Played in one 3.5 hour over Skype with Vince Hughes.

You can view pictures of my disastrous setup and a the ensuing massacre in post #6 of this thread.

What could be better than a Canadian and an Englishman celebrating July 4th over a game Panzer Grenadier?

OK, you don’t to answer that one.

Nevertheless, I suggested a scenario with me leading the Americans to victory over Vince’s Germans. Bragging rights were at stake.

One early problem though as I had not counted on my wife supplying me with snacks and margaritas before the game even began. The commandant was thus well fed and refreshed but no longer fully alert. No big deal, how can the Americans lose on July 4th?

I looked at the map and saw tons of light woods that would provide cover for my troops while we advance towards the enemy line and thus decided to set up my force behind these hexes. I should have re-read the scenario instructions because the light woods were in fact fields. With the scenario lasting only 10 turns, there is no way I could afford moving troops forward only one hex per turn.

The picture after turn 2 shows well what is the problem. Instead of my troops arriving at firing distance the same turn the German arrive in front of the road, my troops are too far away from the Germans and will have to advance under opportunity fire.

I suffered a few disruption and demoralization next turn and I did not have numerical superiority, I decided to push forward under great risk, Vince’s troops mowed down my troops and the last picture (it may have been taken after turn 5 instead of 4 as indicated) shows what happened. I gave up a couple turns later when it was clear I had no chance of salvaging a draw.

German major victory!

What should I have done different?

First thing is the set up my troops next to the open terrain and move my troops as far as possible on the first two turns so we can start a firefight on turn 3. Concentrate fire on an area at that point until the German line weakens; the Germans do not have much in reserve and thus I could move forward at the point.

Another idea is to move some troops, maybe 4 infantry units and two leaders, along the southern edge of the map (it’s open terrain for the most part) to force the Germans into a lager frontage.

Conclusion

I rated this scenario a “3”, which is better than my average for small scenarios. It was quite enjoyable despite the abysmal way I played. I do agree with Vince that this is an balanced scenario which is excellent for newcomers and plays well over Skype. Plenty of decision points for both sides if they both play well.