Well the Germans had the bit between their teeth and were obviously intent on winding up the first campaign series of Bloody Battles with a win.

Set in the final channel port objectives of Oostende, Dunkirk and Calais, with and additional bonus objective of Le Touquet, by the final day these were all captured and the Allies were forced off the mainland and back to Blighty. This gives the Germans the win based solely on Victory Condition 1, that being "kick the enemy off the map" and the points tally that would be used in the event of Victory Condition 2 happening (first to 90 points) ended up being irrelevant to the final result as Victory Condition 1 proved to be that result.

There was a great deal of manoeuvre warfare involved in this final phase, a pattern that was actually set in the preceding several phases but came to a high peak in this final phase. Battles raged north and south of the objective line, and eventually both east and west of it too. The Allies made the first gains of the phase with a bold and audacious capture of Arras, the spiritual home of the BEF in France, which was also their additional bonus objective.

While a bloody nose was dealt their German opponent with this bold stroke in the south, it cost the northern flank dearly. Realizing the prize would depend on the channel port objectives, the Germans stacked the line in the north and ground down the American and British divisions holding there with at times twice as many brigades of their own. It was a bloody war of attrition and after the first channel port of Oostende fell, the 5 German brigades used for that attack were down in number to less that a regular single brigade. The Allied forces were in equally poor a state having expended everything they could muster for the entire fist day and night of the battle.

Until reinforcements could be moved up, or brigades replenished, it would be a day of "supply bluff" for both sides. Moving as much of their forces as possible north to slow the loss and retake some if not all of the channel coast towns they had lost, the Allies were soon between a rock and a hard place with the Germans pushing back in the south and flanking around the main points of strong Allied defense, creating cut off pockets and strangling the Allied defense at every opportunity.

It was an ugly last day, albeit the fighting everywhere was intense and running at an emotionally charged level. One could safely declare that this was war! War at it's bloodiest level!

The German forces made a clean sweep of all ground objectives in the end. Well done all those involved. Including the defenders who couldn't also post a final win simply because someone has to lose so that there be a winner. Everyone we spoke to in the daily and nightly battles was having a pretty good time and we at CRS learned a lot of things we can use to make things even better in the future.

It might sound cliche but in our books you're all winners.

Points summary:-

Germans held Zeebrugge - 7 points
Germans held Lille - 7 points
Germans took Oostende - 5 points
Germans took Dunkirk - 5 points
Germans took Calais - 5 points
Germans took Le Touquet - 3 points
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German total point tally = 32 points
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Allies won the bombing - 4 points