It was back to a die rolling exercise again. But as all units in the WW2 section have a 360° field of fire, and there is no disadvantage for being fired on in flank, the defenders didn't need to re-deploy or manoeuvre at all against the flank threat.
As an example of how the game mechanics failed, I played a scenario based on a surprise flank attack. Never mind an hour: the games I played were essentially over in 20 minutes. Frankly, the resulting games were dull exercises in die rolling, where the winner was usually obvious halfway through the game, or else so many units were destroyed that the final moves became pointless fight outs between lone units, usually a mortar unit on each side as these tend to be the last to fall. Still, I thought, an uncomplicated evening of 'the best of three' with a live opponent would be worth trying. But I did get the feeling that the games, which are supposed to run to 15 moves if using the scenarios, started to run out of steam after 6 or 7 moves, as units tend to be destroyed quite quickly. Fair enough, these were only solo test games so I didn't expect nail biting entertainment. In my opinion, Pen & Sword must bear the blame here - as a well-established military publisher they should have made sure a decent standard was achieved. And despite the emphasis on using 3' x 3' tables, each map has unaccountably been squashed so it is actually a rectangle. Black and white is fine, but in this day and age something a little more inspiring and imaginative (or at least a bit less amateurish) is to be expected. They bear the unmistakable stamp of maps produced by someone in a rush using Microsoft Word. Providing thirty scenarios must have been a real effort, which is much appreciated, but they are let down by maps which are frankly a bit sad. The Solo Wargaming section (a little under two pages) is a bit better, but not much. Neil simply suggests you might like to play the best of three games (or five if you have the time), and might like to link them by, for example, allowing the winner of the previous game to pick his preferred side in the next game. The Wargame Campaign section (2 pages) is really nothing of the sort - even calling it a 'tournament' section would be extravagant. I did note a few downsides before I had played any test games.
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