Author	Schoenwulf
Method	Solo
Victor	Germany
Play Date	2021-09-11
Language	English
Scenario	FaoF011

Battle: In the pre-dawn hours of May 14, units from the French 1st Groupement de Reconnaissance de Division d’Infanterie moved eastward quietly toward the small hamlet of Haut-le-Wastia in an effort to maintain a bridgehead east of the Meuse. The town was held by elements of the German II Battalion, 14th Schützen Regiment. Their sentries spotted French movement at 0515 when a French P16 moved north of the village followed by an AMR33. As dawn broke, the French advanced and had the village surrounded on three sides; however, Major Krause rallied the German troops quickly, held the line and eventually they pushed the French back. By 0745, the French were more than ready to depart the village and leave the Germans to finally cook some breakfast.

Analysis: This scenario is a single map, 12-turn scenario with VP’s based on enemy unit elimination and town hex control. Since the scenario begins at night and the Germans are unable to move until a French unit is spotted, the French have an opportunity to get units positioned for the break of day. Although LOS is limited during the first few turns and increases slowly, once it reaches four hexes, skirmishes are frequent because of the close-in fighting required to control the village hexes. The French had some initial success, but Germans held a morale advantage over all the French units except the ESC troops. When the German leader with a “2” morale modifier is also considered, their troops were remarkably resilient. There were two assault hexes still in play at game end, but they weren’t looking good for the French so a retreat would have been in order. The French ended up with three town hexes held for 6 VP’s but had lost four steps. The Germans held five town hexes added to the French steps lost (the Germans did not lose any) gave them 14 VP’s. This gave an end result of a major German victory based on the 8-point differential. The scenario is actually better balanced than it might appear from this result, as the last turn caused a shift in town hex control because the Germans took the first initiative and covered some open town hexes; the French were dealing with disrupted troops that could not move quickly enough to capture anything at that point.