Okay, so let me say that, although I lost as the Italians, I was the much more experienced player in the game, and the Ethiopian player was aided by my coaching. That's actually fine with me, as I play the game to have fun, not for any sort of trophy.

I'll also note that we didn't use Fog of War in this one, as I wanted to keep it a bit simpler for my opponent. Who knows if that would have had any effect on things.

I set up the Italians along the hills near their set-up locations, with one 2 HMG hidden at the top of the hill, and an INF hidden in the rocks. The Ethiopians set up for a charge up the gut. We rolled for night visibility and it was only one hex. This was a bit of a problem for the Italians, as I couldn't take any advantage of longer range. Of course, even at 2 hexes, that really would have nullified the advantage. The Ethiopians in the center tried to work around my flank a bit, and put pressure along the Italian line. Suddenly, they stumbled across the hidden HMG who unloaded at point blank range...and missed. On the other flank, Ethiopians stumbled into the other hidden unit...who missed.

Meanwhile, I relocated my rear Italians to what looked like a more defensible hill, where they dug in and awaited the Ethiopian reinforcements. That clash was very straightforward, and I realized that separating the 2 Italian groups was probably a mistake, as the smaller group of Italians soon found themselves surrounded. All of the Italians were putting murderous firepower into the Ethiopians, who were generally at a -1 column even when adjacent (+2 adjacent, -1 uphill, -1 dug in, -1 night). While not a lot of Ethiopian steps were lost, a lot of units fled, and with their leader shortage, the Ethiopians weren't able to get them back into the fight.

However, the Ethiopian victory bar isn't that high. Eliminate 6 Italian steps. And eventually, a few lucky rolls started to bring the Italians in danger of losing that amount. Plus, I wasn't able to kill the freaking Shambel no matter how many times I shot at him! I pointed out to my opponent that the most effective technique in my experience in a situation like this (he had the big numbers advantage) was to assault, hoping at least one unit survives the first fire, and then rotate in fresh units to keep the assault going. He adopted this tactic, and many Italian troops got locked into the assaults. This meant they couldn't fire at the Ethiopians, which gave them a breather. And, eventually, numbers won out at the Ethiopians got the 6th step loss on turn 13.

Good fun, and definitely replayable.