A little something new....

Well the latest project has quickly come about as we decided to explore a new theatre in WW2.

All Ready with expansive forces in the European theatre of war ranging from Kursk and Normandy through to the Fall of the Reich in 15mm we decided to turn our attention away from these theatres to the war in North Africa in the year1942/43 although this time in 10mm using Blitzkrieg commander rules. My dad had recently ran a game with Robbie at a local show using Robbies beautiful 15mm British/italian collection using Blitzkrieg commander and this had wet his appetite to have a crack at gaming this period. We decided to go with Rommels DAK army group as the opponents for Montys desert Rats as as mentioned Robbie already has the Italian army covered. All the models featured in the two armies are from Pendrakens 10mm range.

Monty and Rommel in there matching transports. (Rommel stole his)

So with more than enough figures and more importantly tanks painted we ran a trial game at the weekend to help get me up to speed with the rules as I've only had a couple of games a while back fighting Normandy games. So with a sand coloured sheet purchased and some Palm trees and buildings we played a game with me taking control of the British attacking a small settlement held by a small German force who were to be reinforced with Rommels Panzers. Rather than write a blow for blow account of the game I have just added some pictures of the action seen as though it was more a trial and error game. What I can say was in the short time we did play there was plenty of action, tank duels and the customary BLUNDERS!

Matilda and Grant tanks with a 6pdr A/T gun

A German Grenadier platoon supported by Marder III tank hunters and Pak 38 A/T guns

British Cruisaders with infantry in support and a boffers A/A gun

A Stukka dive bomber swoops in on the Matilda's

Panzer III tanks join the defense of the buildings

More Crusaders join in the attack as a universal recce team scouts out the German positions.

British Honeys prove no match for the Panzer III's 

The arrival of a Hurricance fighter plane evens up the fire fight

The British advance under the cover of smoke from a pre programmed barrage.

Panzer II's swarm over the hill to engage the Matilda's 

The Attack on the German settlement entensefies

The result of a tank fire fight in the desert, smoking tanks everywhere!

British infantry make a belated rush to assault the German defenders under air cover

The final positions on the battlefield 

The game played great and was completely different to our usual WW2 games, there is definitely no place to hide in the desert with your tanks so it led to a much more open game as opposed to the cat and mouse games you become involved in the Normandy theatre especially. The rules I felt were a perfect fit for this area of the war, I think maybe I enjoyed them more this time as they have a feel of Blackpowder about them, (which I have been gaming quite abit lately) with command rolls been required to activate your units and so on. One thing we did take from this game though was we will need to purchase some more smoke markers, 12 burning tanks in total during this game which we didn't even have time to finish :)