Publisher/Date:
Critical Hit (2019)
Product Type:
HASL/Historical Module
Country of Origin:
U.S.A.
Contents:
Desperation Morale has not examined this product and cannot verify claims of its contents. However, it appears to contain a historical map formed from 9 (?) glossy 12" x 18" heavy paper/light cardstock map panels, 6 pages rules, 1 1/2" countersheet (280 counters) and 3 5/8" countersheets (528 counters) for 808 die-cut counters total, 8 scenarios.
Note: Critical Hit publishes products at a high volume and its products have a general history of quality control issues. Critical Hit provides no review/evaluation copies and typically prices its products very high. For all these reasons, Desperation Morale no longer acquires all, or even most, Critical Hit products for analysis and write-up on this website.
This entry, then, is not a typical Desperation Morale write-up but rather more of a placeholder and historical marker. If Desperation Morale ever acquires a copy of this product, this placeholder entry will be replaced by a full write-up.
Leningrad 1: Brandenburger Bridgehead is half of a large historical module that was split into two modules for publication and sale, with the needed other half being Leningrad 2: Thunder on the Luga. The combined module depicts fighting at the Luga River in July 1941 seemingly centered mostly around the actions of the 6th Panzer Division. Thus Leningrad is a pretty rare historical module that features East Front fighting in the summer of 1941; most East Front historical modules are actually mid- or late-war actions. The module is also relatively unusual as a Critical Hit historical module in that so many CH modules have a historical map that is centered on a large hill mass, while the terrain here is relatively flat and dominated by streams and rivers.
The maps for both Leningrad modules are attractive; Critical Hit’s late 2010s-early 2020s map artwork is generally good quality, except for a fair amount of its building artwork, but buildings are in short supply here, so it is not a problem. Critical Hit has been unusually reticent about the contents for the Leningrad modules–reticent even for the normally opaque Critical Hit, but it appears that the Leningrad 1 map is formed by assembling 9 glossy 12″ x 18″ heavy paper/light cardstock map panels. Assembling so many such panels can be a pain, but most scenarios don’t use the whole map. One ASLer playing a monster scenario that uses both sets of Leningrad map panels claimed that it took him an hour just to set up the maps.
Leningrad 1 comes with 8 scenarios, including a monster scenario, LEN4 (Voroshilov’s Counter-Attack), which uses all the Leningrad 1 maps and takes the place of any campaign game. Although there are a couple smaller scenarios, most of the scenarios are large or very large, and several have a great many AFVs, allowing some fairly large-scale early war armor clashes. In LEN2 (Human Wave), for example, the attacking Soviets have 24 AFVs, while the defending Germans themselves have 13. It is probable that just the attraction of large tin-can tank battles will cause some ASLers to pick up the Leningrad modules, despite Critical Hit’s reputation.
The cost of Leningrad 1, currently going for $129.95, is quite high.
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