This scenario was played as a team event by my gaming group. I act as moderator and facilitator for each game, and I do not participate directly as a player. My listing of “winning” is based on the PG HQ site cannot support a neutral role in AARs.

The Italians set up to maximize an assault into S8 and S9, while the Germans set most units up near 1614, hoping to delay Australian reinforcements. There were a couple German units available to assist the Italians. The initial assault went in well, but not without some shaken Italian morale. The Australian reinforcements started their slow crawl forward, with the Germans trying to best interdict them.

Then the craziness of the surrender rule raised its head. The Australian infantry in S11 leapt out of their position, ran up to S8, called for the surrender of Italians based on one unit being demoralized in the assault, and took out a significant chunk of the Italian forces. At that point it was very apparent that the Italians had little staying power, the Germans were too far away to protect them, the reinforcements would eventually reach the positions regardless of German efforts (happy to have an Aussie or two in assault with Germans so they cannot pull back to the positions while the hoard of Aussies move on), and even the forces in S10 and S11 were sufficient to deal with demoralizing and collecting the surrender of the Italian army. With no shared command ability on the Axis part it took significant time to shore up the Italian capture of S8 and S9.

Surrender rule aside, it played like a pro wrestling match, with the Aussies handing out an early pounding, then the Axis starting to crawl back. A lot of reinforcements were held up by the Germans, but the Germans needed to fall back to support the Italians. Some reinforcements were still getting through. The loss of a couple Italian leaders left the Italian player with insufficient and poor leadership, causing massive Italian collapse. The Australian counterattacks against S8 and S9 went in against a mixed German/Italian defense, but with no Italian leaders the defense continued to crumble. The Australians took a wicked beating, but eventually got the pin. The Germans just didn’t have the numbers to resist the Australian wave when the Italians fled the battle or just plain surrendered.

At the outlook this seems a pretty even scenario. Despite the scenario description of “badly outnumbered” Australians, the sides are reasonable even in force structure. The weight of attack lies first with the Axis, then the Australians as reinforcements arrive. While the Axis are slightly better armed overall, the low morale of the Italians makes up for it. The surrender rule is what breaks this scenario, especially coupled with the nationalism rule. The Italians are a paper force waiting for total collapse. I really hated the surrender rule, and saw it as a potential weak spot for a large portion of the boxed set. We all felt very sorry for the Italian player, and agreed that this rule is best left off the table. At least in an otherwise balanced scenario. I decided at this point that the group would not be subjected to another scenario using the surrender rule. The night rules also reduced scenario enjoyment, but that was a quibble compared to the surrender rule. My rating of 2 is based on the surrender rule, and would be a 3 without it.