the force with the tank.


So the Old Warrior proceeded to set up, placing one machine gun team, the mortar and two infantry on the small hill on the right (South) flank, with the aim of deterring a Soviet advance on that side and having the ability to lay grazing fire down the antitank boulder line. The other machine gun, the ATG and the remaining infantry unit set up on the larger hill. By scenario special rule Finnish units that did not move received automatic "cover" against enemy fire, which basically meant they could not be killed, only disrupted. This was a powerful deterrent to Finnish movement.


As expected, Young General set up mostly on the North side of the battlefield, in front of and beside the forest.

Here is the set up:

The yellow disruption markers mark the boulder lines. The Soviet Objective Marker (from the Gale Force 9 set) shows which line is their victory condition.

And in true Soviet fashion, he made a human wave rush for the boulder line, barely stopping to pop off a shot. The Finns redeployed their riflemen behind the big hill, to form a reserve for the final turns of fighting, while the machine guns blasted away. Unfortunately the marksmanship of the machine gun teams was nothing special, even when the right flank team was able to conduct several turns of grazing fire on the Russian troops huddled among the boulders. The short range of the light mortar forced it to relocate and it ended up getting disrupted a few times, but even so its fire even eliminated a Russian rifle squad. Attempts to slow down the Russian advance by picking off commissars failed as they seemed too good at ducking and generally ended up being disrupted, when they weren't missed entirely.

The 37 mm ATG wasn't able to hurt the infantry, but the KV-1 showed up soon enough and went straight up the middle. The ATG crew must have eaten their Wheaties that morning because on two consecutive turns they managed to roll 6 hits and disrupt the KV-1! Eventually they missed, however, because covering rifle fire from the boulder line disrupted them (and the nearby machine gun team) and the KV-1 lurched forward, unslowed by the first boulder line, and joined the infantry and commissars at the boulder line.

Meanwhile the tank hunter teams had appeared, one on each flank near the first boulder line. The South team had a short career, being gunned down by the KV-1 on Turn 4, but the North team led a charmed life, passing through rifle and pistol fire unscathed to chase the KV-1.


The final act was dramatic, as the Finnish infantry counterattacked to try to drive the Russians out of two of the four boulder line hexes they occupied, with supporting fire from the machine guns and mortar. Meanwhile the ATG popped away as the tank hunter team attempted to close in on the KV-1. Both sides took very heavy losses at the end, with the Soviets cleared from one hex and the KV-1 left holding the key third hex alone. The ATG rolled 7 successes on the KV-1, but its Heavy Armor special ability kicked in, reducing the Damage result to a Disruption. Then the tank hunters attacked on the very last roll, getting just enough successes to get one hit on the KV-1, making it end the game Damaged! The Soviets ended the game holding three hexes and came away with a victory, despite their heavy losses.


The Soviets ended the game with four rifle squads and a damaged heavy tank. All three commissars and 8 squads were lost. The Finns also suffered heavily, losing all three infantry squads and both tank hunter teams.


This is the situation at the end of the game:

The markers are from the Gale Force 9 Axis & Allies marker set.

Some 70-year Winter War anniversary games

Young General and Old Warrior got in a quick anniversary commemorative game of Memoir '44 about the Battle of Suomussalmi, Dec. 8-16, 1939. The setup is shown above.

It was actually a fairly sedate fight. The very first card the Soviets got to play was a Dig In card, so almost all my force that wasn't dug in became so before the Finns could do much damage. The Finn ski troops milled around a bit, but Young general was a little slow to close the range and in the meantime the Soviets got some good shooting in and soon the Soviets were up 3-0.

The Finns became more energized and made a special effort to take out the Soviet tanks and eventually both did go down, but the Finns also took more casualties and eventually a long-range shot from the Russian guns picked off the sixth Finnish unit. The final score was 6-2 in favor of the Soviets.

