Battle of The Bulge, scenario #51: First Attempt

I haven’t played a scenario from the Battle of The Bulge for a long time and I noticed no one had played this one yet or least not on PG-HQ and it looked interesting, so why not. With that said I can see why most people have avoided it, as it needs two sets of counters but fortunately I had an extra set of Elsenborn Ridge counters to fill the voids. This scenario also has 260 counters in it, so it takes a while to play might be the other reason. Maybe a third might be the fact that you ignore most of the terrain types but still this looked like a scenario that must be played.

I won’t go into great detail, as I spent too much time playing but there are so many different combat groups on both the American and German sides but the Americans were better setup to leave their dug-outs and occupy the town hexes on all the map boards and the Germans reinforcements come in so peace-meal that it hurt their efforts a bit, as each side is awarded different points for both eliminated enemy units and occupied town hexes but if you can get the jump on occupying the town hexes you should have the advantage. In the South both sides armor forces collided early which was interesting and even though the Americans lost more units overall they controlled more town hexes in the end of the scenario for an American Victory but a pretty close one at that. With so many step losses on both sides it was hard to feel good about it, but it was fun to play and it seemed like I had 3 to 4 mini battles happening in different areas of the map at all times and the American had to keep adjusting forces to different areas of the maps as German reinforcements entered.

I would rank it a 5 but needing two counter sets, the long playing time and the slow German reinforcements made me rank this as a 4 overall but worth it if you have the time to set it up and play it here and there.