This was a really fun pocket blitzkrieg scenario. The Peruvians have every advantage, and it is kind of like a textbook exercise to see if you can execute a perfect combined arms attack against a weak defender with a tough time limit. Not much fun for Ecuador, but a smart defense can spoil the perfection of Peru's assault.

I was really interested in playing this scenario, it was the perfect size. The Ecuadorians just had to keep one town hex or the bridge hex in their possession after 18 turns to win. The Peruvians on the other hand had to take all these objectives to win. The Peruvians had the much stronger force and better Morale, as they had much to do.

The only problems the Peruvian had, was the clock, 18 turns. What slow them down was the Ecuadorian 75/97 gun in the Southern town just above the bridge and a delaying party at the bridge. Once the gun was gone, the Peruvian armor had a free hand as nothing could stop them short of staying out of assault combat. The next obstacle was a strong Infantry force in the Northern town and Ecuadorian reinforcements that came in on turn five I believe, but they are very weak and some were blocked.

With the combine tank, infantry, artillery and air-power of the Peruvian army, I was able to repeat history and take all the objects by turn 14, at which point I called the game, as their was no way for the weak morale Ecuadorian forces to recover their demoralized force in four turns and dislodge any of the stronger Peruvian forces from the Northern town. A Peruvian Victory!

Maybe I should have put more Ecuadorians south to delay? Fun play, no matter what the results!

As mentioned this scenario is good for carrying out a texbook blitz, but it is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. The Ecuadorians can expect to take massive losses, but might win if they can hold a town hex. That is going to be very tough for a 6/5 morale force going up against superior numbers, air, artillery and tanks.

I deployed a dug in force along the bridge and put troops into the forward town with the artillery and one platoon back in the larger town. Things just went terribly for Ecuador. Even with a simple M morale check they often rolled a seven or higher for disruption. The Peruvians were easily able to demoralize units as they approached them and then just romp on through. Ultimately the last town hex fell on turn 15 and there were too few Ecuadorians left to even attempt to retake it.

The Peruvians did need to have a word with their Air Force liaisons to determine why so many air strikes ended up strafing their own troops.

I give this a reserved rating of three. It's not bad enough to warrant a two, but it barely meets the criteria for average. It's good for playing out a textbook blitz with overwhelming forces and it might be good as a tool to teach good tactics to a new player (have them take the Peruvians and enjoy kicking your butt). Otherwise it's really only good for someone who enjoys playing the desperate defense where keeping one step alive in a town hex can still win you the game.

I got to use the Peruvian "modern" arsenal against the Ecuadorian masses. Given the ridiculously poor morale of the Ecuadorians I expected to roll over them with little trouble. After all I had better morale (7/5 vs. 6/5) and far better weaponry. I really didn't see how the Ecuadorians had a chance. Of course the victory conditions required crossing a minor river and holding the bridge and taking another 8 town hexes while experiencing less than 1/2 the losses of the Ecuadorians. No problem, I've got tanks and planes, machine guns, engineers, decent artillery and a numerical advantage. He's got infantry and the local constabulary.

But this is why they play the scenarios. The conflict was about as I expected. Daniel lost something like 15 steps and I lost 1. However, 15 turns into the 18 turn scenario it seemed that I was certain to lose. The Ecuadorians were making rally rolls like crazy while the Peruvians seemed to want to take a nap. Indeed one unit which was demoralized on the third turn remained that way for the rest of the play.

After I had invested the closest and larget town I sent a company of tanks and two companies of infantry and HMGs to take the remaining towns. The tanks entered one town and the infantry engaged the CARA at the smallest town. Unfortunately several of my leaders were down for the count trying to recover their morale and could not be bothered to help my assault on the smallest town until turn 14 or so by which time the second group of CARA had counterattacked my tanks and taken some of the town hexes from the armored fist of Peru.

Finally on turn 15, the Ecuadorians began acting like a force with a 6/5 morale and failing their morale rolls. With only two contested town hexes going into turn 18 and no ability to gain any more traction for the forces of Ecuador. The town hexes only had CARA units and in one case it was a reduced one. It looked even better after the initial assaults as in both hexes the remaining defenders were demoralized. Daniel failed his first roll and it came down to the last demoralized, single step CARA unit, which, of course, passed its recovery roll. After a throw away artillery barrage on the assault hex I was forced to concede.

Any game that goes down to the last roll of the dice has to be rated reasonably well but in this case it wasn't just tension that gave it its flavor. The juxtaposition of the advanced weaponry with only fair morale was a surprise to me. The Peruvian army felt much like the early war Slovaks to me, as even though their morale was vastly better than the Ecuadorian army it was still only as good as the Soviets in 1941. I needed to take more note of that and try to provide for a better mass when attacking.

