The reports on this one made it seem like it would be a pretty easy win for the Germans. Using what I learned from other people's experience, I remembered to use the smoke rounds for the Germans and build my French line forward. What I didnt do was soften up the defenses before putting engineers in the water. Engineers with troops stuck in the water kept things tied up for several turns, and made me happy to have the smoke available. Every OBA shot succeeded in hitting, at least for the Germans. French with their single 14 factor OPA had a few close calls with friendly fire. I set up the half-board from left to right starting with 3 of the casemates. When I play solo, I pull the casemates and place without looking, so I cant work with that knowledge while movinga and figting the Germans. With the first casemates on the south side of the river, I started 3 of the entrenchments one hex back but somewhat filling the gap behind the casemates and the town hexes. The last entrenchment went in to a clear hex behind the town, and the mortar went in a woods hex behind the town but adjacent to the southern entrenchment. The last 2 casemates went into town hexes so that they covered every other hex of the four from the east edge. With town hexes and enrenchments, I placed at least one infantry in each with the HMGs in the forward town hexes and in the central entrenchment, and placed leaders with all the forward troops and the middle entrenchment with the commanding officer in the entrenchment south of the town. Germans were set up so that the Major started a chain of command in both directions, allowing the engineers to be deployed early and for spotters to get smoke or bombardment fire going as soon as possible. The Germans started with the initiative and mainained it throughout the game, but at times this seems to work to the defender's advantage when the French can react to what the German does. While leader draw, OBA and Initiative rolls seemed to be in the German's favor, rolls to get accross the river were just the opposite. It took 4 turns before the first Germans were on the south side of the river, and smoke didnt always keep the French from disrupting the engineers and crossing troops. I used the mobility of the German armor to move to places where their fire wasnt masked by friendly troops stuck in the water, but there were still several turns that the Germans couldnt fire accross the river either for fear of striking friendlys or because the smoke hid the enemy as well as it did friends. By turn 9, the French had lost 4 steps, with 3 of those being casemates, and had Germans assaulting the town and 2 entrenchments, but these assaults stagnated and by the end, the French had only lost a total of 5 steps to the Germans 7, four of which came from reductions of the PzII and StuG IIIa, the latter having made it accross the river only to become bogged down in assault for the rest of the game. In the end, the tally for undemoralized unit steps were 16 French to 17 German, making it a draw. I gave it a 5 because of how close it came down to the very end. Great game.