breversa (Jul 11, 2009)
I played this scenario tonight for the first time and easily won as the Americans.
The "Shaken defender" card is such a malus to the Germans ! It almost turn the german defensive position into paper ! And combined numerical superiority, the US can suppressive-fire once at each german unit to pin them (effectively silencing them, except the hexes with officers) and then quickly cross the boards unharmed with the rest of the units.
My opponent had set up forward defensive positions in the two small buildings (with one neutral command point markers) and forest border closest to the smoke markers, but by turn 3, even after after losing my 9-dice elite assault squad, I was easily overrunning and bypassing his positions. I did no even try to assault his buildings again : each defending squad simply got pinned by a passing fire-and-moving unit (ONE successful hit being enough !)... Oh, and by the way : I had so many units that I actually forgot one on its starting position in the forest...
After the battle was over, my friend and I wondered about several points and thought about a better strategy : the only suitable solution for the defenser seems to concentrate his troops (at least the MG and one officer) in the victory hex building and wait for the americans to come and try to assault them.
Setting forward defenses was useless, as the "Shaken defenders" card negates their cover (although the squads cannot be routed thanks to the "No surrender" card), and they would be quickly bypassed. On the other hand, bunching defenders in the victory building would force the Americans to either try to shoot them dead (but without concentrated fire due to the "Massive confusion" card, that could take quite some time... maybe too much.) or assault them (but 3 defending squads with MG can deal some MASSIVE retaliation).
In either case, the american numerical superiority or lengthy scenario duration would be enough to grind the german defense and eventually capture the victory hex. So my question is : is there a way for the Germans to tip the balance back ?
I thought about removing both the "Shaken defenders" and "Massive confusion" cards, but even then, 10 american units combining fire can take care of ANY unit if they have enough time (and 8 turn seems long enough !). What about simply reducing the duration to 6 turns, maybe ?
