The US set up with all units in town hexes. The Germans decided to concentrate their attack on the large city in the west and ignored the smaller towns in the east. The initial German push met with good success as the artillery softened up many US positions. All of the tanks of both sides took each other out so there was no armor in the game after seven turns. The Germans surrounded the large city and were able to take five of the seven hexes by games end. The weather kept the US aircraft from playing a significant part of the game. In the end the Germans took a major victory 56-32 however this is a scenario that could easily go the other way as well. It definitely warrants replaying.

After playing the quick "Early Morning" (scenario #6), I decided to give this bigger scenario a try. I enjoyed this more than I expected to. It's a two map German assault on some US held towns. There is a fair amount of open space between the towns and both players have to make some tough choices about where to deploy. There are rain squalls that impact visibility and air availablity, and potential ammo shortages for US artillery.

This was one of the bloodiest PzG battles I have ever fought. Both sides are well equiped and well led and can inflict terrible damage. The Germans have some opportunity to delay in the woods while they deliver artillery and probe with tanks, but with only 16 terms they eventually have to move into the open and advance towards the town.

While both sides took terrible losses the Germans had more units and eventually overwhelmed most of the defenders.

The two Stugs for the Germans, and the two M4s & one M18 for the Americans present both players with tough choices. While the US tanks are no match for the Stugs in the open they can be nasty if allowed to get in the first shot, or move/fire fire/move like the M18. For my part I handled the US tanks rather poorly and the Stugs were able to chew them up. The US did have a successful anti-tank air attack that killed one step of Stug and the other step of that unit was eliminated by a US infantry assault.

While this is still pretty much an advance to contact and assault the town scenario, the force mix, variable weather, air and artillery keep it pretty interesting.

[I also listened to some fine Duke Ellington while playing so perhaps that's why I found it so enjoyable].

Played this with Wayne Baumber over Skype call. First time Skpying for him but he caught on quickly. I find it quite enjoyable to have the virtual face-to-face battles

As the Americans I was able to setup and control the towns first and plan out some good defensive fire plans. I thought I had a good setup other than the fact that I needed to occupy two boards but I could dig in and have a good defensive front. Well that went on the window on the first fire diceroll from Wayne, a 2 on a 42 column attack, I had a bad feeling about the dicerolls from there on out. My fears were confirmed on my first OP first and OBA, 7's.

Well, Wayne pulled off a textbook attack and my troops could barely fire back. He rushed the towns on board 22 after more 2's and 11's from his OBA knock out my M18 and INF's. There was a bit of a battle, even had some GI's rush his Stug that ventured to far forward and was able to get a step loss on it, but it was too little for the battle. Next he turned his troops on the town on board 24. Again rushing the town where the OP fire rolls were weak. He was able to get close, but he got a little to trusting on my bad dice and two platoons were hit by 2's by OP fire killing both steps. Again to little to late on the dicerolls. He was still rolling 2's, 3's and 11's with his massed OBA. It became a bloodbath with assaults into the town on board 24 both sides pushing troops in, but in the end he had more and my casualties were mounting. Wayne was able to pull out a Major victory.

I thought was a good scenario, well balanced and good victory conditions, and would play again to try to see if the dice would be any different.

Played this with Wayne Baumber over Skype call. First time Skpying for him but he caught on quickly. I find it quite enjoyable to have the virtual face-to-face battles

As the Americans I was able to setup and control the towns first and plan out some good defensive fire plans. I thought I had a good setup other than the fact that I needed to occupy two boards but I could dig in and have a good defensive front. Well that went on the window on the first fire diceroll from Wayne, a 2 on a 42 column attack, I had a bad feeling about the dicerolls from there on out. My fears were confirmed on my first OP first and OBA, 7's.

Well, Wayne pulled off a textbook attack and my troops could barely fire back. He rushed the towns on board 22 after more 2's and 11's from his OBA knock out my M18 and INF's. There was a bit of a battle, even had some GI's rush his Stug that ventured to far forward and was able to get a step loss on it, but it was too little for the battle. Next he turned his troops on the town on board 24. Again rushing the town where the OP fire rolls were weak. He was able to get close, but he got a little to trusting on my bad dice and two platoons were hit by 2's by OP fire killing both steps. Again to little to late on the dicerolls. He was still rolling 2's, 3's and 11's with his massed OBA. It became a bloodbath with assaults into the town on board 24 both sides pushing troops in, but in the end he had more and my casualties were mounting. Wayne was able to pull out a Major victory.

I thought was a good scenario, well balanced and good victory conditions, and would play again to try to see if the dice would be any different.

This was my first scenario played with Skype and also my first against one those rebellious colonists. I played the very patient and friendly Mr Alan Sawyer, played over 16 turns this scenario has out numbered US infantry with some tank,engineer and aircraft support trying to stop a German kampgruppe trying to seal of an American penetration of the West Wall. The Germans have good OBA the American OBA is subject to ammo shortage. Rain will also stop any US fighter/bombers so as the German I was hoping that it would be a very wet day. I had decided to attack strongly which ever board was least defended and use a small force to keep the US forces on the other board pinned. I have to say this simple plan worked well, helped it is true by very accurate artillery fire, the Germans stormed into the two towns on boards 24 and sent the US forces reeling back. Meanwhile the US units on board 22 watched and waited I was expecting a tank led counter attack at some stage but the Sherman crews must have found something else to occupy them in the town! The Germans regrouped and surged towards the large town, now the American began to shoot straight, prior to this they could not hit a barn door,and German losses began to mount. One of the Sherman platoons broke away from the town and drove out to the North. Was this the start of a limited attack to try and grab back some town hexes. No actually they had just gone for a little run in the country. The game ended in a major German victory, for a while it was tense though and I was helped at the start with some good die rolls. I was a pleasure to play Alan and I hope we can have many more virtual FtF sessions.

US Set-Up: 5xINF + 1xHMG + 1xENG holding the hamlets on B22. 7xINF + 2xENG + 2xENG holding the town on B24. 2xINF+LT in hamlet 1105 (B24) and the US armor in lt woods SE of B24 town.

German leader draw is impressive: they try to take advantage by forming the 5xHMGs + 1xStuG into a firing line using a +2 combat bonus leader with another leader with a +2 morale bonus. These move to line up in the near-lying lt woods to pummel the town with 22-col DF. Never obtained the desired result (which then would have been followed up with OBA). So ultimately had to run the gauntlet of those 30-col OF - which fizzled for the US. Essentially, the same story for the other "softening up" attempts. By turn 13, however, the Heer had infiltrated the town, separating the two remaining US held hexes.

On B22, the Heer paid a heavy price for one town hex and the adjacent dug-in units: with US OBA raining havoc, the units there "hid" in the captured hamlet and the fields and kept eye on the other two-hex village as the battle to the west was going favorably.

The 75/41 killed a US M4 via OF resulting in a sort of stand off between the remaining M4 + M18 vs. a covering StuG and the aforementioned ATG.

The Heer benefited from frequent rain squalls - only four "clear weather" turns for US Army Air Forces and they missed the hex on two of those attempts. They never drew the 2 AT factor P47. US OBA short-term ammunition supply shortages likewise were frequent problems.