Dug in at Sidi Omar

 The first scenario I ran at our recent Command and Colours day was the Memoir 44 scenario for Sidi Omar, which took place on November 25th 1941 during Operation Crusader. iirc Rommel dashed for the Egyptian border, only to run into 3rd Indian Motorised Brigade and 1st Army Tank Brigade. 

3rd Indian (Mot) Brigade facing off against 21st Panzer Div. Each element is roughly a half battalion for this scenario, so on this front the Allies have a brigade with six infantry units and a 25pdr Field Artillery Regiment. The Allies were commanded by John and Andrew.

1st Army Tank Brigade has a mix of Matildas and Valentines, which was handy, as that was what I had in my box of tanks. These are all rated as Heavy Tanks, so take four hits each, but being infantry tanks, they are also slow, so only move two. The Spitfire is there in case someone draws an air power card.

21st Panzer has four tanks and a couple of infantry units. The tank on the far left is accompanied by a heroic leader. In the original scenario this is shown as a heavy tank, I've no idea what that is supposed to represent irl. The "leader" is an excuse to field my Sdkfz 251/3 command halftrack.

While 15th Panzer has three tanks, three infantry and an artillery piece. The Fiat G50 is from Tims box of planes.

Pete took the Germans for this game.

The first game, as Memoir 44 so often does, degenerated into a huge tank battle almost at once. I guess the high movement rates, range and firepower of armour encourages players to engage them early.

Soon there were damaged and burning tanks scattered all over the desert, with honours roughly even,

The British tanks heavy armour saved them for a bit longer. By now the German infantry was moving up in support. 

In a shock move, one of the German infantry made a dash for the British base line, using the generally useless 'Behind Enemy Lines' card - which allows one infantry unit to move up to three, fight then move another three.

There were exit victory hexes behind the Indian position, the German got 1 VP for each unit exited.

Somewhat battered, the Germans made it! Well on their way to Egypt. I marked the exit hexes with some of my EWM oil drums and ammo crates. 

By now the rest of the Germans were a bit thin on the ground, whereas the Matildas were unscathed.

They proceeded to run around crunching German units under their tracks, and fairly soon the British claimed a victory.

Off we went again for a second go. The players swapped sides, so Pete took the British, Andrew and John took the Germans. In a change of pace, the Germans opened with a huge infantry attack in the centre.

Helped by cards like this one.

Fairly soon the Germans were assaulting the Indian positions on the Ridge. 

The leading Indian positions were eventually overwhelmed, but the German infantry was a bit tatty by now. The British armour decided to intervene.

And it all kicked off into another massive tank battle. 

Astonishingly, another German unit managed an end run off the table.

The Germans had now racked up lots of kills, and the Panzers swarmed this unfortunate Valentine, its demise was enough to give the Germans victory. So that is 1:1 Axis to Allies.

We then had a big player changeover. Dave took the British and Bish the Germans. These two players were bit less experienced and took a while to think their moves over. The Germans pushed both infantry forward in the centre and tanks forward on the left.

Once again the Indian right front was engaged.

Supported by armour from 15th Panzer on their left.

Having enticed the German tanks, forward, the British played their trump card - Armoured Assault.

All four British armoured elements rolled forward, and with the combat bonus given by the card, obliterated all four opposing German tank units with minimal losses. 

The Germans tried to snatch victory with an all out assault on the Indians.

Although it had some success, their earlier losses had been too heavy, and the German attack collapsed. Final score, Allies: 2 Axis:1, which tbh I was a bit surprised at. An interesting feature of this scenario is that both sides have the same command rating, partly to reflect the German surprise at encountering this position I suspect.

That was a very good scenario, and warrants replay. Each playing took around 45 minutes to an hour, excluding setup.