Firestorm: Red Thunder

This was my first time playing East Germans, and wasn't quite clued up on all the nuances of their operation, but I tried my best.
With freshly painted T-55AM2s, I was ready to push the West German lapdogs and drive through to Amsterdam.

I got first turn, and pressed forward with the BMPs, Spandrels and both Companies of T-72Ms. The Shikas remained where they were and two of them opened fire on the skulking PAH helicopters lurking nearby. I only used two as I was wary of the Tornadoes making their appearance at any point, but two bursts from the Shilkas were enough as one went down in the flames, and the other deciding honour was the better part of valour, fled the field.
On the left flank, the BMPs engaged the Marders with their HEAT firing cannons and managed to pick one off at the extreme range of their rather short-ranged weapon.

In return, I suffered the wrath of dug in Milan teams and Jaguar Anti-tank tracks. A couple of T-72Ms taking the hits from these annoying weapons, luckily there are plenty more where they came from. Less lucky was the BMPs in the hedges being engaged by the Marder troops moving forward, one of them biting the dust.

With both our noses bloodied, we moved on

Being wary of the missiles, but considering them a waste of resources on my Shilkas, I advanced the AA out to get into a better position. That was a mistake as my opponent seemed to value them highly and picked one off, bailing the other. At least he wasn't shooting something useful like the tanks.
Said tanks had swept round the train station, readying for an assault. Surely 4 T-72Ms should have no problem rolling over 3 little bases of West German infantry? In the words of POTUS Trump: "Wrong!"
The tanks rolled in, and forgetting they had bazooka skirts, not BDD, one was bailed whilst the other was knocked out, stalling the charge and forcing them back to their position. This was going to be a problem, best to dig them out first.

Things went better on the other flank as the Marders were whittled away by BMPs, and soon the T-55AM2s would get in on the action. It looks like that objective was up for the taking.

The less said about the middle, the better. Spandrels tried their best to pick on the Jaguars, but hiding Wessies are hard to get a bead on.

With the Gepards a little engrossed with trying to hold down Spandrels and sneak side shots onto T-72s (Don't know why), the Hinds make their appearance, sweeping onto the board and blowing holes into the hiding Jaguars. Despite the rattle of light arms fire from various sources.

The T-55AM2s finally opened up, tearing through the Marders, along with the one remaining BMP to open a hole in this flank, it was time to push.

On the other flank, the T-72Ms held for a turn, trying to whittle down the infantry, but to no avail. (Note: Big guns next time, not MGs).

And then the Tornadoes show up. One of them got clipped off by the Shilkas, but the single remaining aircraft pushed home the attack to tear the top off some tanks...

The luck of the T-55AM2s didn't hold out long as a Milan tore one to pieces, but that's fine, I only need to get them off the board in one piece.

The next turn was a riot of missiles and AA fire. The Hinds being downed by the remaining Gepards, the Milans picking off a T-55AM2 before it escaped, and the T-72Ms tried another assault, being driven back by another round of precise Panzerfaust fire. Lesson well and truly learned here.

The Spandrels pulled round towards the free objective, aiming to escape next turn while the Shilkas did the same. All I had to do was slip 3 units off to seal the win.

In an underhanded move, the West Germans slipped their Panzermorser carriers onto the objective, preventing the Spandrels and Shilkas escaping. Though they were eventually destroyed, so too were the Shilkas, and the Spandrels reduced to 'Not in Good Spirits', meaning they didn't count as scoring.

Overall, I know I made a couple of mistakes during the game, and relied a little too much on MG fire to deal with infantry, when throwing big 'Brutal' shells their way would have dealt with my problems.
Impressed with the Hinds, Shilkas and brave little T-55AM2s, they did themselves proud. Hopefully next game, they'll continue to shine.