I guess I'm the only one who gets a minor French victory out of this one. I sometimes resort to some different tactics than others. When playing solo it seems harder to win as the attacker most of the time.

This scenario provides the one thing that generally is lacking for the attacker, time. There are variable entry for reinforcements and the terrain is very dense, so those variables provide a lot of room for surprises. On my play the Germans got their reinforcements right away whie the French had to wait a while, especially for the last 4 armor units.

The Germans basically gave up half the territory to start as there was too much to defend and it was too open. They strung a continuous minefield across the open territory in front of some very favorable slope/woods terrain. Dug in some AT units in the flanks and everyone else was in cover/dug in. The french advanced their numerous R35's slowly through the roads staying to the left side of the German line. The exception were the non armor and 3 platoons of tanks which were on the right side of the German line. The very slow R-35's on the left made it to the minefield and tried to sneak by through the the minefield and woods. They were attacked effectively by German AT fire and retreated after losing 3 steps.

This where the longer game length came in to play. The French went all the way around to the German right with all but 5 steps of tanks. They left some armor on the left with a leader to wait for disrupted units to recover, guide them to the right when ready and keep some threat on the left so the the Nazi's couldn't move everything to the right flank.

Then there was a long, slow period of a couple of hours as the Germans positioned their units in to killing zones and protection of the many town hexes. As this was going on the French were slowly moving the R35's through the woods in one big group, one hex at a time to engage the Germans. There were some fierce exchanges as the R35's didn't have all that high of firepower. They did have numbers and staying in cover eventually started to pay off. As they finally started to make some headway towards the main town, (After finally taking out an 88 guarded by infantry and MG units) The first reinforcements arrived. The were able to go to the left flank and skirt past the edge of the minefield. This flank was guarded by an 88 battery, but the French maintained cover and hid right under the slopes as they advanced.

Fast forward to the end game. The Germans had an excellent crossfire kill zone set up, but numbers, plus cover and a few 11's and 12's allowed the destruction of the final 88 and that was the lynchpin of the defense. The last hour saw the French gain just enough control and knock out a few more units to get a 7 point victory. They were behind the whole game until the last hour.

A lot of fun!