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This small scenario has a single company of Maori sitting entrenched on a hilltop, attacking them are two reinforced companies of Afrika Korp (AK) with armour support. The action takes place at night, VC are pretty simple, AK to take the hill and not lose 8 steps.
Visibility was rolled for and was deemed to be two hexes, the first initiative roll generated a random event which meant that the AK had lost their limited OBDA, what a jolly start for yours truly.
The Maori's set up was solid and with their 9 morale I knew I was in for a tough time, when facing troops with that high morale you know you need to get X's to have a ,hope of shifting them these boys were not going to flee off the hilltop just to please me.
I split the AK forces into two groups, my plan was attack from both flanks, making sure my half-tracks, tanks and portee avoided the 2pdr. I was initially going to try and use firepower from adjacent hexes to whittle down the commonwealth troops before committing to assaulting however events were to change that tactic.
The first few turn went to plan as I manoeuvred in an reasonably efficient manner my units into position with no casualties on either side. As I moved adjacent to the entrenchments however I was surprised to see the Maori commander gather 50% of his force and charge out of the entrenchments and assault my leading units, this brave (foolhardy) move initially proved to be very successful and in the first assault took out 2 AK steps, and over the next few turns this one assault cost me 7 steps just one of the magic number for a Maori win. However Felipe's move had left some entrenchments empty except for an officer, and I ran over him with my SPW's. It had also left his 2pdr isolated and that was overrun by my INF, this left my two tanks and halftracks free to move. I decided that in the main assault I would just feed units in but not attack and to try and deal with the rest of the Maori force before having to deal with these mad New Zealanders. This plan worked, but to be honest it now turned into a die rolling contest as attacked with overwhelming fire power but Felipe only had to roll one X on the combat to get his win. The dice gods favoured myself and I eliminated the entire Moari force with plenty of time to spare. However it was a close run thing.
**As a scenario this is not one of the best the New Zealand player just sits in his entrenchments and watches the AK drive up, disembark and advance to contact, of course Felipe went very aggressively on the attack which nearly won him the game would he have been better waiting for me to assault him I actually don't know, for the last five of the game turns he would have won the game with a throw of 2/3/10/11/12 however he didn't in this instance fortune did not favour the brave. **
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As my gracious and clever opponent makes clear, this is an instance in which foolhardy bravery in the face of a measured & disciplined approach, is the undoing of the valiant. The Maori's powerful advantage in cold steel close assaults, led them astray, although it almost worked! It did make for a surprisingly exciting play-through against a highly-skilled opponent.
I gave this decently-balanced scenario a 2, mostly due to the need to use the random event table whenever the two sides threw identical initiative rolls. We also played using the FOW rule, which favored the defending side. In hindsight, the small force of Maoris should have simply stayed in their hilltop entrenchments and tried to survive Ravenstein's 2-pronged onslaught. It would have been a boring match, but it might have worked.
Outright audacity was much more fun!