Author	wleonard1
Method	Solo
Victor	Italy
Play Date	2020-08-08
Language	English
Scenario	COOE003

You’re an Italian Lieutenant leading a small battalion of irregulars. Your objectives are to take and hold a village (minor victory), and to clean every opposition unit off of both mapboards (major victory). In only 3 hours. Two of which are night. With only a sergeant to help maneuver all of your units. Only 1 unit that has a direct fire range greater than 1, and that single step of tankettes arrives as a reinforcement. And then it has to drive 45 minutes to get to the battle. No artillery or air support. Not even a heavy machine gun. Despite all of this, you do at least have a morale modifier. Looks like another opportunity to excel!

The first hour sees the Tenente lead two-thirds of his force toward the village, skirt around the left flank of the Ethiopian screen, brush off some opportunity fire, and slip two platoons into the village to start an assault. The remainder of the force closes up to the screen, so the opposition does not go wandering too far away. Both sides look for a chance to catch a lone unsupported unit; but even when that happens, there are a lot of die rolls in the middle of the assault table and not much happens. An Ethiopian attempt to reinforce the village assault starts well, with Italian step losses and DM’s, but an unlucky leader casualty check removes the 11-2-2 MetoAleqa from the board. The Amsa Aleqa attempts to ambush the tank as it arrives, but doesn’t get the initiative roll that was needed. As dusk falls, there are 5 turns left; the village is still under assault, 85% of the Ethiopian force is still alive, half of it is still mobile, and the Tenente is not optimistic about his promotion prospects.

But by the start of the last hour, every Ethiopian unit is tied up in an assault. And then, the die rolls suddenly start going Italy’s way. Next turn ends with 3 more Ethiopian step losses, and every remaining unit except 1 demoralized. The turn after that, the defenders in the village all fail recovery and flee and Italy has a path to a minor victory. And that is where it ends up – the Italians take and hold the village, but cannot clear the board of all units. Overall, a nice lesson in managing scarce leaders and assaults.