Mike and I played this today, and didn’t really identify any design issues.
There’s a typo in the VC (replace the last comma in VC 1 with the word “by”. It also feels like the VC could be simplified a little, but the two options should remain, we think. We also think declaring the Canadians elite might obviate the need for the special ammo note in the SSR.
Mike had put his HMG and MMG in his forward buildings. I decided to smoke them out with my mortars, and although the first mortar was out of smoke, the second used his first (and last) smoke round to get the desired effect.
I used my 9-1 to lead a kill stack (which assembled the dm’ed MMGs, and inherent fired to good effect, in opportunity fire). They did some damage to the Germans unaffected by the mortar’s smoke shells in the forward buildings, and kept it up in subsequent fire phases.
Only my carriers started the game in motion (on my right flank). They followed the two 648s (who had the LMGs) and two 248s (who attempted to soak up fire from the tree-line — Mike didn’t bite) to form a potent fire group over there.
As the Canadian, I really felt I had an embarrassment of riches, particularly with all the AFVs. Setup was cramped with all those vehicles. With my early success against his forward positions, I started getting cocky in turn 3, and ran my carriers into the midst of his second knot of infantry on my right flank (the far side of the key road). He then popped up one of his ATGs and set three of them on fire over two fire phases.
Design-wise, I’d be curious to see what other players think of the balance. Mike conceded about midway through the game, but only because he’d misrecorded his second ATG’s location.
Steve