Italians set up with units spread out in each town hex. Slovaks entered from the north in an attempt to grab the two major towns. Slovaks lost three steps approaching town but eliminated eight steps of Italians and secured northern two-hex town in two assaults with good rolls. The Slovaks then regrouped for an attack on the four hex town. They approached from the west, using the woods as cover. In the latter turns the Italians won the initiative and were able to prevent the Slovaks from attempting a strong assault. The final score; Italians 16, Slovaks 15. This scenario had me biting my fingernails all the way till the end. Definitely worthy of playing again...and again...

Let's face it. The Slovaks were not tigers on the battlefield. Yet disheartened blackshirts ready to toss off their uniforms and blend into the background can make anyone look impressive. The Slovaks ran through these guys like butter. It simply wasn't a contest. The Blackshirts need to stay in towns without Slovaks around, otherwise their morale is so terrible that any check will cause them to run away. A single step loss is as good as killing the entire unit since it is likely to become demoralized and once demoralized it's effective morale is 3, meaning you have a 1/36 chance of recovering. Hope you are good at getting snake eyes...

I played this as the first Skype scenario with Vince Hughes. This is a basic scenario, infantry, HMG, ENG's and officers. There isn't any OBA, tanks or special rules to influence the game. The couple of points that make it interesting are the low morale of the blackshirts, 6/4 and how the Slovaks are going to attack towns without heavy weapons.

To setup, the Blackshirts defended the towns on board 17. Leaving the two on 15 to Slovaks. My feeling was that the lack of morale might cause me to lose these troops early. This also gave me a sizable force to defend the other towns. The Slovaks were able to mass their units to advance on board 17 while having the "tour de France" cyclists run around board 15. (I make light, but this came back to get me later.)

After a couple of positioning turns the Blackshirts was able to get some Op fire on the Slovaks and scored a early step loss as well as disrupting and demoralizing his troops. But the Slovaks were well handled and soon recovered from the shock. Meanwhile some skirmishing troops positioned in the woods were being assaulted by the Slovak troops. This held them up the Slovaks for a while but soon they demoralized and were killed.

This brought the Slovaks to the town hexes of 0509-0510-0609-0610. The Blackshirts shifted some troops and left one of the town hexes open and the Slovaks were able to get some engineers into the town. After my attempts to force them out, their cyclists pedaled right in under my Blackshirt Op fire. At this point the Blackshirts were starting to show their low morale after some assaults by the Slovaks. At one point I need to roll 3 or less just to be disrupted and avoid a demoralization elimination. The final blow came when a demoralized unit failed and fled to be Op fired with a step loss and a second demoralization, a two step loss.

We played on a bit longer but by turn 14 is was impossible for the Blackshirts to recover from the 17-9 advantage he had and we called the game for the Slovaks.

We enjoyed the game more for the ability to play FTF over Skype than the scenario. I felt that it was balanced even though the Blackshirt morale is low, the Slovaks are not any better. It might be better with a bit of OBA for each side was out final conclusion.

** My First Skype Game Which Was Also Played Cross-Atlantic**

South Of Milan 26th April 1945

Scenario completed : 29th August 2010

The Italian Blackshirts in the area just south of Milan set up in two small villages that they would be required to hold. There were another two tiny outlying hamlets too, but the Italian troops decided that these would stretch their forces too thinly and thus abandoned them. The Slovak force advanced from the east around 0700 hours and sent a single platoon of men on bicycles to claim the abandoned two hamlets. Meanwhile, the rest of the Slovak battalion pushed forward through the cultivated fields and the heavily wooded areas in front of one of the towns. Having been on the march around an hour, the Slovaks received a rude awakening when a platoon of Blackshirt skirmishers cut down half of one Slovak infantry platoon. Battle had now been joined in earnest.

The Slovak battalion now deployed with the intent to overrun these skirmishers, and deftly filed up to and also through the woods. Once close enough, the Slovaks used their numbers to overpower them having initiated close assaults and inflict casualties. However, these particular platoons of Blackshirts were not done yet and they also cut down some of their enemy. Fifteen minutes later, more Slovaks attacked yet another platoon of Italians, inflicting yet more losses. Other Slovak infantry sidled up near the main town and met a furious hail of defensive fire from enemy rifles and MG’s that instantly caused disruption and demoralization amongst their ranks. Despite this, a small force of Slovak infantry forced themselves into the built up area and began to contest the town. Furthermore, the cyclist platoon they had ridden like the wind to claim the hamlets had also reached the southside of this town and were holding onto a corner of it.

