The Situation: The South Africans, all riding trucks with a company of armored cars in support, are gunning for a series of villages and the Italian Equatorial monument (the rules say use an airfield marker to represent the obelisk, but I broke out a small souvenir Washington Monument instead).

Setup: The Italians have a rather strict setup, with about half required to start on one board with some villages and the other half on the board with the monument. Oddly, the two groups also have different morale levels, which became a pain near the end when they began mixing together. For the first group I set them up around the southernmost village I could and tried to use the thorn forest for a little cover. For the others, I dug in most around the monument with a small reserve force in the village just to the north.

Summary: The South Africans enter from the southwest and and split up, with the bulk of the HMGs hitting the group guarding the villages and the armored cars leading the force going after the monument. At first it looked like a rollover, with the Springboks rolling quickly up to the Italian positions and laying down effective fire. But around turn 10 things bogged down, with the eastern force unable to break through to the monument over the course of about eight turns. They simply couldn’t pry the Italians out of their foxholes, and then the three FANs held in reserve were able to work their way in for an assault on the armored cars. They didn’t destroy any, but they kept them busy and allowed the other IT units to work over the SA infantry.

The SA force to the west wrapped up their attack around turn 18 and hurriedly tried to pivot east and help take the monument. But their attack went in piecemeal and the SA force ran out of time.

There are four victory conditions for the South Africans in this one; they got two, earning a minor victory, but they didn’t get the big win and, more importantly, they didn’t get the monument. Final losses were 11 steps for Italy and 5 for South Africa.

Final Analysis: This is a game with a low number of units on four boards, but the action compressed pretty quickly. It’s tough for me to see a way for the South Africans to score a complete victory; they lack the firepower to quickly push the Italians out of the way and take all of the objectives. More of a solitaire game as the Italians pretty much stand in place until the end.