By Their Deeds Alone – Part 1

Marc M, 13 July 2025

Blood and Fury, from designer Keith Tractron, is the second volume in Lock ‘n Load’s World at War 85 series. Blood and Fury continues the battalion-level combat of the series between the Warsaw Pact and NATO in West Germany. You can get an overview of the game, all it offers, and the basics of gameplay in my First Impressions article.

For the First Impressions piece, I played through several of the smaller introductory scenarios, but for this AAR, I’m playing through Scenario 3: By Their Deeds Alone. It’s a larger, 13-turn scenario with four ground formations, attack helicopters, close air support, and off-board artillery, so I imagine it demonstrates a lot of what Blood and Fury has to offer. There’s a solid level of detail, but it’s relatively easy to pick up. A confession here, I’m not well versed in tactics of the era so I’m probably going to make some…interesting…decisions. But this should be a good way to demonstrate how the game runs.

The Setup

A relatively small US force will attempt to delay the Soviet advance.

click images to enlarge

The Soviet 200^th Motor-Rifle Regiment meets elements of the US 2^nd Armored Division, which is dug in at and around the city of Peine. The US needs to slow the Soviet advance and give civilians time to evacuate to Hanover. The Soviets have two objectives they need to accomplish to win. They need to control all the hexes of the city (Objective A) and they need to exit at least six units off of the southwestern edge of the board (Objective B).

The US gets two formation cards while each Soviet formation gets one.

In addition to the US and Soviet formation cards (NATO gets two per formation, the Soviets get one) the Formation Deck includes a Battlefield Event/Friction card and two End Operations cards. The Battlefield Event/Friction card triggers various positive or negative random events. Drawing the second End Ops card ends the turn.
The US formation is A Company of the 2^nd Battalion, 66^th Armored Regiment. They set up first.
The Soviet 200^th GMR formations enters from any of three hexes on the eastern edge of the board.
The US has one ADM (artillery-delivered mine) off-board artillery strike.
The Soviets have three off-board strikes: an MLRS (multiple launch rocket system), an HE (high explosive) strike, and a smoke strike.
The US gets attack helicopters on Turn 2.
The Soviets get a couple of additional formations on Turn 3.
Both sides get close air support starting on Turn 6.

The Soviet force has the initiative and moves onto the board before we take the first Formation draw.

The Soviets have the initiative and based on the deployment of the US forces, the 3^rd Battalion of the 200^th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment moves onto the map from the northern entry point.

The US gets the first Formation draw, activating the 66th Armored Regiment formation.

With the Initiative phase complete, we move to the Formation draw. When you draw a formation’s card, the units in that formation can move, fire, move-and-fire, carry out indirect fire and execute assaults. The first formation draw activates A Company of the 2^nd Battalion of the 66^th Armored Regiment. Most of the formation remains in place to cover the objectives.

The Bradley recon formation is the northernmost US unit.

But the US has an M3 Bradley recon unit covering the northern part of the map. Since this is a recon unit, there was no need to check command status. Two consecutive activations of the 66^th AR formation allow the M3 unit to reposition and find cover in a city hex at the west of the map.

This gives the light armor unit an additional defensive die should it come under attack and another die against ATGMs. From here it can take a shot at the GMR formation as it heads west, but the Soviets are currently also in the protection of city hexes. The GMR units activate next and continue to move westward along the road. A BMP with the HQ unit makes a tempting target for Opportunity Fire from the Bradleys. The defensive bonuses from the city and from defending against ATGMs in cover give the BMP a total of three defensive dice, but the save number is 5, so there’s a reasonable chance of success.

The ATGMs from the Bradley unit gets a hit, but the BMP rolls two saves.

The Bradleys fire their ATGMs but get only one hit. The Bradley unit passes the missile ammo check so it will be able to fire next activation. Now for the BMP defensive roll with three dice, one for the inherent light armor defensive roll, one for the defensive bonus of the city, and one for covering terrain against ATGM. A 5 and a 6 means two saves and no effect from the hit. The BMP trundles on and we draw the second End Operations card, ending Turn 1.

Turn 2

Turn 2 adds two AH-64 Apache units from the US 1^st Squadron of the 3^rd Attack Helicopters. We shuffle their two new cards into the Formation Deck. But…we won’t see them this turn. At the beginning of the turn we get a rare occurrence where we draw both End Operations cards in succession and no formation activates. Play advances to the next turn. For the Soviets, it means one less turn to take Peine and exit the board.

