Logic Masters Deutschland e.V.

Intro

For this Hybrid Star Battle Series I will be sharing a new puzzle each week combining Star Battle with another puzzle genre. This week's genre is Easy as ABC, and is the first genre suggested in the comments (by szabog, back on #006). Thanks for the inspiration!

This is the first genre in the series that involves a Latin Square (if you ignore the empty cells, anyway), and turned out trickier both to set and to solve than I first expected. I find it particularly difficult to scan the letters, so I've included links to versions that use the numbers instead - they should solve the same way, though :) Hope you enjoy!

Rules

Standard Easy as ABC and regionless Star Battle rules apply, where two of the Easy as ABC letters act as the stars.

• Easy as ABC: Place letters from the range A-F into some cells so that each row and column contains each letter once. A clue outside the grid represents the first letter seen in the corresponding row or column from that direction.
• Star Battle: Two of the "Easy as ABC" letters obey Star Battle rules: these letters may not touch themselves or each other, not even diagonally. The solver must determine which letters they are.
  • For example, in the 1-star example, the letter C does not touch itself in the grid.
  • For example, in the 2-star example, the letters B and C do not touch themselves or each other in the grid.
  • Note: in the example images, a star is used to help highlight these cells, but no star is needed for the solution check, only the letters (or numbers) are required.

Links

Solve on Penpa+ with Letters or with Numbers

5x5 1-star Example (Penpa+ link with Letters or with Numbers):

8x8 2-star Example (Penpa+ link with Letters or with Numbers):