This is a small battle, one of the few PG scenarios I have managed to play in a single sitting. A mix of Italian MVSN, Alpini, Colonial and Regular infantry and HMGs (about 2 companies worth total) have to defend some high, steep-sided amba hills from a battalion of Ethiopian irregulars. The Ethiopians arrive piecemeal over about half of the game.

I had the Italians defend the two main hill masses, with the MVSN and Colonials on the eastern amba and the Alpini on the western. The Italian HMGs would arrive to reinforce the west early in the game.

The Ethiopians planned to pin the MVSN in place with part of their initial force while the other part scaled the western amba, their true objective. All the reinforcements would assault the western amba as well.

The Ethiopians failed to keep the MVSN on the eastern hill, but the Blackshirts had difficulty negotiating the steep terrain and were delayed in arriving to reinforce the western force. The Ethiopians managed to ascend the amba into a flanking position on an Alpini platoon, forcing it to join the rest of its group on the highest level of the amba. As the HMGs arrived the Italians now had a pretty strong hilltop position, but a steadily growing Ethiopian force was assembling to their front.

Casualties were light so far, when the MVSN finally managed to approach just below the Ethiopian force facing the Alpini, but they were op-fired by the Ethiopians and lost a step and their only leader. Now leaderless, the Blackshirts were effectively out of the battle, or so it seemed.

The second half of the battle was mostly about the desperate assaults of the Ethiopian irregulars against the Italian hilltop defenders. Both hexes were assaulted in turn and the Ethiopian troops held on bravely, feeding in reinforcements and keeping the Italians off balance with morale issues. In the final turns losses began to mount for the Italians, and their leadership struggled to stay in the fight. With one turn remaining, the Ethiopians cleared the hilltop. However, the MVSN platoons had skirted the edge of the amba, taking up a position on its eastern edge, thereby denying the Ethiopians control of all the amba hexes.

Thus, a draw, with the Blackshirts loudly bragging of how they had saved the day by basically sitting on their asses.

Conquest of Ethiopia, scenario #22: Second Tembien: Uork Amba

The Amba hexes with their -1 modifiers are trouble for both sides but since the Italians have to control all the Amba hexes on both the western and eastern hill masses and the Ethiopians have to control all the Amba hexes on just the western hill but can deny the Italians a victory by controlling one of the Amba hexes on the eastern hill mass. The Ethiopians have reinforcement that trickle in from the North and the Italians a HMG unit on turn three, it becomes a battle of the Amba hexes. Neither side is strong enough nor have enough units to control all the Amba on either hill. The battle after 20 turns resulted in a Draw. Both sides lost a few steps, the Ethiopian maybe one step more than the Italians. Worth a game play to see but on to another scenario after this.