No formations activated this turn, so we take an End Operations card out of play until they do.

At this point, we take one of the End Operations cards out of the formation deck and hold it out until these formations activate in the next turn. The HQ counters and an Ops Complete counter for the helicopters formation serve as a reminder of who needs to activate. Turn 3 won’t end until they do.

Turn 3

The Soviet player can look forward to some reinforcements this turn.

Turn 3 makes some reinforcements available to the Soviets. We add a card for the 1^st Battalion of the 48^th Guards Tank Regiment and one for the 2^nd Battalion of the 245^th Guards Motor-Rifle Regiment. These formations add significant numbers and a lot of armor firepower to the Soviet side.

Yes, I think that’s a West German ATGM support weapon, but I couldn’t find a US counter. And I’ve made a mistake here. I’ll explain in Part 2 of the AAR.

The US 66^th Armored Regiment formation activates first. They deploy their infantry unit with ATGM support on a hill near the center of the map to cover approaches to the city objective. The US keeps its other units in place and in concealment.

The Soviet GMR moves west, toward cover from a stand of woods.

The 200^th GMR activates and continues to move West. They’re in range of the hilltop infantry unit’s ATGMs, but a stand of several blocking woods hexes gives them cover.

Flying low, the Apaches head toward the 200 GMR formation.

This is the latest episode in a running playthrough of World At War 85: Blood and Fury from Lock ‘n Load Publishing; you can find the links to all published episodes at the end of article, with new installments each Sunday

The US attack helicopters activate next. They enter the map using Nap of the Earth movement. With NOE, they’re considered to be at the same level as the hex they’re in, so they can take advantage of cover from blocking terrain like cities, hills, and woods. However, they won’t have armor firepower until they transition to Hover, which exposes them to anti-air fire. One Apache unit takes cover south of a city while the other ducks behind a group of woods hexes. Now that the Apache formation has activated, we can shuffle the second End Operations card back into the Formation Deck.

The next draw activates the 245^th GMR. Their mounted BTR-70s and attached T-64s enter from the southeast portion of the map and head for a city on the eastern edge. They have a short and more or less direct route to Objective A. A Patton tank unit from the US 66^th AR is in an Improved Position on an overwatching hilltop. The Pattons break concealment for Opportunity fire on the trailing BTR unit.

Four armor attack dice result in only one hit, but as a light armor unit in clear terrain, the BTR only has one defensive die. A roll of 5 is good enough for a save and the BTR continues toward the city.

The US infantry fires their ATGMs and need to reload.

The ATGM-armed infantry tries Opportunity Fire as the BTR moves into the next hex. The HQ unit stacked with the infantry give it two additional attack dice for a total of six. The attack scores three hits but the Missile Reload roll fails. The ATGM support weapon gets a Missiles Reloading marker and might be out of commission for a bit.

One save, but two hits from the ATGMs make it through.

The BTR again only gets one defensive die. We roll and do get the save but two hits disrupt and reduce the BTR.

Disruption stops the BTR short of the city.

The BTR must stop short of cover. The infantry is disrupted as well, and by die roll, is also reduced.

No harm in trying, but the fire from the Pattons scores no hits.

A Patton unit in the Objective city fires on a T-64. The Patton unit loses concealment and scores no hits. And with that, The US formation ends its activation.

The end of Turn 3 shows the US outnumbered by two of the Soviets three formations.

Two successive End Operations cards finish Turn 3. Leaving the 48^th Guards Tank Regiment, along with their impressive 10 T-80 units, off the map for now. We’ll start Turn 4 with two of the Soviet’s three formations en route to the objectives and the arrival of the third and most powerful imminent. We’ve still got some off-board artillery to deal with and some close air support to look forward to.

One of the things I really like about the rules for Blood and Fury (and in general World at War 85) is the pace. We’re almost a quarter of the way through the scenario. I feel like I need to move fast to ensure I’ve got time to reach the objectives. The defender needs layered plans, otherwise missing an activation can put the enemy on the doorstep before you know it.

World At War 85: Blood and Fury AAR – By Their Deeds Alone
PART 1 ~ PART 2 ~ PART 3 ~ PART 4 ~ PART 5 ~ PART 6

Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons.
Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web.
You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events.
Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.