Scenario #3, Ignorant Armies, has Slovaks fighting Hungarians, something you don't see every day in the PG world. This is a clear-cut situation centered on a fight for a bridge. The Hungarians have to take the bridge for a minor victory, and while the Slovaks can win by making the capture bloody and costly.

The Slovaks set up first, and build a strong defense around the bridge, including some dug-in stacks behind it to feed reinforcements into any melee. Not surprisingly, their leader draw is miserable. They get five, and only one of them has a positive morale modifier. The Slovaks do have two AT guns, which with a factor of 2 against the think-skinned Hungarian tanks (armor of 0) have a good chance of scoring a hit. Hungarian tank steps count double for losses.

The Hungarians start by winning initiative by two. They send two stacks of tanks to the town just east of the bridge to set up direct fire and deny a sneak infiltration by Slovak infantry. Neither AT gun has a LOS into the limiting terrain, so they can't fire until the tanks fire and become spotted. Some artillery fire by both sides is ineffectual, and the Hungarians finish entering the map with their forces headed for the town, and for the woods southeast of the bridge.

By turn 10, the Hungarians have methodically built up some fire-groups to take out the bridge hex defenders and the southern AT gun position. The key move came when their lone leader with a combat modifier advanced with 2 stacks, creating a 16-FP attack that demoralized the bridge defenders and sent them fleeing. The Slovak AT gunners also fled, leaving their guns abandoned and out of the game. The two faster Hungarian tanks (MP of 7) swung south to take advantage of the opening in the Slovak AT defenses.

Every scenario I play seems to highlight a different aspect of PG. In this one, it was the importance of that combat modifier and the ability to coordinate fire on a position. Another thing that comes through in this one is the poor range of both sides' infantry (2), and the limits that imposes on both offense and defense.

I finally ended the scenario at the start of turn 15 -- the only thing left to decide was whether the Hungarians would get a minor or major victory. With all the advantages and plenty of time, the Hungarian player can slowly pick apart the Slovak defenses while not exposing himself to step losses (which Slovak victory depend upon).

I'm not sure it would be fun playing this one as the Slovaks. They don't have many options. I'd say it is a good learning scenario for how to set up an attack as the Hungarians, but I imagine by the time someone buys a module such as First Axis they already know the system. I would make this more of a challenge for the Hungarians by reducing turns from 24 to 14 or 16.

So the scenario gets a 2.