Wednesday 9 March 2005

Desert War campaign - Blitzkrieg Commander

I have started a small scale desert war campaign, set in November 1941. It is centred around a fictional town on the coastal road, 'somewhere in North africa'. The Germans have orders to capture the town, the Brits to hold it all costs.

Here is the simple map, divided into 9 zones, each zone representing a tabletop battlefield.

desert map.gif

After selecting initial forces (I cannot yet reveal all the details as the players may come and read this site), I asked each player to give orders. The British player, General Darcy Orion-Belt, a rising star in the 8th Army, dug troops in on the Coast and [deleted by the military ce nsor] inland. The Germans are led by Horst Von Schmukkelgrubber fresh from his miserable defeats in the Belgian campaign (another game, where Bart's Belgians heroically slaughtered a German expeditionary force, led by the young Horst). Herr Horst attacked along the coast, and meeting a blocking force at Al Vettah veered south over Wechta Ridge (in the north west part of zone E). There they found a British battalion and supporting armour dug in and waiting.

At this stage, the players deployed troops on table. The British basically in a horseshoe around the ridge very near the corner of the table. The Germans came on within 12 inches of them, so battle was quickly joined. In addition to the preset forces, I randomly allocated artillery and air support.

So we played two turns of the game, by then it was midnight so we decided to leave it until next week. Happily, our host Kurt has a huge unused living room, now occupied by Kurt's co;puter workshop and tables for wargaming so we can leave the troops set-up. He does have some clients coming to visit on Friday, for a demonstration of a remote controlled camera that Kurt has designed (he's a clever guy, Kurt) so he may have some explaining to do. Perhaps he will claim that he is inventing a computer wireless controlled toy set?

I'm afraid you'll have to wait for next week for photos and a game report. Suffice to say that Kurt has learnt about the futility of British armour faced with an 88mm gun. Bart has run into a minefield. The German artillery is pounding the British position. But nearly two companies of Germans have fallen casualty to fine British firepozer...

1 comment:

  1. Alan,
    Sounds like great fun. I've also selected the Crusader period for my NA project for BKC in 10mm. I'm using my old copy of GDWs Operation Crusader for the OB.
    David

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