An enjoyable game with Wayne Baumber defending with the French to my German attack. When I look at this as the Germans I saw a bunch of issues with the attack that would not be easy to overcome. Short game, just 12 turns, Germans entering the board, with no cover, light tanks versus the French S35's defending a town. But the Germans have mobility and the initiative to start at least. As for the other aspects the Germans have more infantry with an ENG as well as one airplane and some OBA. The French have the setup and are defending a town, making it even more hard for the Germans.

As for the setup the French are in the woods outside the town of Gembloux covering the open terrain to the north of the town. They have strong positions with tanks, armored cars and AT Guns. The Germans must brave the fire just to get on board and establish themselves. I have the Germans strung out in a skirmish line to minimize casualties as well as the tanks following behind to fire on the tanks as they are discovered. It will be a tough first few turns.

To begin, my infantry move on and move toward the woods to the east and west of the north-south road. This hopes to draw fire from the defending French, and it does with highly accurate fire from the tanks in the western wood. A German platoon takes a hit as it moves across the open terrain. Not a good omen for the attack. French AT guns fire at the German armor moving on the board and scores a step loss against a PzI. French S35's fire taking out another PzII step, before the Germans can get moving.

The German Major pushes the men forward and get to the treeline of the eastern woods, triggering the French to pack up and move back to the defense in the town. To the west the Germans recover from the tank machinegun fire and have the PzII's try to flank the woods, but another S35 fires destroying another step of armor. German AT guns step up and are able to knock out a armored car before it can fire on the recovering German troops. But a German Captain pushes his troops forward is caught in a French assault and destroyed before he can get away. But this buys time for a another platoon to assault the French armor. After several assaults and flees by the French tanks they are destroyed by the German infantry.

French AT fire is still very accurate and knocks out another PzII before it can get out of the way as well as good fire direction from the French leaders for their artillery. The German casualties now drive the initiative down to zero, but the Germans keep pushing on the French defenses and are able to drive south on the eastern edge of the board. The bulk of the remaining German armor plus some infantry push but fire of the the French defenders kill another step of infantry, leaving the tanks to press on alone. The make it down to the southern edge looking to kill other French armored cars and take some of the town, but another pesky 25mm AT gun stands in their way. OBA and the lone German Ju88 try to knock them out but don't do it until late in the game. At this point they have been reinforced making it harder to take the town. But a lone PzII dashes forward to brave the French fire only to be hit by AT fire from the armored cars.

At this point the German Major regroups his troops in the western woods which the French had abandoned. He looks to press for the town hexes on the hills edge with his remaining company of troops. Pressing forward they get close to the town but OP fire from the French has them pinned down to end the game. A major French victory for holding the town and killing the Germans.

I found this scenario heavy weighted to the French and in need of some balancing for a interesting FtF game. The Germans will take causalities right away and will need to keep their forcing going to even get close to the towns, both of which are hard to do in the game. You will either need to recover or move not both, so a recommendation would be for four more turns to allow sometime for the Germans to recover. Second, morale is even both sides are 8/7, this will make it hard for the German infantry to assault any of the French units including the tanks. A possible lowering of the French morale to 7/6 could be a balancing point.