Saturday 25 April 2020

Preparing for first game of WW2 desert campaign turn 3

Campaign turn 2 had the Allied forces successfully halt the Axis advance. The Axis misfortune continued with no supples arriving for campaign turn 3. This presents the Allied commander with a choice of directing their supplies, which did arrive, to:

  1. Refitting and re-equipping divisions
  2. Digging in with prepared positions and wait for the next attack
  3. Launch an attack (or counterattack in the current campaign context)

Allied forces have 3 reasonably unscathed divisions, and intelligence indicating the supply difficulties for Axis forces. The Allied commander decides to launch a counterattack led by an armoured brigade on the coast. The opposition is revealed as the Italian Pavia infantry division with some supporting armour (all infantry have some supporting armour in this campaign).

Campaign map at the start of turn 3

With the next action decided terrain cards were drawn and laid out. Axis forces as the defenders selected their base edge.

Axis force selects base edge.
Having decided their edge, the next step was to determine if they wanted to switch any adjacent cards forwards and backwards from their base edge. They chose to switch some hills with the road. This had the effect of not only providing good defensive terrain on their base edge, but it also means there will be only one object on the whole tabletop. Note - only hills, escarpments and towns can be objectives.

Axis commanders switches one terrain card (backwards or forwards comparative to the base edge)

The Allied commander using the option of switching terrain side to side comparative to the base edge. Moves the road into the centre allowing them to bring up reserves quickly and deploy on either flank easily.

Final card switch by the attacking Allies and objective identified.
Once all terrain was switched the single objective from the three hills was decided by a dive roll. All is now ready to setup the tabletop once I clear it of a Jacobite game.

Soon to to finished game



13 comments:

  1. Looking forward to battle, Peter.

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  2. As always nice to see how the terrain is decided and, in the case, which hill is the objective. Looking forward to seeing how the Allies fare in attack.

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    1. It is a strong defensive position and will not be easy for the attackers.

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  3. The forces in the Jacobite game look amazing, even as flats, an aerial style photo looks just great.

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    1. Thanks. I have two paper armies (Jacobites and 1066) and I am starting a new WSS project.

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  4. Thanks Peter. Am I right in thinking that the Defender puts his Divisional counters face down blind without knowing what they are - or are they just blind to the attacker?

    Cheers

    Simon

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    1. Hi Simon, as a solo player I take the role of attacker and shuffle all the defending counters, placing them face down. The attackers remain face up and can be repositioned if desired. Thanks, Peter

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  5. I am reminded once again how much I like your hand drawn maps and map cards!

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    1. Thank you. They are quite fun to make.

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  6. Looking forward to it, and I agree with your force structure; it's North Africa, even the 'infantry only' units gotta have some armor! ;)

    V/R,
    Jack

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    1. Thanks. The addition for armour is partly because the origin of the rules themselves are geared to armour, and from what I have read it appears infantry required attached armour to be effective.

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    2. Peter,

      "...and from what I have read it appears infantry required attached armour to be effective."
      Plus it's just more fun that way! ;)

      V/R,
      Jack

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