Battle Academy:
Thraeg defeats Ananab Tilps
A sleepy town strung along a highway through the North African desert awoke to find German tanks rumbling through its streets from the north, and seizing 4 out of 7 critical locations. But no sooner had they taken up positions than Dave’s British forces arrived to dislodge them. I deployed the main body of panzers on the open ground east of the town, and after a protracted battle aided by surprise assaults by infantry, AT guns hidden in the buildings, and heroic sacrifices of armored cars zipping into range to draw fire away from the tanks, they gained the upper hand there. But the situation was reversed on the west, where the British routed my forces and took full possession of a cluster of buildings away from the main town.
From there, they pressed the advantage by sending speedy APCs around behind the lines to capture unguarded victory locations, at one point holding a 6:1 advantage. With time now working against me, I scrambled to get back into position. My glass-cannon Marder tank was nearby and seemed to have a shot at taking out the troublesome vehicles, but missed both shots before being unceremoniously scrapped by a British AT gun. A mortar team hidden in the rocks kept my central infantry pinned down in the safety of buildings, but my remaining forces swept west, destroying a few more vehicles. I sent my own armored car to try and grab the north-central point, only for it to be ambushed by the same AT gun and destroyed at the moment it claimed the location.
As the final turn dawned, with each of us down to a bare few survivors, my Germans held only a couple central points, while the British had the north and south edges under control for a total of 5 victory locations. One of Dave’s cars made a run through the center of town, grabbing one of my points, but got ambushed before it could reach the other, where the bombed-out husk of my APC still smoldered. His other car made a dash for that point from the opposite direction, but reached it without enough remaining movement to clear the wreckage away and take the point itself. Finally, my last tank reclaimed the western outcropping, and a decimated and suppressed infantry squad managed to muster the courage to stagger out of the safety of buildings and reclaim the central intersection.
Final score, 4 victory locations to 3. Each side sustained 17 casualties. The wreck of that car holding Dave off from the north VL for just long enough proved to be the margin of victory.