It was, however a great time. I give it a "4".

Full AAR to follow. Despite being slaughtered (losing 23 of 33 steps), the Ecuadorans managed to hold on to one town hex and and win this one. Very close, came down to the last turn. I rated this a 3 because there's not a lot for the Ecuadorans to do, however for a solo scenario I'd make it closer to a 3.5.

And now...the real AAR.

The Ecuadorans put 2 INF platoons forward dug in on the bridge. An INF and HMG guarded the forward town, and the rest of the INF were in the woods or dug in on the road before the larger town, figuring the CARA reinforcements could guard the town itself or the front troops could pull back to there. The Peruvians entered with their tanks racing up the road to 2 hexes from the Ecuadoran guarding the bridge. The infantry headed forward as fast as it could, with the artillery battery heading for the woods to the south. On turn 2 the tank fire demoralized one of the bridge defenders and disrupted the other...the demoralized guy amazingly recovered, only to have both units demoralized by OBA.

The bridge area was cleared by turn 3 and on turn 4 the tanks raced towards the small town and again parked 2 hexes away. Without any Ecuadoran anti tank weapons, they laughed at possible danger (I set the Ecuadoran artillery protected in the woods. Its 1 AT factor would not have helped much, IMO). At this point, the Peruvian OBA started to mail it in, and from here on out was mostly ineffective (lost of 6 - 8 results). The Ecuadoran losses started on turn 6, as intense direct fire demoralized the forward town defenders, and then 2 of them died of compound demoralization. Meanwhile, it took until turn 6 for the CARA reinforcements to arrive (the last possible turn). They started racing towards the larger town...or at least as fast as 2 MP units can race.

The Peruvians assaulted and took the forward town on turn 7, not from getting "1" or "2" results on the assault table, instead from compound demoralization in the dispirited Ecuadorans. The Ecuadorans fell back towards the larger town, while the Peruvians started to fan out to encircle them. On turn 9 a combined tank/engineer stack moved to assault some troublesome Ecuadorans in the woods blocking the approach to the larger town. The Peruvian advanced was slowed by Fog of War. On turn 10, most of the Ecuadoran resistance outside of the town collapsed, at they lost 8 steps to assault and fire, mostly from compound demoralization. However, a couple of INF platoons and the CARA had established themselves in the town. Of course, the Peruvians had almost half the scenario to go...no problem.

Well...maybe. On turn 11, command confusion (i.e., an early FoW roll) slowed the Peruvian advance. On turn 12, a single CARA defending in the woods to the northwest of town passed and M2 morale check and continued to be a thorn in the Peruvians side until turn 17, stubbornly refusing the break. The Peruvians braved heavy Ecuadoran fire to move into assault positions on the town. Turn 13 saw the first Peruvian casualties as the Ecuadorans blasted the units trying to assault the town from 2 hexes (The Ecuadorans had one 10-1-1 leader who was invaluable here). Again, FoW slowed the Peruvians. Finally, they began assaulting the town on turn 14, only to see the Ecuadoran regulars hold and watching them Demoralize a Peruvian captain and disrupt a tank unit. OBA tried to blast a reinforcing CARA and, as usual, failed miserably (we're talking 45 factors available here, folks). Actually, this time they hit, but the CARA and its 6/5 morale passed 3 separate checks.

Turn 15 saw the demoralized captain desert, while the Peruvians now had 2 of the 3 town hexes tied up in assault. However, FoW struck again, ending the turn on the 1st opportunity. Time was running short now. The town was almost completely surrounded on turn 16, but the Ecuadorans in the assaults refused to die. Finally on turn 17 2 of the town hexes fell to assault. The 3rd town hex was assaulted, but the Ecuadorans held their own. With 4 steps left on turn 18, there was no way the Peruvians could dislodge all of the defenders fromt hat last hex in 1 turn, and it was declared a Ecuadoran victory.

The key to the win was...well...luck. The ineffectiveness of the Peruvian air and OBA was a great boon to the defenders. 2 different Ecuadorans recovering from demoralization with snake-eyes slowed the advance a bit, as did several Fog of War rolls. The brave CARA units standing up to assaults on the approaches to the town and in the town itself bought the Ecuadorans just enough time to win the scenario. It was a fearsome slaughter, and the Ecuadorans did what they had to do.

Having played this one ftf I decided to come back to it to try out some different tactics. Unfortunately the tactics I used will probably only be useful against a really bad infantry force like the Ecuadorans, but hey, they worked.

