In this scenario, the Australians had to take four hills. Their strategy was to concentrate tanks at Hill 1822, and send infantry to assault the Italians on Hills 1712 and 1713. Tanks would then move northeast towards the Italians on Hill 706. The Italian plan was to remain in the fortifications and try to delay the Australians on Hills 1712-1713, where the Italians would not surrender.

At 1645, the Australians had taken Hill 1822 as a result of surrenders. A tactical error was made as the three mortar platoons were left behind. I sent the Brens back to pick them up, for they would be important during the assault on Hills 1712-1713.

At 1800, things looked challenging for the Australians. Because the Italians on Hills 1712-1713 were not considering surrender, off-board artillery and air strikes were ineffective, and assaults were stalled in the surrounding entrenchments, the Australian advance stalled. The Australians sent tanks towards Hill 706, where they hoped to find Italians willing to surrender.

At 1845, the Australian infantry were still trying to take one of the hills. The loss of a couple of platoons of tanks approaching Hill 706 resulted in Italy meeting its victory condition of Australian step losses. One tank platoon tried to force a surrender at Hill 706, but the Italians did not agree. Now all the Australians could do was work for a draw. The way things were going, and the effects of the fog of war (a couple of short turns kept some tank platoons from getting to their objectives), were combining to make this a very long day for Australian forces engaged in this battle.

At dusk, the Australians had taken two of the four hills. Because the Italians were able to hold a couple of hills, and the Australians lost 10 steps, the Italians came out victorious.

This is a pretty straightforward scenario. A large Australian force (with a few Desert Rats Matildas) needs to take 3 hills from the Italians. The terrain in totally flat except for those 3 hills (one of which is 2 hexes large) and the Italians are entrenched on and around all of them. Thankfully for the British, the Italians on 2 of the hills are subject to the surrender rule. The ones on the third hill will need to be kicked out the old fashioned way. In addition to the troops on the 3 hills, the Italians have a small force entrenched across a road.

I split the Aussies into 3 forces, a medium sized one to capture Hill 1 (subject to surrender), a mobile force of Matildas and Armored cars with just a bit of infantry trailing to take Hill 2 (subject to surrender) while the rest marched up to hill 3. For their part, the Italian set-up is mostly dictated by the scenarios, which forces on all 3 hills, plus the aforementioned force across the road. Taking Hill 1 took about 7 turns, a lot in a 16 turn scenario, and those Italians refused to surrender. However, the relatively light firepower of the troops on this hill wasn't able to do much to the attackers.

The Matildas sent to take care of Hill 2 took a detour to force the Italians in the 3 trench hexes across the road to surrender to make sure they didn't cause any trouble for the infantry. This turned out to be a terrible move, as the Italians laughed at the demands for surrender and then swarmed out of their trenches to destroy the Matildas. They later were able to also take out some of the Rolls Royce armored cars that followed (this is what happens when you roll 11s and 12s multiple times in assault combat). This put the plan to take Hill 2 behind schedule, as more tanks had to be sent, along with more infantry. The Italians did have to scurry back to their entrenchments where they remained the entire game.

When all was said and done, Hill 2 never fell, as the Italians with their whopping 7 morale, kept not surrendering. Oh, a whole bunch did during the scenario, probably about 30 steps, however the ones in the critical positions were very stubborn. And the assault on the 2 hex hill (Forte Pilastrino) and its environs was going nowhere fast. The Aussies had the Italians outgunned and out moraled, however first fire and the 2 column shift for attacking trenches meant that actually getting a good melee attack was tough. Plus, demoralized troops don't have to flee an entrenchment, which meant that the only way to clear them out was to kill them all, and that required either really good rolling, or compound morale failures, and the Italians were having none of that, and kept recovering (the +1 to morale for being in an entrenchment was huge). The tops of Hill 3 were never seriously threatened.

However, the Italians could only eliminate 7 steps of Aussies, 3 short of what was needed to win, so the scenario ended up a draw. I suspect this one will be a draw most of the time (although other published AARs don't seem to support that). Yes, I could have bypassed the entrenchments that cost me a platoon of Matildas, and yes, I could have seen more Italians in critical places surrender. However, the grinding assault on Forte Pilastrino itself is going to be tough to accomplish, especially with Italian artillery harassing the advancing troops. And the British OBA and on board mortars aren't really enough to deal with entrenched troops. There were some morale checks, and 7 still means the Italians pass more than half the time, and recover more than half the time.

Still, it was fun. It might be better solo because of the limited movement options for the Italians, and there are too many entrenchments to defend fully, so the Italians do have to decide where to defend, and where to concede.