This game wasn't the only Finnish anniversary game I got in today. I also visited the local comic/game store and played a few games of Axis & Allies Miniatures. Two of the games were a modified version of Scenario WW-2, the Battle of Lake Toilvajarvi, fought on Dec. 12, 1939.

This scenario came out after the first couple of sets, so there were a lot of substitutions needed. The whole Finnish force was represented with German troops, and the Soviet machine gun unit was represented by a British Vickers machine gun piece.

Since then a lot of the necessary pieces have come out, so I was able to substitute more authentic pieces for much of the OB.

I replaced the two SS leaders with Finnish Officers. Slightly less effective as leaders, but the Finns have a powerful Hand-to-Hand special ability. All the German infantrymen were replaced with Finnish infantry with identical stats and the German MG42 machine gun team was replaced by a Finnish machine gun team with slightly lower stats. The German an light mortar and expert sniper remained,a s there are no Finnish units of those types yet.

On the Soviet side everything was the same except for the Vickers machine gun, which was replaced by the new Soviet MG team.

This is the battlefield:


The blue is are represents a frozen lake. The Finns set up on the left edge with most of the force, with a reinforcing leader and four squads on Turn 5 coming in on the flanks. Their objective is the "hotel, represented by the hill with objective markers in the middle of the map. It starts off held by two Russian squads, but the rest of the Soviet force is nearby on the lake.

The first battle saw my Soviets trying to hold back a young gentleman's Finnish attack, which was remarkable well-run. His sniper, mortar and machine gun team were very effctive at laying doen fire and knocked off quite a few Russian defenders around the hotel. He timed the rush of his infantry well and they swept into the hotel simultaneously with the reinforcing Finns on Turn 5. The Soviets were wiped out.

Young gentleman's dad now had a go at the same scenario. This time my Russians took a little more circumspect defensive posture, trying to avoid Finnish lines of fire more. The Soviets were able to eliminate the light mortar unit early and it turned out that the dad's Finns were much worse shots than the son. Neither the sniper nor the machine gun team did very well in laying down fire. So the final Finn rush found the Soviets fairly numerous and a vicious close-range melee ensued that saw troops flying off the board. It all came down to the very last die roll where a Soviet SMG unit took a shot at the last Finn on one of the objective hexes, getting a "destroyed" result. The Finn failed its cover roll and that was it. There were just two Finnish survivors at the hotel (one rifle and one leader) and the Soviet SMG unit.

It was nice to be able to commemorate this fighting on its 70th anniversary.

Winter War battles 70 years ago today

After trudging through the snow for a week, brushing back border forces, the Soviets started running into stiffer resistance in their drives to outflank the main Finnish defenses 70 years ago this week.

At Suomussalmi in central Finland and Tolvajarvi near Lake Ladoga the Finns, with their ski troops and sissi tactics proceeded to stop, and then drive back the Soviet spearheads in what is the classic image of the Winter War -- outnumbered white-clad hardy Finns beating back hordes of ill-prepared Russians. Both locations are shown below in this map from the GURPS source book GURPS WWII: Frozen Hell, which provides an excellent overview of the war even if you don't play that role-playing game.


That image is certainly the impression most wargames would leave. The Tolvajarvi battle in particular has been a popular wargame topic with at least two comprehensive simulations being published.

Rarely shown in wargames are the grimmer, more conventional battle along the Mannerheim Line where the war was really decided. There's little glamour in bloody frontal assaults against grimly held fortified lines. The Soviets' December offensive failed.

The old SPI game Winter War does manage to show the true balance between the fronts. While there will usually be some entertaining and dramatic thrust and parry in the center, the game and the war will be decided around the Mannerheim and Ladoga lines in the South.

Winter War began 70 years ago today

On Nov. 30, 1939, Soviet troops crossed the border into Finland, beginning an unusual war that pitted small Finland against huge Russia.

I think something often overlooked about the Winter War was the overall context in which it occurred. It's easy to forget now, but 1939 was a year of extraordinary turmoil. The Spanish Civil War ended in January. Japan seized Hainan Island in February, Germany occupied the rump of Czechoslovakia in March, Italy occupied Albania in April and Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, starting World War II -- although in the fall of 1939 it was a Phony War confined to Europe and the high seas and not yet a world war.

