Author	treadasaurusrex (Germany, Italy)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	Draw
Participants	OldPueblo
Play Date	2022-11-29
Language	English
Scenario	DeRa018

This was a very long, 7-session play-through with a highly motivated rookie, ably leading the attacking British (Scottish & English) side in a very challenging scenario. I played the defending Italo-German side and had a new experience getting to witness panicky surrenders of a fair number of Germans troops in the course of this costly encounter. We used the FOW, smoke, consolidation and excess initiative optional rules in this overlong scenario. Foolishly, we also used the random events table, which seriously impacted the flow of the play-through - at all the wrong times!

In the first few turns, the 2nd Black Watch Regiment took some very hard knocks from accurate Axis OBA bombardments resulting in multiple disruptions and demoralizations - some of which]h lasted for more than 8 turns. This delayed the Scots while the lagging King's Own Regiment gradually moved to the margin of the German-occupied portion of hill mass objective. The volume of fire directed at the advancing Tommies increased as they drew closer, which allowed some respite for the -- by now, much abused -- Jocks. This changed when the 4th & 7th Royal Tanks went into combined arms action, causing an entire German company to surrender in-place while 37mm AT rounds bounced off the tough armored hides of the Matildas. This process was also helped by some accursed random events beginning in turn 15 that caused havoc in the ranks of the Axis leadership (Snipers and New Leader). The Scots were then able to mount their bagpipe-inspired assault and made unexpectedly fast progress against the Italian-Held hill in starting game turns 18-19. However, heavy & accurate return fire resulted in the near-collapse of this attack in turns 20-22. The Tommies had slightly better luck and the infantry/Matilda combinations proved deadly against the German HMG positions, to the point that the Tommies now began shifting their strength to support the Black Watch's inroads against the Italians after turns 27-28. Fatefully, they suffered an English leader decapitation in combat that threw their attack into chaos during turn 29.

An Axis revival after a counter attack was successful on the Italian side of things, but the exhausted Germans lost control of their hilltop positions in turn 33. The final result of this exhausting and challenging scenario was a hard fought draw. The British side has a very difficult set of victory conditions, and just barely enough troops to manage a victory in this relatively-balanced -- but darn hard to win scenario. It takes a great deal of coordination and a fair amount of luck in sequencing close assaults for the Brits. This was complicated by repeated leader losses and the complexity of timing the use of the accompanying armored assets. The Matildas efforts must be well-timed for the hill top positions to be taken & held successfully by the infantry.

The dreaded fog of war rule played strongly in favor of the Axis in this battle, having prematurely ended 9 of 36 turns mostly at critical moments for the Scots, and to a lesser extent against the English. This was another "all or nothing" engagement entirely dependent on hill control, that basically required repeated combined arms attacks from the British side, with no regard to the resulting mass casualties. I give this one a 3, as it was exciting to play, but was also very frustrating to deal with the chaos & confusion that the FOW and random events inflicted on both sides. Only experienced PG players should attempt this scenario. It is not a good introductory engagement for players new to the game.