Apologies to those who actually know and love a Matilda but these behemoths were invaluable in this scenario. Virtually impervious to the Italians the matildas run onto and over the entrenchments triggering surrenders by the boatload (36 total steps surrendered in the scenario)

Played my local opponent. I was the plucky Italian defenders while he was the invading Australian horde. Game started with Aussies being slowed by the Italians, but only because we forgot about the surrender rule. Once we remembered, the Italian defense began melting away more quickly. He sent part of his force toward the near hill and the larger part toward the far hill. It was a close game as at the end the Aussies had a chance to take all the hills. The Italians eliminated seven Aussie steps and a few more lucky rolls would have allowed them to win. As it was, it ended as a draw. A fun scenario that is very tough for both sides. This one warrants playing again - if for no other reason than to see how different it turns out if the surrender rule is used for the whole game.

This scenario requires the Australians (with a few British counters including a bit 'o armo(u)r) to take three hills (four hexes in all) that are covered in and surrounded by Entrenchments, which themselves are manned by several Italian infantry/artillery formations. The forces given the Australians are certainly powerful and morale-favored enough to wrest control of the entrenchments from the Italians given enough time. But there's the catch: Only 16 turns are available to do this, with the last 3 suffering from diminishing visibility. Minimal transport is available, so most of the infantry will be hoofing it across one of those big-ass 22x34 Afrika Korps "carpet" maps to get to the last hill. And the thing is, those Bren carriers are sooooooo useful as extra firepower in the Entrenchment assaults, so you don't want them in ferry mode all game.

To win, the Australians have to take all 4 hill hexes. The first 3 are fairly certain IMO, but getting to the fourth is the issue that the Australian player has to bend their plan around. They will have to give up a hammer-like certainty to get forces to the mid-board early, to reduce the second two-hex hill (which happens to have the best troops too: no surrender rule for these) and get to the third. Which means you have to more or less use minimal force to grab the first hill, probably minimal enough that it won't be reduced until near the end of the game.

Note that this is all hindsight. I went for the "sequential hammer" approach to just reduce each hill in turn with overwhelming force. Which guarantees that the Italian cannot reach their Victory Condition (10 Aus step losses (tanks double)), but also guarantees that the Australian cannot reach Hill hex 4 before the end of the game. I realized this partway in, but kept on going because of one virtue of the scenario: it's like a tutorial in taking Entrenched areas, teaching the balance of Direct Fire, Bombardment, and Assault that gives the best results. It's a bit "easy mode" since the Australians will usually get +2 on assaults automatically (higher morale, leader, the occasional engineer) that offsets the -2 Entrenchment shift, and the first fire is usually not on a high column so its survivable (and get that 2-morale-modifier Australian LT in there!). And Surrender is your friend (except on the middle hill complex). Although as the Attacker I did kind of pine for the old less volatile 1-die Assault chart...

Overall, I can't rate this more than a 3. I learned (or re-learned stuff forgotten from the 'aughts?) a few things about assaulting entrenchments, but to make this scenario exciting victory condition-wise the Australian player has to have a certain kind of plan from the get go. And I can't imagine it's very fun opposed for the Italian player. So a good solitaire exercise, I would say. Opposed, I might suggest biding for extra (daylight) turns, the low bidder getting the Australians.

It took 3. sessions to finish this face-to-face play through. As noted by others, the Allied side must take and hold 4 hill hexes that are substantially fortified by the Italians via entrenchments held by multiple infantry and artillery units. The reinforced Australian battalion-sized task force was formidable given their very high morale and the 4 platoons of supporting Matilda Infantry tanks. My steadfast opponent led a powerful defense with interlocking fields of fire and had considerable luck in his combat die rolls. With surrender rolls, his luck was not so good. Generally, when the Matildas got close, the fraidy-cat 1st Battalion 70th Regiment and the CCNN troops were very apt to surrender en masse.

This scenario was a close one and the Australians barely managed a victory on the last - bad visibility turn. Movement to contact was very long given the short (16 turns) allotted and the desperate lack of Allied transport - in spite of the 3 Bren carrier units! As others have said in their AARs, these APCs are quite useful in assaults. Advance planning and attack sequencing are crucial for the Allies - something that a rookie like me is still trying - and mostly failing - to master. Thankfully, we did not play with the dreaded Fog of War (FOW) rule which can play havoc with any kind of decent attack sequencing. This was especially true with the 2-hex hilltop entrenchment held by a stout and reliable Italian battalion that fought to the end and refused to surrender. In the end, all 4 hills were captured by the Allied side, who lost 9 steps doing so. One more step loss and the Italians would have won!

On the other hand, the Italian side lost 28 steps that surrendered and another 17 were destroyed holding their positions. It was a heck of a race to get the Australian infantry to that last hill, but it can be done -- if the dice gods are with you. There is very little time to do a lot of assaulting and the tanks must lead.

My rating of 3 is generous as this scenario is bound to be an unpleasant task for the Italian side. Adding a two or more turns at the start of this scenario would make it much easier for the Allied player to secure all 4 hills. To equalize this, the Italian side might be given a couple of minefields and at least 1 more HMG unit.