As the Slovak force recovered from its initial set-backs, they had by 0930 begun to get the upper-hand. Very aggressive attacks and pressure on the Blackshirts in the towns were forcing the Italians very fragile morale to desert them. As the loyalists to Mussolini began to break and flee the town, Slovak fire cut many of them down, and in a 30 minute period another 130 Italians had been accounted for.

From 1000 hours onwards, with a third of the built up areas in Slovak hands, a third in Italian and a third being contested, the Slovaks began some outflanking moves to the north in order to stretch the few remaining meagre Blackshirt troops. Seeing the writing on the wall, the Italians threw in the towel at 1030 hours and the Slovaks had finally earned their victory. Casualty totals came to 65 Slovaks and 180 Italians.

My Final Thoughts I rated this as a 3, but it is a GOOD STRONG 3. Not classic enough to grab a 4 result and I would have preferred to give it 3.5

Why ? Its interesting as both sides are quite poor troops and therefore you can not ask too much of them without running the risk of seeing them crumble ! Playing head-to-head also adds to the game as it always does.

Judging by the previous AAR from Jay Townsend, we have now seen 2 x plays of this scenario (his solo and this skyped head-to-head) where the Italians have set themselves up in the towns and in general allowed the Slovaks to come on. If you try this scenario yourself, give thought to the following. Place 1 x B'Shirt platoon in each of the 1 hex hamlets and then with the rest of the forces, have them play a fall-back defence from the woods and fields in the north in front of the towns and THEN have them filter back into the villages. This will slow the Slovaks in only a 16 turn game where they have to get a move on and also force them to consider sending more of their very slim forces to grab those hamlets which are now defended. Even if just 1 blackshirt in each, the Slovaks will probably need at least 3 platoons to ensure grabbing them ... maybe more ?

I wanted to come back to First Axis after completing it and try some of the unique scenarios. There really isn't any more unique than this RSI vs. Allied Slovak battle near Milan. In my first play the RSI set up a little too dispersed and was destroyed in detail. In this play my RSI was far more compact and put up a substantially better fight but with a 6/4 morale they simply do not have any real staying power.

This is a scenario to provide some novelty to your play but not one which will captivate you as a competitive marvel. Enjoy using your First Axis and Fronte Russo units. Enjoy the remarkably low morale for the RSI. But do not expect too much of the play itself. Despite nearly everything going well for the RSI in terms of combat with the Slovaks the Slovaks were able to win quite easily. All they need to do is focus their force towards the larger towns and they will chase the RSI away with losses and especially demoralizations

I give this one a "3" for the novelty. Otherwise it might slip to a "2".

I wanted to play an unsual group of armies who don’t get much attention in the history books, so what better scenario then this one. Slovak Army/ Partisans vs. the Mussolini’s Italian RSI.

This was a nice small size scenario, with a small unit count, short scenario, only 16 turns, easy to follow victory conditions, pretty straight forward all the way around.

Now the tricky part, to assault city hexes with Partisan Armies with no real supporting heavy weapons. The only saving grace for the Slovak Army, was that the Italian RSI, had such a low morale, that they could easily break and head for the hills or out of town in this case.

The victory conditions were points for eliminating steps and controlling town/city hexes. RSI sets up in town hexes & the Slovaks try to take them, both sides try not to lose too many steps as well.

It turned into a pretty close battle after all, neither side could make a very big punch but in the end, the Slovak’s morale gave them the upper hand but by a small margin.

The Slovaks lost 2 steps but gained 9 victory points in town hexes controlled. The RSI lost 5 steps and retained control of 8 victory point in town hexes. Slovak wins, 14 points to 10 points. In part because the Slovaks get three VP’s for control of town hexes where the RSI only get 2 per hex!

I used the Black-shirt leader counters from the AP download, as I made them a couple of years ago to go along with the Fronte Russo module. I am glade I finally got to use them in a scenario.