Review

An After Action Battle Report

The armoured car pulled up behind a sand dune as a dusty OberLeutnant scrambled down the dune to report to the begoggled occupant in its cupola. "Herr FeldMarschall! Dort Druben! Ich habe Die Englandische Infantieren gesehen! Was mochten sie, jetzt?"

Rommel lowered his binoculars then sat back and surveyed his map for a moment, noting the red marks representing the unknown British units surrounding his goal - Tobruk. Then goaded into action, he gave his command, "Gerade Aus! Afrika Korps, Anschluss!"

Jon Comeaux and I sat down to play Rommel in the Desert by Columbia Games. I had only played once before (a nominal game that ended with German resignation due to the loss of all of his best units in the first battle) and Jon had yet to play. The game is made by the same people who make Napoleon and uses the same ingenious block pieces system for controlling unit strengths and the fog of war. It is a game of bluff and logistics. Woe to he who has no reserve when his supply line gets cut.

I was the Axis and started with the initiative. Jon had conservatively massed his troops at Tobruk, leaving most of Libya uncontested. I waltzed my Italians up the roads past Bengazi and acquired a few supply cards. Supply cards are very, very important. Only 2 out of every 3 is a real supply card and you have to expend them in order to advance or attack. British supply is a little more plentiful than the Axis, but as Jon happened to get a lot of dummy cards this hampered his operations later.

The next few months saw my troops massing near Tobruk in preparation for an attack, as Jon hunkered down. I was building up supplies and getting my troops into position. When my attack started, I darted around the southern flank into the deserts to take Bardia with some fast Recce units while starting a general attack on the forces outside of Tobruk. The gamble managed to cut the British supply and forced a fall-back of most of his forces to Halfaya Pass. Jon managed to re-establish his supply line (if this is cut, the units that cannot re-establish it are destroyed!), but I escaped a couple of difficult battles (where I lost my dreaded '88's! They would be sorely missed!) when he ran out of supply cards. I even managed to extract my Recce outflankers who were by now surrounded themselves! When the battle for Halfaya stabilized, my supply

situation was at low ebb and British reinforcements were starting to pile in. I backpedaled, gambled a few remaining supplies on an assault on Tobruk (now surrounded by a minefield. Uh, oh!). The battle was working out fine, but it was slow going and with all my forces just committed to this battle, I found I had committed a very grave error in not keeping a reserve! Jon now did the same tactic as I had used around Halfaya by shooting fast Recce units around into the desert and cutting my supply lines by defeating the weak Italian infantry guarding there. As I had no one left to counter attack the units blocking my supplies, the Afrika Korps was forced to surrender en mass! A decisive victory for Jon! I am looking for a rematch to recover my honour!

The game plays very fast with very fluid battles. You can basically move one group of units per turn if you can play a supply card, but you don't have to do so. Players alternate playing supplies or passing (if 2 passes are played in a row, then the play moves to the build-up phase). This gives a real interesting tempo to the game. Some turns are a swirl of back and forth commitments, trying to find that unguarded road junction to do an end run. Other turns the exhausted armies simply sit or maneuver until one side decides that the supply situation now merits an offensive. German units are tough to kill, Italians are slow, and the British are fast and many. Battles are difficult to get out of once begun. If you withdraw your units, they are disrupted and cannot defend themselves - and disrupted units die very fast. Hence, there exists the need for a reserve to retreat behind as much as to counter the unforeseen thrusts to cut supply routes. The rules are kind of difficult to decipher and the errata makes it a little tougher. Another suggested rules tweak is to allow units that retreat before combat or that retreat by partial withdrawal a chance to remain undisrupted, perhaps on a die roll of 4, 5 or 6.

I think the game is a little unbalanced in favor of the allies, but repeated play may show otherwise. We did change one rule to allow armour to attack other targets once all of the enemy armour is engaged. It seemed damn silly to have just one armoured unit able to prevent four times as many tanks from fighting the weaker infantry (at an advantage). Despite that change, we also should continue to protect AT units from unengaged infantry assaults as these units were historically deployed differently.

We also played incorrectly how to allocate fire as we set up the allocations first, then rolled (helps the Axis). Despite this, British infantry still seems far too strong in comparison to German Panzers. Most British infantry have 4 chances to score 2 sixes, while the Panzer has 6 chances to score a 5 or 6 in a straight up fight, but the reality is that there is almost always more British troops in a battle that the Axis with at least one armoured unit to nullify the panzer's dice advantage.

I would like to see the British have a slightly tougher time of it. I never felt I had the ability to force Halfaya Pass (Tobruk had 5 units inside and could break out and attack my Italians with little effort) so historical strategy seems difficult to recreate. Perhaps more of the English Motorized Infantry should be 2's or 1's at the start and there should not be so many 4 strength armoured units around. The Germans really lack plentiful, decent infantry to protect their supply lines or try to continue a battle.

All in all, a good little game, playable in an evening and deserving of replay. I give it an 8.