Set up took about 30 min for Evan (US) as the 57L AT's might get a shot at passing vehicles and/or immobilization. He looked over the board and decided that the East entry area was most probable. Since mud is in effect, he thought I'd be sticking to the road (no pun intended) so his D was oriented East.
I of course entered from the West. The unpaved roads are no better than open ground (in fact, don't exist as per section E.) I did bog a few times (the stug III(L) on turn one, unbogged in turn 2, ALL bogged on turn 3), but managed to bog in tactically useful locations. But the vehicles really are just VP for exitThey flounder in the mud and can't advance fast enough to close with the enemy, particularly in the poor visibility (maximum snow hinderance.)
It's the SS that gave the GIs a beating. I've always played all-out with the SS, running them up adjacent with defenders and spreading them out to avoid any full-platoon shots. The defender sees waves of SS marching towards him, & becomes, shall we say, uncomfortable? The SS swarmed the East woods on turn one, DF'd the hell out of the center buildings, then on turn 2 assulted into the center woods and blew out the defenders there, as well as maneuvering around the center buildings and laying LOSs behind the defenders. The tanks, of course, were slowly mucking along behind.
One thing that made this almost absurdly easy was Evan's horrible luck with his dice and battery access. You should never make your OBA a critical part of your plan, but it is one of the American's few advantages in this scenario. He managed to fire up the radio & field phone on turn one, and then drew a red card for each. His next attempt got access through the radio for the 100MM, but broke the field phone. His SR fell out of LOS (the 2 DR for accuracy was rendered inaccurate due to the falling snow). His radio operator was then broken by enemy fire, and on US turn 2 the rallied radio operator, apparently a little frantic now, lost his code book & drew his second red card. No FFEs for Evan.
This was the death nell. I was ready to round them all up & march off the board; his ATs had to turn 1-2 hex spines to direct fire at my vehicles and never had a chance. One was in the little bit of woods down by the bridge on the southern side of the PA; the other in a building near the North, with crossfire on the East crossroads. They both got off one shot; the one in the south waws blown up by a Brubaur ("ting! ting! BOOM!") & the other was revealed when it's building was flooded with overstacked routing units (a booboo on Evan's part). It was then reduced by a platoon of SS with MG support & leader direction. Evan conceeded after the turn 3 US prep phase. I didn't even get to blow up his TD.
Question that came up: When vehicles are entering a mud scenario from offboard, is the first hex entered the first possible bog location? That's the way we played it; couldn't see having vehicles bogged offboard.
Overall, I enjoyed it, but of course I won. I think the game is a little pro-German, but it's hard to tell with one playing. It's a good scenario to try out mud & snow rules, & plays fast (2 hours for us after setup). If the US gets and keeps his OBA, it might get tough on the SS, but I think this would not be a factor if the SS use the first movement phase to close aggresively, and I like the East for entry for this.