Exit Hexes

[John Given]

Ah, I loved this scenario. I played it against boisforas (Eric Bonner) earlier this year. I was the axis.

In his usual style, Eric scared the hell out of me with his "in your face" armored assaults. He got away with it for a long time too - but i made him pay for it with my armored attacks at range. I couldn't believe all the tanks he had. His style was to send multiple armored "fingers" trundling toward the center of the map, into my backfield, to spot and wreak havoc. He often could do so too, due to sheer numbers.

Often, I kept my forces hidden till he came 'round a bend in the woods, and then I would open up during my turn, usually at his back or side armor. My armored vehicle op-fire was always off. Just brutal, and I was terribly outnumbered, but losses began to add up, and the points are what mattered.

there was essentially no exiting, and it didn't bother me due to the points I got from kills. Actually, some of my most elite units (about 40%) were not brought in as reinforcements, since Eric "locked down" the entry area for units completely. So, I saved a lot of points simply because he never got the points for killing those units. Also, some of my favorite units in the NW of the map not only survived, but even went offensive late in the game.

His large infantry force in the north was essentially destroyed, and the tanks that initially were with them would head east,, where most of them were whittled down by my infantry. His southern forces (American and free french) were battered, but survived. His southern British were decimated. Nearly all of his northern artillery was destroyed (infantry overruns and my artillery counter-battery fire). U.S. and Free French lost all their SPA's.

Game changer: the terrain + visibility. LOS was excellent, and I realized early that being high up would tell me everything I needed to know about his force. So, I spotted and used artillery like mad, used infantry as roadblocks and tank killers, and my armor and trucks mostly stayed hidden. Eric mostly stayed down in the valleys, so he often had no idea where all my stuff was. Good thing too; I had a lot of empty trucks i was shuttling around, and my artillery units were almost in a panic as his armored spearheads began slicing toward the center of the board.

In the end, the only axis artillery kills he got was a 150mm infantry gun and a few 81mm mortar teams. All german SPA's survived. Much of my long-range artillery eventually ended up in the north-center town (the one next to all the cornfields).

My few germans that came on as reinforcements were entirely destroyed, save a few battered infantry platoons ( he basically "dog piled" his entire northern armored force onto the exit hexes). So, it turned out I'm glad I went with my gut feeling and decided not to bring many of my reinforcements in. Most german armor survived, but the eastern stugs, PzIV's, stummel's and Puma's were severely reduced or destroyed entirely.

Overall, a very fun scenario. I loved the new units. I think Eric relished in scaring the hell out of me with his endless offensives, but the point of the scenario is to get points, not to scare people. :)