So Finland's War with Russia was waged in a very tense international environment. It was co-existent with World War II, but not really a part of it. And even the later "Continuation War" waged in conjunction with the German Barbarossa campaign, was carefully separated from it. Finland was a co-belligerent, but not an ally, of Germany. The United States never did declare war on Finland, and Finnish restraint paid off when the tide turned against the Axis. Finland was the only Axis ally bordering the Soviets Union with was not occupied after the war.

I don't have a large collection of games on the Winter War, but one of my long-term favorites is the Strategy & Tactics game by that name, which I've even played this year. One of the TCS games, A Frozen Hell, depicts a battle from the war and several of my scenario-based wargames include episodes from the war, including Axis & Allies miniatures, Down in Flames and Memoir '44. I also have the GURPS WWII: Frozen Hell module from Steve Jackson Games which is full of interesting data about the war, even though I'm not an active player of thr GURPS RPG.

One aspect of the Winter War that's notable is the moral ambiguity surrounding it. On the one hand, the Finns were supported by Nazi Germany as well as the Western Allies, yet on the other they were opposed by the Soviets, who would be allied with the West against the Germans less than two years later. But the Finns were defending themselves against aggression, so Western and American sympathy was with them and their cooperation with the Germans was excused.

Between a rock and a hard place -- Finland in World War II

World War II is full of amazing stories, but one that gets relatively little attention in the U.S. is Finland's odyssey between 1939 and 1945.

I think it's astounding that Finland escaped World War II basically intact. It's like being in a plane wreck and getting away with just a broke arm.

It's always tough for a small country to be located near a powerful one. A Mexican politician once lamented that Mexico was fated to "be so far from God and so near the United States." I expect that there are similar sayings in the lore of countries like Vietnam and Portugal. How much harder, still, for those small countries caught between two antagonists, like Belgium or Korea.

So the fact that Finland was able to escape the maw of the biggest war in history without being chewed up and spat out is a testament to their fortitude and good sense.

And interestingly enough, they managed this feat while being on the wrong side, to boot.

Most people sympathize with the Finns about the Winter War, their unsuccessful defense against the Soviets over the winter of 1939-1940. There have been a fair number of games covering that conflict, from the classic SPI game Winter War to newer titles such as A Frozen Hell. It's not uncommon to see scenarios from the Winter War in scenario wargames like ASL. In my collection there are scenarios from the 39-40 fighting in Axis & Allies: Miniatures, Down in Flames (shown above) and Check Your 6!

What's usually passed over with little comment is the Continuation War, where the Finns joined the Germans in Barbarossa. My first exposure to the Finns was in the old Avalon Hill game Stalingrad, where they were one of the Axis minor allies. At the time there was little to set them apart from the other Axis minors other than the fact they're units were a little better and the fact that they were dangerously isolated from the rest of the front. In the games we played in our little circle Soviet players usually wiped out the Finns to eliminate a threat to Leningrad. I remember wondering back then, as a teen, why the Finns would take the chance.

Of course the Finns were a lot tougher than that game reflected, and the Soviets had enough on their plate that they couldn't spare the resources needed to crush Finland. But eventually, as the tide turned, the Finns could see the inevitable result and made their arrangements with the Soviets to exit the war. What amazes me is that the Soviets let them.

One wonders if the indomitable spirit the Finns demonstrated had something to do with this. Perhaps the Finns earned the respect of the Russian elites. And the restraint Finland showed during the Continuation War may also have had something to do with it. Despite a lot of pressure from the Germans, the Finns refused to go beyond the limits of the territory they lost to the Russians in the Winter War. And they refused to join actively in the siege of Leningrad.

So unlike all the other Axis minor allies, the Finns avoided being overrun by the Soviets and were allowed to retain their independence during the Cold War (and sensibly, they didn't push their luck, remaining reliably neutral).

