I would like to say first that this is a great scenario for solitaire play but shared maybe not so much. The New Zealanders have an ardous task before them; to take out four entrenched hill positions with no real fire support available other than a single 3-inch mortar platoon. Also, the Italian player has 20 points of minefields, with no decoys, to place in 10 hexes which perfectly surround their positions and armor which can be placed on both flanks.

In the set-up the Italians also get to hand pick their Colonel (Fedele de Georgis) with a rating of (1-10-1), with luck I also randomly drew a Captain with a (1-10-2) rating giving unheard of morale for the Italians. The Kiwis were not so lucky in their draw of leaders. Though almost all of them had a 1 morale modifier, not one of them had a combat modifier which would of greatly aided their assault attempts.

So the play began and right away one of the Kiwi trucks carrying much needed HMGs was hit by indirect fire demoralizing both units yet the advance pressed on. Then I got a sandstorm result on the random events table which slowed things down quite a bit but then I thought this to be a benefit as the low visiblity protected units from being spotted until they could maybe get to the hill areas. Eventually the storm cleared after 5 turns and now all units were spottable again before they were within direct fire range.

The attack plan was to assault an immobile Pz748e (a captured Matilda) on the West side of the hill with infantry and take out the L3/35's with the 2-pdr A.T. gun and Bren carriers on the East side; combined INF and HMG would go straight-on. Well, none of this worked! The 105mm artillery easily took care of the carriers and the A.T. gun was destroyed before it could even fire a shot at the tankettes. Then there were the minefields. Anyway, to keep this brief and to wrap it all up, not one hill position was taken. Furthermore, not one Italian step was eliminated or even demoralized that I can remember. This was a first I believe, most definitely for Italy. The New Zealanders on the other hand lost 8 steps of INF; 3 steps of HMG; 1 2-pdr; 2 Brens along with a Major and two Captains, plus plenty more units demoralized and disrupted.

I still rated this one a borderline 3 because it was a great solitaire play, shared perhaps more of a 2. With the Italians it was mostly target practice but I did try some daring moves with the Kiwis that I wouldn't of attempted elsewhere, knowing well before the scenario's end that a win was hopeless. Also that I would play this again but at a much later date.