Russ Curry and I played this in the first round of the ASLOK Paratrooper tournament. He had the Jerries and I had the British. The Germans air drop in three wings at least 10 hexes apart. The British are spread out over 4 boards and must prevent the Germans from controlling any two adjacent half boards (ie, no good order British MMCs on the either half-board.) On turn #3, another wing drops on one of three drop points selected prior to the game and chosen randomly. The British are spread out over the 4 boards with typically 2 squads per board. I placed my only MMG in the central building where it could cover most of the center and have LOS into the nearby grainfields.
Russ's air drop went grossly awry from the start. One wing drifted into the center of my defense on two half boards, so they took shots with the -2 hazardous movement DRM. Another wing landed 7-8 hexes away, but they were also caught by crossfire. I had deployed two squads into HSs in this area which helped to cut German rout paths later. And my DRs were awesomely low. Two leaders wounded and another died outright. And his SW drifted away from his paratroopers to boot. His third wing landed on the extreme opposite side of the board, but most of its SWs landed off-board along with one squad. I fired heavily at the squad off-baord (I think that was legal since it was during the air drop itself) to try and eliminate it before it could recover any of the SWs. For all intents and purposes, the Germans had lost the game by the end of their first player turn. My British units nearby quickly swarmed the Germans and forced quite a few surrenders or eliminations for failure to rout. My troops also quickly moved toward the German SW canisters and recovered more of them than the unarmed paratroopers could. By the time the last wing dropped in yet another spot but still within range of much defensive fire, the few good order Germans were fighting for their lives and losing. By turn #4, the Germans were hopelessly isolated from one another and unable to link up, so Russ resigned.
Despite the Germans being slaughtered, I think the scenario is both balanced and a lot of fun. The German needs some luck (or maybe little bad luck) with his error DRs for his wings and the individual sticks. Russ had his wings drift apart and then land in the center of many defenders or on the extreme far board edge. Had he had his wings drift toward each other, then he may have been able to form up into a coherent force. The German will face horrible fire if he lands among the Brits, so I would tend to try and land on board 25 instead of the other more flat boards. I might go as far as trying to land all three initial wings on board 25 and the last wing on the extreme far end to force the British to split their forces. At least then the Brits would have to move forces off of some boards to really come at me before the last wing drops. And then if a board is undefended and the last wing drops there, then the Brits may be in real trouble.
With three boards of basically flat terrain and board 25's more rugged terrain, I would definitely prefer to consolidate out of LOS and face as few troops as possible until I have recovered my weapons. I would want to be able to CX each squad to move through the most hexes possible to maximize the chances or rearming the squads during my turn #2 MPh. All too often while Russ moved his few good order squads through new hexes trying to find his weapons, I had good shots at them with -1 or -2 DRMs. By landing the wings on basically 1 board or with drift onto 2 boards, the German reduces the number of British squads that can shoot at him, which will minimize the damage. By spreading out over several boards, the British player is able to maximize the number of units firing, which greatly works in his favor. And my tendency if I were the German would be to place the SWs on the most interior sticks on the board of each wing. SWs are difficult to recover if they land off-board, so maximize the likelyhood of them landing on-board.
Chuck Payne