Still, the Continuation War gets a lot less attention than the Winter War in western histories. There's the uncomfortable fact that Finland was a co-belligerent with Nazi Germany. But that co-belligerence was an important distinction. Finland and Germany were not allies. Finland did not ship its Jews off to German death camps. And that distinction was noticed in an era that seemed able to recognize subtle distinctions. The United States never even actually declared war on Finland, for example.

Also reducing interest, I think, is that the Continuation War was not particularly fierce. The Finns reined themselves in, and one gathers that the Soviets did little to provoke them. What serious fighting did occur tended to be between those German forces the Finns allowed to operate and the Soviets near Murmansk. Operating at the very far end of the logistical capabilities, the Germans were not able to succeed against the Soviet defenders at Murmansk, which was honored as a hero city.

Many Eastern Front wargames leave the Finnish front out entirely, or just include the portion near Leningrad. Usually there are special rules that prevent the Germans from making the Finns into the sort of potential threat that caused Stalingrad players to sweep the Finns off the board.

I've had a soft spot for Finland's story in World War II. I think they were truly between the rock and the hard place, yet managed to navigate throught treacherous waters to emerge with polity and integrity intact, if not a little battered.

Session report: Winter War Rematch

More in my series of pre-game strategy discussions followed by post-game analysis.

Last year Mark and I played a game of Winter War with me as the Russians and him as the stalwart Finns. My Russians managed to get a substantive victory.

We discussed how that game came out in a session report, and disagreed somewhat over the strategies employed by each side and agreed to try a rematch with sides switched someday.

Well, someday is scheduled to be this weekend, a few days away as I write this, so I thought it would instructive to discuss my plans as the Finns before the vent and see how they turn out in practice.

In my opinion the standard game slightly favors the Russians, although I think that using the

optional rules swings the game balance strongly towards the Finns. In most cases I think the Russians can capture Petsamo and the Mannerheim Line for a total of 70 points and marginal victory. If the Russians can get as far as Viipuri then they get up to 95 and a substantive victory and two more hexes of westward progress bring 105 points and decisive victory.The Finns, on the other hand, can't allow the Mannerheim line to fall and still win, although the fall of Petsamo alone is acceptable.

So clearly the Mannerheim line is the vital front for the Finns, so my focus will be there.

My initial deployment will use four 6-6-2 divisions stacked with four 1-1-3 battalions to hold all four hexes of the line. I am trying to take advantage of the unusual configuration of the front here, where four hexes of fortified line can only be assaulted from 3 hexes. The Soviets are obligated to attack adjacent units, so this configuration means that no Finnish hex can be attacked by more than one Soviet hex and at least two will just face a soak-off attack. The strongest Soviet attacking hex is 40 attack factors so the best possible odds against the two Finns (who are doubled to 14 defense factors) is a 2-1. At 2-1 against a fort there is a 50% chance of an exchange, 1/6 chance of an attacker retreat and 1/3 chance of no effect at all.

Interestingly, stacking a second Finnish division does little to help strengthen the defense unless more divisions are used overall, which, as we shall see below, has negative consequences elsewhere. If the Finns hold the line with just two hexes of two divisions each they provide the Soviets with an opportunity for concentrating up to 80 attack factors against 24 (12 doubled) which is a 3-1. At a 3-1 there is still a 50% chance of an exchange, except now the Finns lose 12 factors instead of 7 while the Soviets still lose just one 20-12-2 unit.

The 1-1-3 is useful because it bumps up the defense of the fortified hex just enough to shift the odds down from a 3-1 to a 2-1, which has no practical effect on the main attacks if the Soviets use just 20-12-2 armies but it prevents the Soviets from trying to use 6-6-2 divisions to soak up exchange losses with 2-1 attacks made by a stack comprised of a 20-12-2 and a 6-4-2. A defense of 7 means every exchange will cost the Soviets a 20-12-2. The drawback of this plan is that it strips four useful 1-1-3 battalions from elsewhere.

