After having the words "no shared plays" stare me in the face on my home page, I realized that I should probably document my main face-to-face experience with Panzer Grenadier, back in 2003 at Christmastime. For Christmas 2002 I had gotten a friend of mine Airborne, and he said "but I like tanks!", so the following Christmas I got him Battle of the Bulge, and we played my favorite scenario from that box, Marvie. He took the presence of the smoke rules to mean he could use them whenever he wanted, even though they strictly speaking should only have been used by special scenario rule (at that point in time, at least; I think 4th Ed. changes this to allow a little smoke in any scenario with mortars/artillery). Anyway, he smoked his way as the Germans right up to the edge of the town, depriving me of my chance to whittle his forces down on the approach, and ran away with the scenario. So yeah, I let him get away with one, but to my chagrin he was acting a little too proud of his mad general skillz!

Now it occurs to me that I must have played an Airborne scenario with him back in Dec. 2002, but I'll be darned if I can remember a thing about it. Time for the Wayback Machine...

A rather strange scenario. If you know something about the battle of the Bulge, you will be surprised when playing this scenario. The designer made really strange choices. First, all light woods and woods are deleted and turned into clear terrain... We are not in the Belgian Ardennes anymore : it is full North African desert ! Second, he deleted all the hills! A flat desert, I tell you. Third, he added a new village south of Marvie and control of that one is important in the victory conditions. Fourth, the US glider troops are turned into infantry instead of being paratroopers and there are far more US halftracks than in the real action. In reality, Marvie is a small village (500 m) located on a slope south of the important Arlon-Bastogne highway. Down the hill, south of the village, there's a creek running west-east with a small bridge. More south, there's a wooded hill from where the German tanks attacked. As far as the actual German attack is concerned, it was impossible for them to attack during the day because of the US aircraft. The Germans had to wait for the night to attack. That's where the scenario is again wrong. Victory conditions are all wrong, as well. Instead of trying to control the northern village only (Marvie) and probably exit the board on the north edge, the Germans have to fight for two villages and as soon as they have gained enough points refrain from attacking futher. All wrong. But how does it play ?

It was actually interesting. The Germans won the first initiative and immediately invaded the southern village. Thereafter, the Germans attacked the lonely one-hex town west of Marvie and quickly got control of it. At that point there was a thunderstorm (random events) that reduced visibility but lasted only one turn. At that moment, the number of VPS accumulated gave a slight advantage to the Germans so that he did not need to attack anymore ! So, the US player (that's me !) decided to turn into the attacker. Shermans and M18s counterattacked the PzIVs and the US infantry (no, no, not paratroopers...) assaulted the Germans in the desert to regain an access to the lonely town in the west. And from both sides heavy artillery was hitting hard into the melee. The assault killed some PzIVs but stalled in the infantry fight. Since night finally came, The US player sent tanks and infantry carried by halftracks or trucks into a stategic movement to get to the southern town and contest some town hexes there. It was a wild and strange melee where the attacker became defender and inversely. The luck part and hot dice rolling became overwhelming overtaking all tactical decisions. It was fun and interesting to play thanks to the change of initiative that were enforced but historical and design failures led us to stop the fight and declare a draw. By the way, draw is only possible if both players reach exactly the same VP total which is crazy since you might lose/win the scenario by a single little point.