In this night scenario a group of Italian colonial troops have to cross a desert board dotted with hills trying to avoid the attentions of a well armed and led Indian force. The Italian player has to exit more step than he loses, eliminating Indian steps lowers Italian losses. The Indian player looks to have the easier task has has massive firepower and higher morale however of the road hexes he has less movement ability. Vince and I have agreed not to publish what both of us agree is the only way viable tactic for the Italian player, so I will only comment on what the Indian plan, which was to not bother chasing the Italian CAV or BAN but slowly contain the Italian FAN units and then eliminate at least four steps without losing any. This plan worked but only just, I in fact advanced a little further than I should have done so, and then Vince made an error which enabled me to close on him and once the Indians are in contact with the native troops there is little the Italian player can do. This is a thinking scenario with little actual combat and I have rated it a 4. Vince said his error had spoiled the game for him, as he makes so few normally I am just pleased that I spotted his error and reacted in the correct way.

This game played over Skype in a single evening session with Wayne Baumber.

This battle depicts a night engagement where Eritreans need to slip through Indian lines in order to escape an envelopment.

Usually, I write AAR's recording what occurred in the battle, but I really think any such detail here would be a spoiler. And here is why.

On first glance, this scenario looks like a banker for the Allied player. He will have 8/6 moraled Indian troops with bags of leaders and plenty of Bren-Carrier support which would be a tempter for the big transport stacks that have extra firepower. Against that, the Eritreans have a lowly 6/5 morale, few leaders (and all but 1 of mine had zero modifiers).

But what the Axis player must do is study his forces and the map as well as the entry points and plan how he can get more men off than he will lose as casualties.

I came up with what seemed a good plan and for 9 of the 20 turns, I believe I had the Allies on the hop. However, for one mad second, I made a very poor game-mechanics decision, and the effect of this was to turn what could have been a victory, and I stress COULD and not would, into a game where chances suddenly became slim.

It was very disappointing as I wanted to see the game pan out and see if it was possible to get the tactics to work, but the aforementioned event changed the whole face of the game. In the end, the Eritreans exited 8 steps, but lost 9. That said, there were still 6 or 7 turns left and more casualties would have been a cert for the Eritreans, so they, or I called it there. Wayne played a good end game once he was all over the enemy, and quite frankly, there was no way of wiggling out of the fix I'd found myself in once there.

I believe this scenario can be won by either side and I will one day return to it to try the plan on another opponent.

Anyway, try this one versus an opponent, I think it will get the grey matter going. Rated a 3 in response to Wayne's 4 thus giving an overall 3.5 which I feel is about right :-)

He jugado este escenario dos veces y en las dos partidas han ganado los hindúes al servicio del Imperio británico.

Se trata de una persecución nocturna de tropas hindúes tras tropas coloniales italianas. Los italianos entran por el Oeste del mapa y deben salir por el Este. Ganan si consiguen tener menos bajas que unidades salidas del mapa. El problema es que casi todas sus unidades tienen una moral muy baja y apenas cuentan con cuatro líderes. Este factor es decisivo, ya que el combate tiene lugar en completa oscuridad y las tropas indígenas sólo pueden avanzar si son activadas por un líder. Basta, por tanto, con que los hindúes aniquilen o desmoralicen a un líder para que las unidades italianas activadas por él queden inmovilizadas y a merced del enemigo. Por su parte, los hindúes se desplazan en vehículos "Bren", tienen mejor moral y abundante acopio de jefes.

En la primera partida los italianos sufrieron una rápida y completa derrota, sin conseguir sacar una sóla unidad por el borde Este del mapa. En la segunda partida los italianos maniobraron mejor y fueron capaces de hacer salir 12 steps, pero sufrieron la pérdida de 15 steps. Dado que los hindúes no tuvieron ninguna baja, la victoria fue también para ellos.

Más que de un combate en toda regla, se trata más bien de un entretenido juego del gato y el ratón.

Interesante.

P.D.: El título de este escenario es "Night FLIGHT".

Author	triangular_cube
Method	Solo
Victor	Britain, India
Play Date	2022-12-10
Language	English
Scenario	DeRa006

This is an interesting scenario, but its a situation that PZG does not model well. The inability to move and fire creates these bizarro, gamey scenarios when breakouts or fighting withdrawals are concerned. Because of that, this plays out as more of a puzzle than a battle.

Italians must exit steps of the far end of the map, getting around a small but mobile force of Indians. Their very low morale makes combat a hopeless situation, so they must focus on scattering, running, and trying to avoid contact. The Indians on the other hand must close and typically assault to pin the Italians down while they exterminate them. Oh yeah, and its night, so scattering is pretty hard, as the units must be commanded to move forward by leaders even when out by themselves kilometers from the enemy.

Italians have CAV and BANDE forces which are faster than the Indians, These can pretty much walk across and off unopposed, and the Indians should not pursue. It just wastes men and time. Likewise, the MIT are too slow, and should more or less be abandoned by the Italians. Maybe they roll well on OP fire when the Indians close and help out, but they probably just get wiped without a fuss.

The meat of the game seems to be the dancing between the Brit infantry and Brens and the Italian FANs which both move at the same speed. One wants contact, the other doesnt. There's the rub of it. With the MITs killed, and the CAV and BANDE off the board, the Italians win, so long as their FANs stay alive, off map or on. Because of this they hare happy to pass activations to the Indians, who close 3 hexes to be adjacent, and then the Italians move back, or around, or anywhere. And they dance and dance and dance until the clock runs out, or FOW kills the turn after the Brits close and they win init the next turn. Or they cast a wide enough net to catch individual units with nowhere to run.

I made one key mistake that cost the Italians the game. I assigned a leader to the BANDEs when I should have just let them move with the CAV at speed 4. The lack of one more leader meant one less group of FANS and the Indians were able to catch one of the groups, getting enough kills for a narrow win.

Entirely ridiculous and unrealistic, but there it is.