For this game, Dan and I switched sides. This left me completely flummoxed as I had a pretty good idea what Allied strategy I wanted to try, but I had no idea what to do as the Germans. I also tend to be stronger on defense than offense, and my Yiddish blood always balks at playing the Nazis. The result was… an ignominous defeat.

Things started off well enough. As you can see, the British had not set up their lines very carefully, and the Germans did a good job of putting pressure on all fronts. Of course, the Germans have to put pressure on all fronts because of the optional rule which precludes a German player from entering more than half of his reinforcements south of the Via Anziate,

Looks are deceiving, though. The Germans were doing most of their attacks on the second phase, after which it was impossible to follow up.

The next Allied turn, the British have already reformed their lines and have inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans, who are now in dire straits. The Germans decide to gamble–massing forces for two somewhat risky surrounding 2-1 attacks on Conca and Aprilia. If successful, the Allies will lose lots of forces and will have to fall back to their next line of defense.

As you can see, the Germans weren’t successful. I rolled “exchange” *twice*, a 1 in 6 chance. The Germans took devastating losses, which the Allies were able to capitalize on the next turn.

And, at this point, after 4 hours (Dan is a slow turn-taker) I conceded. But the night was not over…

Related articles

• S&T Plays: Anzio (meshtime.com)