New Zealand has had a bad time of it in these 'Desert Rats' scenarios so far, with my play; winning just one battle out of seven so far but here in this one they were able to force a draw.

The attack went much better than I expected it would and in the end, over half of the Italian upper hill positions were taken, though a few of the Italian positions were simply abandoned due to failed recovery rolls. There were a lot of posts for the New Zealand forces to take but 28 turns/7 hours seemed like enough time.

There was nothing unusual about the Italian deployment, 47mm AT guns were spread out in a ring to discourage the N.Z. bren carriers from getting too close and by luck the Italians received a decent selection of leaders, especially a Captain with a combat modier of 1 and morale modifier of 2 -this helped a lot with the units themselves having a morale rating of 7/6.

New Zealand units had a base morale of 8/8 and more capable leaders all around with plenty of morale modifiers. I probably waited too long in making my first assault against the Italians, trying to keep casualties down. The first hill post wasn't taken until 11:00/turn 17, but once that one fell other Italian positions began to break down. The Kiwis were gaining steam and making quick progress and after 4 step losses early on went on for quite a while just failing a few morale checks here and there. But soon, after so many successful assaults a few fell apart midway through Italian positions. Then, right when there still seemed to be a remote chance of pushing the Italians off the hill, tragedy struck by the loss of the N.Z Colonel which resulted in decapitation and catastrophic loss at 13:00/turn 25. After that there was a domino effect in failed morale and recovery checks along with units not being able to move for a whole turn. Soon after that there were only enough capable N.Z. units left to carry out one assault and that one fizzled out.

So the Kiwis fail to take the ridge but were lucky enough to only suffer 6 step losses after 28 turns resulting in a stalemate. This wasn't a bad scenario, just not great either so I give it a '3' but it was a first for me in the 'Desert Rats' scenarios as it was the first draw I've had out of 25 played out so far.

My advice for the N.Z. player would be to not worry about casualties if you want to win and send everything you got in right away, even the bren carriers unless of course you are playing for a draw. 28 turns will pass by very quickly and there is a lot ground to cover. Of course there will be casualties but once you get those higher morale units in assault hexes, the Italians will crumble. Oh, and don't let your Colonel get killed either.

My advice for the Italian player would be to keep a strong force in the back positions and not deploy all the HMGs up front. Do whatever it takes to slow the advance down as time is on your side. There are plenty of units to build an all-around solid defense over a lot of upper level hill areas. Unfortunately not much can be done for the low morale unless you get as lucky as I did on the leader draw but at least the surrender rule is not in play!