Well, I won’t write as detailed of an AAR as I usually do, as AP already posted an AAR on this same scenario and I didn’t take the needed time to document my play in detail.

This scenario has everything I wanted in a Battle of the Bulge Battle: Tiger II Tanks, Nebelwerfer rocket launchers, Assault Guns, Sherman’s, M18s & M36s Tank destroyers, AT Guns, tons of Infantry, the I&R unit and lot of Engineers on both sides, not to mention off-board artillery and a big snow storm.

Two major factors about this scenario besides different strategies can make this battle play out very differently each time, which makes replay value on this scenario very high, not to mention again, it is one the best Battle of The Bulge feel scenarios out there. Oh yeah, the two factors are The Snowstorm which is rolled for and will change Movement and Visibility at some point in play and also rolling for those Tiger II reinforcements, all 8 steps of them, which will really change the shape of the battlefield.

My short AAR:

• My Tiger Tanks arrived on Turn # one, yes that is correct, I rolled a six on turn one.

• The snow didn’t start falling until turn # eight

• Though the Americans put up a good defense on the two Eastern Boards, the early arrival of the Tigers squashed that.

• The American lost all their armor and the Tank destroyers rolled very poorly against the Tigers.

• Two steps of Tigers were lost, one with the cross-fire bonus, hit by a 57mm AT, 3-inch AT & a Sherman tank. The other step was lost to an assault, which had an INF, ENG and a Leader. The Engineer bonus helped here. I guess the Tigers can be taken out but eight steps is a challenge when they come on board this early. One step of the StugIIIG was also lost.

• When visibility went down to two hexes, this benefited the Germans, as they were able to regroup for that second assault on the western town hexes and St. Vith, out of sight of Artillery. Bring the Engineers up, mixing them with Armor, to get the two column modifiers in assaults is great.

• Those American HMG’s are critical in defense and bring a lot of fire power on German Infantry units.

• In the end, I cut the scenario short by about 8 turns, as the German were on top taking out 40 American steps and controlling 18 points of town hexes, where the American took out about 21 steps of German and controlled 8 points of town hexes and there was another one or two town hexes that were contested but about to fall. In the southwest, is kind of stalemated but in the northwest, the Germans were steamrolling. Tigers arriving on turn one and no snow until turn eight, not really effecting play until turn 12, really hurt the Americans in this game. Next time, I’ll use some different setup strategies on my initial American setup. In fact I am not sure how to bring my German forces on board next time either. In the End this one was a Major German Victory by 5 points, as they won by 20 points. If I would have played out the last 8 turns, maybe in the south the Americans could have gotten back 4 point or so, maybe changing it to a minor German victory but maybe not but in any case it was a German victory.

This Scenario has a lot of options for both sides and variable which makes playing this over and over again very high, with different outcomes. I really like this scenario, all the way around, it’s not a small one but the interest level and the situations that came up throughout the battle makes it not seem so big, as time flies. I am glad I finally took the time to play this one and I used the Winter Maps. Go for this one guys, it’s too cool to pass up!