Field Commander Rommel

 Tim came over recently and we spent a day looking at boardgames (and eating biscuits).

 

Tim brought these three over.  I was particularly excited by High Seas Fleet which is a beautifully producde WW1 version of War at Sea. No Retreat is a set of WW2 desert games with individual maps covering specific campaigns (Compass, Crusader, Gazala etc) which can also be strung together into a grand campaign. Nice big counters and nice big hexes!

The main event was Field Commander Rommel though. A solo game covering Rommels campaigns in France 1940, North Africa and France 1944, so three for the price of one! We decided to play the North African campaign as we seem to be on a bit of a desert kick at the moment. Although it is a solo game, we played as a team game, which is easy enough to do.

It covers the period from April 1941 when the Afrika Korps arrived in Africa up until the end of 1942. The units are divisions (and some brigades), and turns are of varying length, from one to three months.

The game uses area movement, and the German stacking limit is determined by distance from Tripoli. In Tripolitania they can stack 3 units, in Cyrenicia 2 units and in Egypt just one unit per area. They can stack extra units in each area, but they cost a supply point each - a very nice way of modelling the issues of logistic reach.

The units have the usual ratings - attack, defence, movement. Units can move one area for free, each extra area (up their movement allowance) also cost a supply point. Supply is really important.

The attack and defence scores are the dice roll (equal or less) required to score a hit - most units have two steps. Some units, typically armoured units, can score multiple hits if they roll low enough.

The Allies start with a couple of divisions in Tobruk, Guards motorised brigade in Benghazi and 2nd Armoured Division at El Agheila - at this time equipped largely with captured Italian M11/39s.

The Axis start with four Italian infantry divisions, Ariete and Trento armoured and motorised divisions plus 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions. As you might expect, 15 and 21 PD are pretty good. We started by attacking 2nd AD with 15 and 21 PD, supported by an Italian Division to absorb casualties. We burned a supply point to stack a fourth division, but otherwise the Italians were strung out behind to save on supplies.

Each side has a number of 'battle plans' - these are analogous to the tactics options in Sam Mustaphas 'Rommel' and are things like AT guns, 'scavange' which lets you recover supply points, 'press' which lets you fight an extra round, 'exploit' which lets you move one unit another area and fight again etc. The cards cost anything from one to four points to use, the budget to spend on them determined by the number and nationality of units - one per Italian and two per German unit, so we had six points to spend.

We really wanted to ensure the destruction 2 AD so picked options which let as fight two rounds, roll results again etc. One of the most useful German options is 'intel' which randomly removes on enemy plan - some of the British plans are really powerful and you want to remove them before fighting.

The British also get battle plans, determined by the number of units and their supply state. The British often have lots of supplies, so get lots of battle plans. These are drawn randomly, which is how the Brits can end up with really powerful ones like artillery, airstrikes and the dreaded 'reinforcement' event.

2 AD was duly routed at the expense of one hit which we took on the Italians - casualties are democratic and start with the units with the lowest attack factors. Exploiting, 15th Panzer managed to overrun the Guards Brigade too.

If you defeat enemy units, you can upgrade one unit for each enemy destroyed. Naturally we put both the upgrades on the panzers, which both became veterans. These are drawn randomly and have varying effects - adding to combat values or allowing units to draw more battle plans.

Anyway, having routed the British troops on the frontier, 15 and 21 PD eyed up Tobruk and decided to attack it. If you can take Tobruk early there are big supply bonuses. 15 and 21 PD were both now veterans, and it was 'only' held by the Australians and a garrison unit.

Naturally the attack went catastrophically wrong as the Allies drew 'reinforcement' and an entire extra division arrived in Tobruk. 15th Panzer destroyed and 21st Panzer reduced to one step. That is the downside of not bringing any infantry support to absorb losses.

Losing 15 PD was a disaster, we didn't realise quite how much of a disaster at the time. You can get destroyed units back by spending supply points to resurrect them and then supply points to ship them back to Africa. The shipping cost is based on attack value though, so we could ship five Italian infantry divisions for the cost of one Panzer Division...

The British put more troops into Tobruk and busily built up in Egypt (this is all randomised). We weren't strong enough take Tobruk now so I burned a ton of supply points rebuilding 15 PD (you can see it motoring to the front on the top left) while besieging Tobruk. 21 PD and Trento held the northeast sector, Ariete and 90th Light the southeast sector and a couple of Italian infantry the west.

You get more supply the more ground you hold and the more enemy units you destroy, and we only held Tripolitania and were defending so the supplies were trickling in.

The British were busy however, and having shipping 1st Armoured Div into Tobruk, decided to mount Operation Crusader! 1st Armoured sortied from Tobruk , 7th Armoured Div attacked Ariete and a mass of Commonwealth infantry hurled themselves a the frontier defences.

Much to our amazement, we managed to hold them off! Sadly with so many enemy units, we didn't manage to destroy any of them just inflict lots of hits, and at the expense of all our frontline units being reduced to half strength. We burned what supplies we had bringing our units back up to strength and hurrying 15 PD to the front. The British naturally had lots of supplies to restore their horde of units.

No sooner had we reinforced the front, than they came back for another go. The British had a clever mechanism for mounting 'operations' which involved stacking drawn chits which built up an offensive force, and were then committed when the 'go' chit was drawn. 

21st Panzer and Trento were overrun. Ariete and 15 PD held their own, but then the British came for them too....

And were completely destroyed too! All the Axis had left were three Italian infantry divisions and 90th Light at half strength. After that drubbing, the Axis fell back to defend the chokepoint at El Agheila.

But that was to no avail as the Allied juggernaut rolled west to the extent of its seemingly boundless supplies. Starting mid 1942 there is a 'sudden death' situation when Operation Torch is mounted - it takes a roll of 7+ on a D6, reducing by one per turn thereafter. Naturally we rolled a six. During the turn, the score is modified by each Axis unit destroyed that turn, and with El Agheila overrun and three more Axis units destroyed, that made a modified roll of nine and game over. Rommel had been kicked out of the Western Desert in summer 1942. What a disaster!

Well, that run was a bit less successful than Tims solo run earlier where he'd managed to drive the British back to the gates of Cairo. It went wrong early on and we never really recovered the initiative. What a clever game and with vey high replay value. BGG review, resources etc here: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28829/field-commander-rommel