There is something incredibly satisfying for the Slovaks to be able to cause such complete destruction in this last scenario. The SS are trying to get to the top of a hill held closely by the Slovaks and if they are wildly successful at that they might go on and try to capture some towns. The Slovaks, of course, have mostly light weaponry as they are no better as an infantry force than they were when they were fighting the Hungarians and Poles. One would think, then, that the SS have a decent chance to carry the hilltop... until you see that their morale is a 6/5.

So, most of the SS side of the scenario looks like this: Move SS forward, experience a morale check from opportunity fire, demoralize, get hit a second time and lose a step, run away, never ever recover. As of turn 17, the SS had lost 27 steps to the Slovaks 6 (and three of those were from an ill considered advance in the open).

The SS had actually made it to the top of the hill with a large infantry force but they were not able to find any cover, they were spotted and were hit by the Slovak artillery, such as it is, and, of course, demoralized and then ran away. I was thinking that I might have to break out some more demoralized counters in order to meet the needs of the SS but luckily many of the demoralized units were eventually killed outright.

The visual that I got of the scenario was of the Slovaks looking down off the hill at a confused mass of running SS troopers and feeling pretty darn good about themselves. All those red and black topped stacks were very evocative of the confusion and panic sown. Heaven only knows what the SS were thinking but given the description of Dirlewanger, I felt some righteous justification was being taken by the Slovaks on these monsters.

The result was exactly what I expected but perfectly comfortable and fun to play. I give it a "4".

Slovaks set up main defensive line on large hill with reserves and artillery in town to the west. The Germans advanced from the east in two groups, one to the north and one to the south. Germans lost four steps during initial approach of hill, but then their overwehlming numbers combined with air support and offboard artillery whittled the Slovaks down. The Germans lost many units to demoralization, but still had enough firepower to advance up the hill. The remnants of the Slovak defense retreated west to set up a defense of the towns. Having eliminated all units from the hill, the Germans stayed put and regrouped, having easily won 44-19.