Author	treadasaurusrex (Britain)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	Britain
Participants	PANISTA
Play Date	2023-06-10
Language	English
Scenario	PaLe005

This was a 5-session play-through with the clever and determined PANISTA leading the defending Germans garrison, and me playing the attacking British Deserts Rats (7th Armored) in a built up area. As others have noted in their AARs, there are an immense number of town hexes for the overstretched German force to try & defend. While this battle ended up as a decisive British victory, it was a major struggle against a fearless & wily opponent. We agree with others that this one is unbalanced against the Axis side and so I gave it a generous rating of 3, in testament to the fun that we had playing it to the blood soaked end. We used the FOW (to aid the German defense), consolidation, smoke-illim, excess initiative optional rules. There were 4 FOW-shortened turns in this scenario. We agreed that there is virtually no way for the defenders to prevail in this one. We lost count of the number of combat 7-die rolls thrown, especially in the last 4 game turns!

Others have created fine, detailed AARs for this scenario, so here is a brief outline of our play through. The British side was a combined arms force with plentiful armor in a situation where boldness counts. Both sides drew decent leaders, but the PG fates favored he overwhelming British side, especially as regards AT fire, close assaults and OBA throws. There were many German leaders losses, and for a change, the Tommies had good luck in most of their frequent frontal assaults. There were many decision points in this scenario for both sides, but once German step losses begin to mount, it becomes very difficult for the Germans to respond with strength to British probes. Most Tommy-set-up-cross-fires were successful in our match as the Nazis ran out of assets.

We heartily agree with others, that a change in the victory point schedule is called for if this one is to be worth playing in SHARED mode. As published, it is most appropriate for SOLO play only. As has been suggested, reducing British points gained per town hex to 1.5, or raising the number of points for German-held town hexes to 3, might well make for a more balanced scenario.