This was my first match versus Dale of New Zealand via skype where he bravely led his Aussies to take on ten entrenched Italian positions held by the "Cirene" Division. British Intelligence reports suggested that this would be a cakewalk and that there would be little fight left in the Italians, that Bardia was ripe for the picking. The Italians on the other hand did have a wide variety of both on-board and off-board artillery available to them and that alone was supposed to play the key role in this battle as the infantry's morale was on the verge of collapse and defending units were expected to surrender in the masses.

The Australians have an arduous task at best as they only have three hours to take out all the entrenchments without taking more than five step losses and are also required to fill in three AT ditches on the fly. The attack begins just before dawn under the cover of moonlight and both sides attempt to hammer the other with artillery but with no clear effect straight on. Knowing that time was short the Aussies brave opportunity fire right away to tackle the trenches and immediately begin to take some losses and failed morale checks. The Australian attack becomes disorganized right away and is not able perform at full capacity with the lead elements. Italian small arms fire plays a larger role than expected while the artillery keeps missing it's targets, rolling an unheard-of amount of "7"s on the 30 column! Soon a few of the entrenchments are assaulted but again small arms first fire has devastating results. To make matters worse demoralized Italian units refuse to surrender at first and won't budge without a fight. Then, while OBA flounders, the lowest of the low, the 65mm pea-shooters come into their own and manage to extract another Australian step loss through compound demoralization.

While a few entrenchments hold out a lot longer than expected in assaults the one Itlaian 20mm AA gun manages to keep demoralized Aussie INF units fleeing back behind the AT ditches but still in spotting range for artillery. The attacking force continues to get broken and scattered. Midway through the battle the Australians take their 6th step loss from on-board artillery while the Italian OBA continues to roll "7"s. The Australians refuse to concede and bravely press on to attempt to force a draw. Finally entrenchments begin to change hands and some Italian units do end up surrendering but not in the numbers expected and not without a fight. As time begins to run out the Australians do manage to score a few morale victories and do as much damage as they can; the offending 65mms along with the 20mm AA gun are eliminated, the three required AT ditches were filled in unopposed and by battle's end three entrenchments have been taken with three more on the verge of collapse. Fog of war also managed to spoil a few of the last turns, cutting short further Australian activations. However, had there been more time allowed, even just a few more turns a draw could of been managed as the attack had just begun to gain momentum then and get fully organized.

It goes without saying that the odds are highly against the Australians in this one but still not an unwinnable scenario. When I played this one out solo over a year back I somehow managed a draw; somehow the Australians then managed to keep their losses under 6 steps but were still not able to take all ten entrenchments. If you forget about the play balance this is a very enjoyable and replayable scenario. This being Dale's first FTF PG match I believe he did as well as could be expected given the odds against him; he did not give up the attack and saw this one through until the end. This was a win for the overall battle aspect of it with no shortage of action or calamity. Italian losses were: 2 leaders (CAP,TEN), 9 INF, 1 HMG, 3 x 47mm, 1 x 20mm and 2 x 65mm. The Australians lost a LT along with 11 INF and a step of ENGs. As the Italian player I enjoyed this much more than I imagined as it was more than just throwing down OBA to try to manage a victory, that would of been boring. Small arms fire really decided this one and was responsible for at least half of the Australian step losses. Also it was quite amazing that by the luck of the die only three steps of the Italian INF surrendered; one reduced and demoralized INF unit passed it's surrender morale check twice and refused to give ground before it was finally taken out. This may have not been the best balanced scenario for a first FTF match but do believe Dale got plenty of experience out of it. There were some really strange dice rolls, for better or worse and the game was full of surprises on both ends which made for a decent session and looking forward to our next match.