Pertinent house Rules: Fast mech, Hill modifier applies to equal elevations, Double-blind, Modification to victory conditions.

I probably would have given this scenario an extra point in the rating if the victory conditions were better thought out. As it is the Americans begin with a minor victory, and the Germans in an impossible position. In the end we decided to only count the hill & town hexes on Boards 23 & 31, with the Germans able to get spoiler hexes from Board 10. It seems to not have been quite enough.

The scenario is played in muddy conditions. The special rule it written in such a way that the American ground advantage, those wonderful HMGs, are left behind. For the Germans the problem is having enough troops a good initial defense, but not having any depth and little reserve, certainly not enough to last for 26 turns. The defending forces decided roughly into Heers on brd 31 and Luftwaffe on brd 23.

The American attack progressed along the 2 predictable axis, with a covering/opportunistic force in the corner of board 10. The attack onto brd 31 was reasonably well scouted, but the approach to brd 23 was through the woods, so no effective scouting. Fortunately for the Americans, they have good artillery, and the Germans have rather poor morale.

American infantry advanced on to brd 31 with the HMGs following about 3 turns behind. The infantry took heavy casualties during the advance and locked down the German defenders in the town near brd 10. A lot of mortar fire came from the larger town on brd 31. Once HMGs caught up the tide began to turn. Meanwhile, the brd 23 attack force ran in to trouble early on. Again as the American piled up, the Germans began crumbling, but not before savaging the Shermans.

The brd 31 hill fell to an American infantry company reasonably quickly. The town was surrounded and took very heavy fire. When softened up enough, one of my character leaders charged in with a good mixed force. Part of the covering force from brd 10s’s corner rushed the large town, but were driven back by the defenders and the still unseen mortars. The remaining Germans in the border town were driven into a corner and were ready to be harvested.

After initial failures, the Americans began to chew through the defenders. The attrition against the Germans became more lopsided as time went on. The Luftwaffe artillery (which seemed to be parked in the middle of the woods) tried to help. They score some success. In the end the Americans ground the paratroopers into oblivion. With no reserves or rear area protection, the M10 drove around the edge of the woods and snapped up victory hexes.

We called the game at turn 12. The Americans had broken into the open on brd 31. Brd 23 had almost no defense, and the M10 was loose in the rear. Future players should decide on victory conditions between Wayne Baumer's A Stroll in the woods...Not and what we did.

One of my leader characters almost earned a Combat Infantry badge for his actions, but was 2 points short on the net LPs for the scenario. He did however have enough LPs to purchase 2 more skills, which qualified him for the Expert Infantryman Badge.

Played solo over three sessions. It's always disappointing having picked a scenario which looks to be an exciting tussle with an interesting mix of units to discover as you begin to set up there is a flaw in the scenario. In this case the flaw is in the VC. Which state that the US player has to free a majority of hill/town hexes of German non-demoralized units on boards 10,23 and 31 the problem being that the US player starts on board 10 which is 75% hill and town the German player starts on the other three boards. Playing with the VC's as printed would have meant the US player who heavily outnumbers and outguns the Germans has 26 turns to capture ten more hill/town hexes and not lose 15 steps in the process to gain a minor victory. This did not seem right so I played that it was boards 11,23 and 31 that needed to be cleared. This seemed better but as the result was a German victory I am not 100% sure that my interpretation is correct. To the battle itself, initially the Americans attack in three groups of equal numbers and with a strong reserve ready to reinforce success. Each group would advance onto a different board with the units marching towards board 11 having the option to reinforce the attack on the towns on board 31 or just threaten the large town/hill complex on board 11. The German's set up, with 20/20 hindsight, was poor with too large a force trying to hold the hills and towns on board 31. I think that if I played this one again I would just hold the large hill on board 11 sending forward observers to lay down artillery on the advancing US forces. The US attack swatted away the small German roadblock on board 23 and that board was cleared of German units by GT3 however the mud and terrain slowed the US movement to a crawl (plus FOW) which meant that those American units never fired another shot for the rest of the battle. On board 31 there was another German collapse and after two hours of fighting it looked like an easy US victory would be had as only three US steps where lost compared to 12 German steps. However the German defense stiffened around the large town on board 31 and US losses began to mount, over the next 60 minutes the US lost another 8 steps however they had wiped out the German defenders and now had a majority if hill/town hexes for a minor victory. A German counter attack was repulsed but the German officer leading the attack was in a position to call artillery down on a number of demoralized US units who had been sheltering out of sight until then. This was the cue for some extremely accurate fire from both the off board and on board artillery, this resulted in further step losses so the Germans too had fulfilled their minor victory conditions. The US commander perhaps then should have just dug his troops in and called it quits and taken the draw, if this had been a FtF I would have done that, however the brave GI's attacked the forbidding hills around Gey and promptly lost 6 steps in two turns changing the outcome from a draw to a German victory. I did not play this one very well, the German set up was poor and the final US attack was also poorly handled ( I risked a platoon of Sherman's against an adjacent and disrupted 50mm A/T even though I knew a single step loss would mean a US loss the 50mm rolled a 12 DOH). I would have rated this a 3 but for the issue with the VC's. A very average scenario.