This was a smallish scenario that I had started before getting into Skype play and finally got a chance to finish. I wanted small and quick and this looked like it until I actually got into the game.

SETUP

The Americans dug in around and in the crossroads while the Germans setup to enter from the south along the road. The paras were set to enter from the western road.

THE BATTLE

The broken radio rule initially did not cause alot of issues as the Germans slowly marched up the road. With Visibility at 2 hexes, there was little chance of encounters until the units were almost on top of each other. The advance took about 2 hours (8 turns) until the each were in range. As the Germans needed to take the roads before the artillery was availabie, I basically charged ahead and attempted to gain a favorable assault in at least 1 or 2 areas. Getting them engaged would also prevent artillery bombardment (unless I wanted to inflict the +3 column shift for the VT Fuzes on the Americans as well). The paras were For the next 3 hours both sides fought fiercely, but several times, rally rolls or key movements were negated by the broken radios. The total step losses on both sides was even at 9 for the battle, however, the Germans lost 2 leaders to leader loss rolls and the ranking leader (STBNFR) was engaged trying to rally several units that had routed from Assault. Finally, 7:00am rolled around and the artillery was called. The Americans won initiative, dropped bombardment on a hex with the STBNFR leader and ended up killing him and any further attempts by the Germans. I called it at that point.

RESULTS AND OBSERVATIONS

On the surface, this seemed like an ideal solo scenario - small counter mix, one map, simple objectives (Kill them all/crossroads) - however, when playing, it seemed that there was no option other than to go forward as fast as possible to get to the crossroads and hope to get into assault. However, the broken radio rule started to show its face as the intiative level was reduced and I found I could do almost nothing. Doing this with one side is somewhat frustrating, doing it with both sides became a real chore. Still, when I looked at the results, other than the leader loss, the fighting was fairly even.

I found it interesting that the broken radio rule did prevent me from rolling a rally roll for demoralized units several times at key points in the game - thus avoiding the flee result described and discussed in the forum under "Abusing horses and trucks". In any event, I rated it a 3 but would have rated it a 2.5 if I could as I did not particularly get engaged in the scenario but I do believe that played against a live opponent, it may provide some interesting situations.