Played face-to-face with Matt W in about 90 minutes.

As the German commander, my primary goal should be to prevent the British from exiting too many units of the map. Whether it was is highly debatable.

You can see pictures of our setup in Post #5 of this thread

I set up my German troops forward to engage the British units early. This, I believe, was a mistake.

The British sends two armored cards down the road to scout and find a hidden panzer. One armored car paid the price, suffering a step loss, but the other survived two shots (at +3 and +4) and made it through the German lines. I was disappointed with my poor shooting but did not make too much of it at the time. The British also sent their infantry forward and found another hidden panzer.

One turn into the game and the Germans had only one hidden unit remaining.

The British strategy was simple but also very effective. Move the powerful guns in light woods, in position to shoot at my panzers if I took a shot at one of his units moving forward. I took a few shots and made me pay for it. There is no fair exchange when you have less troops and must prevent the attacker from exiting the board.

I fell back with my remaining assets and put my panzers in the best possible position to prevent a breakthrough while Matt moved his armor forward. A few shots were exchanged but without further German losses.

That was the cue for the armored car that made it through on the first turn played a big role. Matt took advantage he had higher initiative and moved it close to one of my panzers late in a turn to set up cross fires the next if he won the initiative. Matt won the initiative by two and the armored shot. A miss (it needed a “12” to hit) but it set up a deadly crossfire. With only two armored units left, I gave up as there is no way I can prevent British armor from exiting en masse.

British major victory.

I gave this one a “3”. We played two scenarios that afternoon was the other scenario) and both deserved a “3.5” in my opinion but gave the “4” to Saipan #12 because I believe it’s more solitaire friendly.

One thing to note is that I have yet to contain Matt’s force when he has a larger, more mobile armor pool than I have. Maybe I will write an article when I learn something useful!

The town of Hottot drew a crown on the afternoon of June 15,1944. Besides heavily occupying the town, British troops posted in the smaller town to the south, a small one in the center of the disputed area, and on a hill and in woods northeast of Hottot. The Germans of Panzer Lehr positioned in woods east-northeast of the main town, as well as in a couple of small towns on the eastern portion of the map, with an 88mm platoon on the brow of a southeastern rise and a 75mm dug in by some tree breaks.

The Germans brought on five Panther platoons and some infantry in the southwest quadrant, driving north through and around the woods with the tanks; meanwhile, some of the British foot soldiers struck east towards the German-occupied forest in the northeast. A small portion of the Panthers were taken out by British Shermans, but in return virtually all of the British armor was hors de combat by the time an hour had passed. The northward-advancing German infantry was halted by small-arms, mortar, and artillery at the northern edge of the woods south-southeast of Hottot; eventually, with help of the Panthers, British troops dug in in that sector were flushed. Two platoons of Panthers blasted one small town with point-blank fire, then rushed in; but while a WPN platoon was sent fleeing early, the remaining RIF unit – with no leader, no less – held out for the remainder of the scenario, even taking out a couple of tank steps with PIAT fire.

The rest of the German tanks, freed from concern about enemy armor, stormed into the southernmost British town, with Lehr infantry soon joining, but that town hex was still in dispute as the game ended, having been fed reinforcements from Hottot. The northeastern woods saw a fierce struggle, in which the Germans were gradually reduced (and reinforced by other troops who left their setup towns, reasonably certain that the British could make no moves against the now-empty hexes.) At one point, a powerful artillery barrage by the British hit not only Germans but TWO adjacent British hexes, doing more damage to their own side than to the enemy. By the end of the contest, one British platoon and one leader had succeeded in exiting east, but overall the woods were still a mess.

At the end, it had been a tightly-contested battle. British losses (in steps) were: 12 RIF, 8 tank, 2 Bren, 2 6-PDR. Plus 7 (!) leaders, though no German VP for those. German losses were: 9 SCH (Gren), 1-81mm, 1=75/41, 1-20mm, 1 Prime Mover, 0 leaders. The British held 7 town hexes to the Germans’ 3, with two town hexes still in dispute at game’s end. The British exited a RIF platoon and a leader off of the east edge; the Germans countered with an SCH and a leader, but since they were off the north end of the east board they gained no VP. Final VP count was 38 British, 36 German – a draw. A really interesting scenario, with a lot of different possibilities (and unusual in that both sides have exit VP opportunities, but not in opposite directions.)

Note: first let me state, that you need to pull the British Daimler & Stag counters from Cassino ‘44 to play this scenario as they are not in the Beyond Normandy box.

This looked to be an interesting small cat and mouse scenario with the new Panzer Lehr counters. Both sides score points for eliminating enemy steps and the British only get points for exiting units off the south end of the map. The British must advance to do this, so they are the aggressor, because if no one moves or engages it’s a draw and why play this? But to exit units, the British must get through the German lines with PzIVF2s, PzIVHs and small amount of Infantry & SPWs blocking them. The British have twice the Armor and AFV’s but about the same amount of infantry, not many! Lots of British Cromwells in this scenario. I didn’t use the hidden rule, as the Germans don’t need any more advantage.

The Germans setup their armor in forward positions to engage the British right away and the British move forward with armor units of all types hoping to get by with sheer numbers. This plan didn’t work out as the British got hammered right away and their next best plan was to hope to activate first on the next turn and take out a few German steps, but that didn’t happen, the Germans activate first and hammered the British again. In the end, the British only exited a few units and took out a few steps but took such huge losses, that the Germans had and easy Major Victory!

Maybe I need to give this scenario another try, as I was frustrated with all my blown-up Cromwells at one point in the game.