1. The Germans bunkered down in the crossroads and town hexes, keeping the PZIVF2 and 75/41 AT dug-in on the 20-m hill spur behind the two town hexes. German leaders were mixed: very good senior ones, but fairly normal junior ones.

2. The US approached up and over a field-covered hill from the West and along a 3-hex wide open terrain corridor from the SW; the armor took both those routes and sent the M10 (used an M18 counter for the purpose) on a loop around a large field (all woods are fields) to get a flanking bonus on the PZIV from the SSE. US leaders were quite good (save for one 7-0-0 LT); otherwise six of the eight were flipped to the "better" side with three having 10 morale.

3. US armor took a crushing, but eventually, after loosing 3 steps of M4's and both steps of the M10, managed to take out the PZIV (and OBA accounted for the spotted AT gun, which had itself accounted for a step of M4's).

4. Opportunity fire had taken quite a toll on the US advance, despite an amazing run of twenty consecutive morale checks/recoveries.

5. Americans engaged an assault on the southern of the two contiguous town hexes (containing two SS ENGs and 10-1-2 and 10-0-1 leaders. This assault continued for about seven turns with the Americans taking the brunt of the hits; the Germans only counter assaulted once when all surviving US units were demoralized. Meanwhile, American OBA and stacked mortars bombarded the crossroads hex and the adjacent town hex. Americans had kept two M4 platoons to the West along the road to guard vs. SS reinforcements.

6. Panther and three GRENs arrived on turn 7. The panther and two GRENs approached from the west, one entered into the town (on a board edge) along with the SPW 251s whilst the GREN in that hex reinforced the town assault hex to its south.

7. The panther and GRENS took out the M4's despite some poor shooting by the PzV crews: the grenadiers came in handy as the panther rolled poorly, missing half of its attacks whilst the others only took out a single step. Other US armor shot up the German half-tracks.

8. The US had also recovered sufficient force to assault the crossroads hex. American rolling dramatically improved and both assaults began to go poorly for the Germans. Fortunately for the SS Das Reich, the last GREN half-step (and leader) recovered from demoralization to hold that hex until the two GRENs with the panther (from the Leibstandarte) could reinforce.

9. On the last turn, the US finally captured one town hex (the southern one).

So the game ended with the US holding one of the three required victory hexes and hence this was a German victory.

This scenario was very exciting albeit that the German player for the most part simply tried to defend in the town assault hexes; the assault on the crossroads hex was, as might be expected, more back-and-forth. Although the US had armor in the town assault, the German player thought that risk of the negative col shifts for attacking in a town outweighed the possible AT shot and hence only defended. The German player was faced early on with a risk-reward choice for the PzIVF2 and the AT gun.

The die rolls went back and forth: the US player had a hot streak early on morale checks, but a poor run on AT rolls, allowing the PzIVF2 to get in a few more kills. The middle few turns were somewhat phlegmatic in terms of die rolls with nothing dramatic occurring. Once the panther and 3xGREN reinforcements arrived, however, US rolling became insane and what appeared to be a mopping up by the SS turned into near panic. Only some stronger rolling on the last two turns by the Germans and weaker rolls by the US kept RJ 278 in German hands.

From the perspective then of drama and the "thrill of victory/agony of defeat" that comes with the vagaries of die-rolling, this scenario was quite a success and had a couple of dramatic changes of fortune. It was doubtful whether the US could ever have taken the second (northern) town hex (and hence a victory in game terms), but the players essentially turned the battle down the stretch into a contest for a moral victory regarding the two assaults on the road junction and the southern town hex.

Had the SS leaders not been quite so strong, but all else been equal, the US might well have been difficult to stop.

Highly recommended, particularly for an aggressive and short scenario.