Bruce and I have played a couple of games of Rommel over the past few months, including a WW3 variant (Russians versus the British Army on the Rhine which basically just added a helos rule) and a fan-made WW2 Pacific theatre scenario. For scale, each base is a company.
The Americans were strung out in a thin line across the middle of the table, defending five victory markers, including two on the Guadalcanal airfield mid-board. The Japanese came in from the north and east edges. This was an infantry heavy game with a a new terrain type (jungle). Troops that were not jungle-trained (the Americans) fought at half-strength in the trees.
Most of the fighting happened on the eastern part of the board as the Japanese sought to evict the Americans from the airfield. The Americans got lucky in the first two turns, dropping a huge barrage on the hex containing the Japanese combat engineers (using an event) and then rolled high during the followup attack and wiped them out. This took away much of the Japanese punch against the American entrenchments. Probably this moment decided the game.
What followed was a long grind in the middle of the board, as wave after wave of infantry hit the Americans and then fell back. We used the offensive and defensive tactics in this game more than in other scenarios because there were so few tank units. The tactics offered the best chance for local victories.
By the end of the game, the Japanese were exhausted and conceded, withdrawing before the time limit. In retrospect, attacking along a broader front might have been a better approach because it would have strung out the Americans more and reduced their ability to mount spoiling attacks.
Overall, Rommel did a good job handling the infantry-dense Pacific theatre with only one special rule. I can count the number of Pacific theatre ground games I've played over the years on one hand and this was definitely the best, with hard choices and lots of tension.
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