This scenario reminds me of the old 1939 black & white movie Beau Geste starting Gary Cooper, where FFL troops are defending a fort in the desert against overwhelming odds waiting for reinforcements to arrive, in this scenario it’s the Italians waiting for air and armor support. The Italian game plan was to pull back all their forces to the fort, those units which could not stack in the fort dug-in on the flanks. This enabled the Italian forces to concentrate at the primary objective & be closer to their ammo supply if needed.

The Ethiopian player won the initiative for the first seven turns & made a mad dash for the fort with most of the Imperial Regulars and two companies of Provincial Irregulars, while leaving the IG & two HMGs to guard the encampment supported by an infantry company.

These forces were just short of the border between map 89 & 90 when they heard the drone of aircraft coming in from the Northeast, thus began several turns of concentrated aerial bombardment which caused a few step losses but more importantly demoralized about half the attacking force. The Degiac & his Metoaleqa rallied what troops they could & kept moving towards the fort, looking to attack it from the northwest.

The Italian armored reinforcements arrived on time only to fall on the flank of the Ethiopian forces coming up from the south, they caused a few units to rout before moving into the Ethiopian rear harassing the disrupted & demoralized units trying to recover from the air attacks.

As night fell the Italian air support had trouble finding any targets (3 out of 5 turns no air support) which gave the battered Ethiopian forces an opportunity to close with the fort. They over ran one dug-in hex outside the fort & had forces attacking from the Northwest & Southeast but they did not have the strength or morale to assault the fort outright.

The key to this victory was the decision to pull back the Italian forces to defend the fort, the devastating air support & the Italian mobile forces wreaked havoc on the demoralized units in the Ethiopian rear, causing several units to be eliminated due to failing morale checks & others to retreat further west looking for a safe hex. Then the Lancia broke into the enemy encampment & defeated an attempt to dislodge it.