City Fight - The battle for Central Park

We're on a roll now.  We re-organised our board for a different style of city battle. This time we have a city around a central park with plaza and fountains.
The different challenges this posed were:

• Multiple levels with the Terrace housing, church and Stone Hotel.
• Open areas by the roads and parks.  The distance between the houses on either side of the park is 24 inches.  Infantry can fire across the centre area, but at long range into buildings.
• Walls around the park meant anyone on ground level mostly had hard cover - except through the openings.

• Vehicles were unable to cross the centre via the roads or paved areas due to bollards (dragon's teeth) or the fountain.  Tanks could smash through the walls or Armoured cars could fit through the openings, but this was not as straight forward.
• The trees provided some good blocking of sight.

As always, theories abounded, but we had to test it out.

My eldest son visited today and we showed him the board. His eyes shone and he asked, "Can we play a game?"
So we had a 4 player game. Once more, 4 x 600 point armies, using 2 dice bags.
This time the British replaced their Mortar and one squad of infantry for a Cromwell.
This worked very well as in turn one she did well and blew up the Panzer III, destroying the cover the Waffen SS squad was using.
The other German player decide to use a Puma, with one normal Heer squad and 2 Volks Grenadier units, with a MMG and Heavy Mortar.
The Recce proved a valuable benefit with the Puma zooming in and out of danger all game.
The Australian Vickers did a rush to the Stone Hotel but was caught in the open and destroyed by the Puma.
In Turn 3 two of the Australian squads advanced from the houses to the park walls, ready to claim the objective.

The German Heavy Mortar had a shot, needing a 6 to hit.  Boom! A hit, with 10 hits and 9 casualties, leaving only the NCO wondering what had just happened.
Meanwhile the German MMG was well placed in a second story room overlooking the objective and firing at will.
On the British flak, the Airborne veterans raced across, tagging the objective and killing the German HQ.  Then in Turn 5 they assaulted the German Veteran Heer squad, killing them thanks to the "Tough as Boots" British army bonus.
In Turn 6 the Waffen SS unit passed morale and was just in range and managed to defeat the British Airborne with only 3 survivors, managing to get within 3 inches of the objective using the Close Assault re-organisation.  The British last squad raced out of their houses and shot the surviving Germans.  But they couldn't move any closer so the objective remained German.
Meanwhile, the Australians managed to charge the last squad and HQ to capture their objective on Turn 6. It was a draw, but... There was a turn 7.
The British simply moved forward and claimed their objective. All the Australians had to do was hold theirs.
But it was not to be.
The MMG killed some of the Australian Squad.  The Australians killed 2 of the 3 German HQ unit. The surviving German officer charged the Australian HQ and defeated them in close combat.  The 2 surviving Volks Grenadiers (who had upgraded to Veteran) assaulted the surviving Australian squad and won the melee.
The last 3 German soldiers from the Heer squad passed morale and ran to the objective claiming it for Germany.
A draw!  But with the objective swapped in the last turn.
This was another classic Bolt Action game with plenty of "Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda" moments and cries of agony and exultation at dice results.
So how long did the 4 player, 1200 point game take to play all 7 turns?  2 hours!
This is definitely the way to play multi-player Bolt Action games.