Gameplay summary: Kuipy continued to fight brilliantly on the defensive, abandoning only, and exactly, that which he could not hold, in order to be all the stronger in defending the remainder of his shrinking perimeter. Also, that river around Stuttgart was clearly diverted by the Devil (or Hentzau, not that it makes a difference) from its proper course, which is somewhere in Russia where it would be out of my way. When I get nukes I’ll be sure to blow a path through the Alps for its new course; let the Italians (well, the British perhaps) deal with it.

At the beginning of the session I had a quick look at the victory-points map, and noticed that, except for lightly-held Nurnberg and Neumarkt, easily accessible by the left flank of my advance, Stuttgart was the last remaining VP province inside Bavaria’s crumbling border. (In fact, I was mistaken – Villach, on the Alpen border with Italy, also has a VP. But had I noticed, I would likely have expected it to fall more quickly than it in fact did, and my plan would have been the same.) With visions of causing a collapse by coup de main instead of having to tediously hammer every last motorised division to flinders, I gathered my armour, such as it is, to punch through the German lines. This worked quite well:

(The VPs are marked with red dots). Unfortunately, apart from the swarm of Malayan aircraft, Stuttgart is

a) Fortified

b) Behind a river

c) Urban.

So, in spite of actually having quite good local superiority:

I failed miserably to take it. Naturally, I then tried to outflank so I could bring more force to bear and avoid the river; meanwhile Kuipy tried to chop off the base of the resulting salient:

Fortunately he couldn’t cross a defended and fortified river any more than I could, but Tubingen held just as firmly as Stuttgart – and note that Stuttgart in this screenshot has quite a stack defending it; the opportunity of a quick armoured thrust ending Bavarian resistance had, alas, slipped away.

So it came down to grinding attrition after all; and Kuipy, by carefully hoarding his remaining units’ organisation, by retreating exactly and only when I finally had overwhelming superiority on each province, and by profiting from all the fortification-building he did in Victoria, managed to hold out until the end of the session:

The last redoubt of the Hentzaus, still flying a tattered flag of defiance against the armed might of Europe.

World situation at the end of the session:

India advancing across worthless African wastelands; useless skirmishing in the Middle East; the European fronts about to be wrapped up.

I had a narrative section planned, but it’s escaped me and it’s late. I’ll have to owe you one.