The objective is to hold the Mannerheim line throughout the game.

The second most critical front is the Ladoga Line, just north of its namesake lake. While no victory point areas lie behind that position, its early fall will compromise the Mannerheim line and probably force the Finns to abandon it. So substantial forces will be committed to that front as well, comprised of three 6-6-2 divisions and a couple of 1-1-3 battalions guarding the flank of the line. The objective here is to hold the line until about turn 5 or 6, which should be long enough for the Mannerheim Line battle to be decided one way or the other. Making the Mannerheim Line stronger necessarily means reducing the Ladoga Line defenses too much.

The third most important front is the far north around Petsamo. I don't believe the Finns can keep the Soviets out of Petsamo if the Russians send enough force. The Finns cannot reinforce the area in a timely fashion, while the Soviet railroad to Murmansk means they can deploy whatever force they require and redeploy those forces when the mission is complete. While Petsamo can't be held against determined Soviet attack, I don't believe it's in the Finns interest to make it too easy, either. So I will commit the 4-4-2 division, a 2-2-3 and 1-1-3 to that front. The 4-4-2 will garrison Petsamo itself. This will force the Soviets to commit significant resources to that sector.

The center of the map gets the leftover Finnish forces, which amount to just one 2-2-3 regiment and three 1-1-3 battalions to start, although the lion's share of the reinforcements will probably go to that sector. There's only one victory point objective in this entire zone, Oulu, and it's a very far journey for the Soviets to get to. I'm all for letting them try. If the Soviets make a determined effort to get there it will take a long time and expose them to being cut off and destroyed.

The Session

Overall things went as planned and expected.Up in the north, Petsamo fell, although not until the Russians lost a few regiments. The Finns' 2-2-3 regiment and 1-1-3 battalion hung around for a while, picked off one more regiment and then redeployed to aid in the central front battle. The Murmansk defense rule obligated the Soviets to keep seven units within five hexes of Murmansk after turn 4. Mark elected to fulfill a lot of that requirement with NKVD regiments, although I think that deprived him of useful units needed elsewhere. I think he did that in order to maximize his offensive potential elsewhere because the NKVD units cannot enter Finland and are therefore purely defensive.

At the other end of the line, the Mannerheim Line was never really seriously threatened. Mark's Soviets couldn't figure out an attractive way to attack the 6-6-2/1-1-3 combos and made just a few efforts in the early going. Instead he preferred to send extra troops from the Leningrad area to aid the Ladoga Line fight. By the time he made a strong effort in the last few turns there wasn't enough time to punch through. The pressure on the Mannerheim Line was so light that at one point I was able to redeploy most of the divisions using rail lines to attack the spearhead of the Ladoga Line breakthrough (discussed below) and then scurry back to the Mannerheim Line.

The Finnish rail net played a very important role in their defense, giving them many of the advantages mechanized German forces often enjoy in Eastern Front games, of being able to rapidly concentrate force, strike and then redeploy.

Mark's Soviets made their main effort on the Ladoga front, eventually breaking through around turn 6, although at heavy cost to both sides. Fortunately for the Finns, victory in the central front had freed up forces that could threaten the flank of the Ladoga advance and then reinforcements from the Mannerheim Line hit the spearhead hard, forcing a Soviet retreat.

In the center the Soviets made a main effort, committing unusually heavy forces including the Tank Corps, the Cavalry Corps, the tank brigades and extra army headquarters and most of the 2-1-2 regiments. This formidable force was able to make good initial progress, even destroying an unwisely forward-deployed 2-2-3 Finn regiment.I'm no believer in a strong Soviet effort on that front however, and the fate of Mark's Soviets illustrates why. On the second turn the Finns get some substantial light reinforcements including the ski patrols and 1-1-3 battalions that can retreat before combat and are therefore very hard for the Soviets to pin down inside Finland. Before long the Finns were probing the Soviet lines and inevitably weak points and small whole began to appear. The end came rather suddenly when Mark forgot that Soviet headquarters units don't have zone of control and he allowed one of his army headquarters to get surrounded by ski patrols, cutting off supply to the whole sector. Truthfully, though, from my perspective it appeared the Soviets were in serious trouble anyway and that headquarters would have had to retreat to avoid being cut off -- which still would have left the sector largely unsupplied.