In this play I used the 4th Edition rules and the reduced effectiveness of assault combat. Clearly under the 3rd edition it is almost a given that the Peruvians will assault and assault again in order to take the towns. After watching Daniel pile up Soviets outside of Italian held towns for three scenarios I decided to try something different. In this play I decided to use heavy fire to discomfit the defenders and permit them to run away from the objectives. Given that the Ecuadoran troops carry a 6/5 morale this can be a very useful approach.

The Ecuadoran troops start out dug in on the bridge and heavily posted in the two objective towns. The Peruvians enter and immediately strike the bridge defenders with off board artillery and heavy MG fire from the tanks. This was so effective that the bridge defenders ran away before the Peruvian infantry even arrived. While the small town immediately behind the bridge fell quickly as well from the same attacking tactics the fight there was a bit longer given the increased ability to recover granted by the town itself.

While the Peruvians were reducing the small town the Ecuadoran CARA arrived and dug in, one to a hex in all the approaches to the larger town. Basically the CARA were designed to be speed bumps as the Ecuadorans rightly noted the ability of the Peruvians to shoot them out of a hex.

It was a grind but the Peruvians were able to shake the Ecuadorans out of the town by assaulting and waiting for the defenders to fail their recoveries and have to leave the hex, over and over. The final result indicated the Peruvians heavily posted within the town with a starburst of Ecuadorans, reduced and demoralized, surrounding the town. You could sense the shattered nature of the broken defenders.

Frankly the final result was closer than I would have expected as the town was only cleared one turn prior to the end of the scenario. The speed bumps did their job well but the regulars couldn't keep their cool and ran just a turn or two too soon. This was a quick play and one which justified replaying. Have fun with it.

This was a race against the clock. Peruvian superiority in all aspects versus a relatively short time line to execute their attack. In the end, the God's of war smiled down on little Ecuador and allowed them to hold on despite overwhelming odds and superiority.

The Ecuadorians opted to forfeit the bridge and the river line in order to setup a deep defense anchored on the first town and the woods on either side. All of the Ecuadorian infantry deployed in the woods and the first town, in dug in positions, with the expectation that the CARA platoons would garrison the larger town. Good fortune arrived early as the CARA arrived with their first roll to enter.

The majority of the scenario saw the same formula applied over and over against each successive Ecuadorian position; massed Peruvian artillery fire would disrupt/demoralize the defenders, which were then further demoralized or reduced by close in direct fire from the tank platoons. Finally, demoralized and reduced Ecuadorian platoons were overwhelmed by Peruvian close assaults, and the position was carried. The slow and methodical approach to reducing each defensive position was sound in theory, and practical in execution, but it quickly became apparent that time was not on the side of Peruvian forces. A desperate wheel around the woods to invest the larger town from the west looked like it might have paid dividends. The CARA quickly demoralized, but then the Gods of War intervened. 4x successive rolls to rally resulted in rolls of 2,3, or 4, and the CARA was able to hold the town.

3-4 more turns would have seen the Peruvians overwhelm the CARA in the town, possibly less if the dice were friendly. The mobile battering ram that was the Peruvian armor played a significant role in the destruction of Ecuadorian forces. They simply had no answer for the armor, especially once their lone artillery section was destroyed by a massed artillery pounding. All in all it was an enjoyable scenario for both sides. The Peruvians were successful in their combined arms reduction tactics, and the Ecuadorians were very lucky in their efforts to delay the hold on.

This 2-session, face-to-face play-through featured two opponents, both of whom have mothers born in South America! I played the Peruvians against a steadfast, rookie player -- who owns the other 2 games and the associated maps needed for this scenario. As others have noted, this is a fun, quick scenario to play, in which the Ecuadorians must hold a single town hex or the bridge hex to win. The Peruvian side must take all the town hexes north north of the river and also control the key bridge, while also eliminating more steps than lost. Though the Peruvians had the much stronger force and better morale -- inflicting more step losses than they absorbed in the time allotted proved to be a tall order.

As others have reported, a significant delay was caused by the well-positioned Ecuadorian 75/97 gun in the Southern town near the bridge. Once this artillery piece and the surrounding garrison were taken in close assault, my combined arms team was able to make great progress until the Ecuadorian police reinforcements showed up on Turn 4. At that point, fierce fighting erupted around the northern town. In a rather slow slog, superior Peruvian combined arms, OBA and air support came into play, counteracting my lousy dice rolls, and allowed a close approximation of the results of the actual battle. All Peruvian objectives were achieved by the end of Turn 13 and my worthy, slightly-less-experienced, opponent conceded a victory for Peru at that time.