My opponent and I just finished the round one Ban Kho Lai battle, and we both fell flat on our faces when it came to handling the French attack. Although this battle was historically a French victory, I actually thought it was one of the harder of the French attack scenarios in the game. I mean, I've played most all of the scenarios, and I found Ban Kho Lai as the French much harder than, for instance, the Eliane and Huguette counterattack battles. In fact when I played the French in this tourney I managed to capture both of the northern VP redoubts, but still rated a major defeat. One of the big French challenges in this battle is how to effectively manage the force coming up from Isabelle. They get a late start coming on to the map, the infantry have to hurry and yet are very exposed coming up those two roads, and for the sake of time you have to commit your precious tanks to battle before the infantry can come up to support them. Anyway, if anyone has any secrets to success as the French in this battle, I'd love to hear them.
BTW, I would also add that this is my first ever PBEM Tourney, and the two games played thus far were most enjoyable, defeat notwithstanding. Definitely a human opponent will pull some surprises that the AI would rarely do. I look forward to round two.