Once unsupplied the Soviets lost their zones of control and their line collapsed into isolated pockets that were mostly mopped up, although the tank corps was ignored. Some of the Finnish units made a gesture towards the Soviet rail line but even the NKVD-less Soviets were tough enough to fight off that effort after causing some Finnish casualties and the Finns gave up the effort as not worth the risk considering favorable developments elsewhere.

The majority of the victorious Finnish central front forces redeployed via the rail lines to a position on the northern flank of the Ladoga Front Soviets, compromising their breakthrough's potential, helping to surround some units and eventually forcing a general retreat to protect Petrozadovsk.

The final result was 30 Soviet victory points for Petsamo, which meant a Finnish victory.Mark would like another rematch and I expect he'll devote considerable thought to how to counter this Finnish strategy.

Brief session report: Winter War

Had the chance to play this SPI classic this weekend after many years in the closet, courtesy Mark K.

In order to maximize the playing time I volunteered to take the Russians so Mark could have the game set up before we started.

In my opinion the game tends to favor the Russians slightly, if played carefully. It's pretty easy to mess up as the Russians, though and hard to recover from a disaster.

My basic plan was to threaten Petsamo, in the north, mess around the Finnish center to distract them and make probes against the Lodoga Line and the Mannheim Line while biding my time for a serious offensive.

Mark deployed the standard 4-division Mannheim line defense, the rest of his 6-6-2 divisions on the Ladoga front, backed by a smattering of units.

His central front had the 4-4-2 division and most of the rest of his army while he entrusted the defense of Petsamo to a single regiment and a battalion. This force proved inadequate and I was able to fight my way into Petsamo at the cost of a couple of exchanges. As we were not using any of the optional rules, I had to keep at least seven units up in the Petsamo/Murmansk area for the rest of the game on garrison duty.

Things went much better for Mark along the rest of the front. My one 1-1 probe against the Mannheim line was AE'd and my initial advances in the center were pretty badly cut-up by the mobile Finns, costing me two divisions and several regiments for no gain.

Only the Ladoga front started off a little better, as I was able to cause some casualties among the Finnish defenders. Mark quickly reinforced that front, however, and I had to call off the offensive.

Mark's Finns then got a little feisty and made a major effort to cut the Russian rail lines leading to Murmansk. Inside Russia, however, the Finns lose most of their advantages and I was able to counterattack his force and, while costly, manages to destroy the better part of it. The Finnish survivors fell back to Finland, confident that there was insufficient time for any Russian followup to amount to anything.

Likewise things were stalemated on the Ladoga front, with neither side willing to test the other's defenses in any meaningful way.

Things improved for the Russians on the Mannheim line, as the turn 3 & 4 reinforcements allowed some decent attacks at 3-1 and 2-1 odds. Again the Russians paid dearly for their success with exchanges (as usual the Russian must be stoic in the face of losses) but the Finns could ill afford to lose the divisions in the exchanges and the Russians started to grind forward. The Finns rushed all available troops to the front and were able to prevent a breakthrough, but the Russians did capture the entire Mannheim line and the city of Vipuri. Retaining Petsamo as well, the Russians were able to achieve a substantive victory.

Overall it was a satisfying game, taking about three hours to play. Overall I was satisfied with my play for the most part, although I did suffer some unnecessary loses in the center and I would play that portion differently next time. Mark was a gracious opponent and put up an good defense, although I think perhaps one a tad more aggressive than warranted. While he killed a lot of Russians, venturing into Russia ended up costing him quite a few Finnish troops as well and I think the Finns missed theirs more.