Panzer Battles North Africa 1941

by

 Wargame Design Studio 

 Now that I have caught your attention, "Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus". Or at least a few elves working hard on the above game. This would be Wargame Design Studio's third 'Panzer Battles' game. The first was 'Battles in Normandy' followed by 'Battles of Kursk Southern Flank'. These are both excellent games in their own right. Now they are going to be joined by their younger brother, North Africa. I have said this before in reviews, and I will probably say it again. I am not a big North African campaign fan, at least once the Germans show up. I do like wargaming the early battles with the Italians and British. There is however, one campaign that sets me to drooling like Pavlov's dogs and that is the airborne invasion of Crete. So this misnamed game has not only the early North Africa battles, but it also has the battles for Crete. Oh, and by the way, did I mention that it has battles from Crete!!!

Game screen showing terrain

 This is a list of some of the battles and operations included:

North Africa:

Compass

Sonnenblume

Tobruk

Brevity

Battleaxe

Crusader

Beda Fomm

Bardia

Sidi Barrani 

Greece:

Corinth Canal

Crete:

Maleme

Retimo

Heraklion

Galatas

Italian Division break down

The Panzer Battles games are meant to be the midway games between John Tiller's 'Panzer Campaigns' and their 'Squad Battles' games. Much like Goldilocks, many of us wargamers have found a sweet spot in this third helping from WGS and JTS. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the other games. It is just the 'Panzer Battles' games are small enough at times to wet that whistle, and large enough at others for those cravings. 

Different Nationalities in the game

 Now, we can get into the long running argument. The AI in John Tiller Software is no good. If you are still spouting off that mantra please crawl out from under your rock and take a look again at all of the games mentioned circa 2018 and not 2001. Just like every other game designed recently, or retrofitted, North Africa has been developed with a ton of players against AI scenarios that will fit anyone's bill. There are also a large number of games for people who only want to play by PBEM or Hotseat etc. There are plenty of demos for a wargamer to try now of the different JTS products, so do yourself a favor and come back to the light.

First Turn In One of The Heraklion Scenarios

 From the newer graphics to the battle sounds that will blow you away, (literally if you turn the sound up too loud in Panzer Battles Kursk), you would be amazed how these 'old' type of wargames play today. Yes, this based on a two dimensional map with hexes. No, this does not have cute tanks running through the desert wastes. Yes, this game is great and deserves all the praise it gets. The one thing about WDS is that they are constantly working on and upgrading many of the various JTS products. The only thing I would have liked them to add was more battles from Greece, both from the Italian and then subsequent German invasions. 

First Turn In One of The Maleme Scenarios

First Turn Corinth Canal Scenario

 Look for a review of this game once it has been released. So as a wrap up, it has tons of scenarios, many that are meant to be played against the AI. The sound and visuals are up to today's standards, and you can make your own or fiddle to your heart's content with the scenarios it comes with. It also has campaigns or separate battles both large and small. To top it all off, it has scenarios from Crete!

This is a link to an article about terrain in NA 1941:
 https://www.wargamedesignstudio.com/2018/11/01/north-africa-getting-started-terrain/

This is a link to an article about the Compass scenarios:
https://www.wargamedesignstudio.com/2018/10/18/north-africa-player-notes-operation-compass-scenarios/

This is a link to an article about the Italian forces in the game:
https://www.wargamedesignstudio.com/2018/09/28/north-africa-player-notes-the-italians/

Robert

Baptism by Fire

by

Multi-Man Publishing

 Hitler, the worlds worst poker player from 1941 on, was just as foolish in his foray in North Africa as elsewhere. The Germans had had to intervene once more for the Italians' sake in a theater of war. The Afrika Korps under Rommel gave as good as it got into late 1942. The German North African campaign is a study in what not to do logistically. Because of early foolish decisions on their part, the supply to their North African troops was spotty at best. The Afrika Korps is then beaten at the Second Battle of El Alamein in early November 1942. Then the Afrika Korps begins reeling backwards towards Tunisia. Next, the Allies invade North Africa with the Torch landings. Hitler decides to double down on a bad hand and proceeds to put in as many troops as he can spare into Tunisia instead of cutting his losses. This is the back drop for the first battle between the American Army, with some Allies, against the German Army. This battle was, in reality, a relatively inconsequential one in the scheme of World War II battles. The Germans had no real master plan for the battle (the game shows this nicely with its mechanics). All they could possibly do is forestall their inevitable defeat for a little while. So that is it for the history. 

First Counter Sheet

 Here is the components that come with the game:

• BCS rulebook (version 1.1, in full color)
• Two BCS Charts and Tables
• BCS Crib Notes Booklet
• BBF Game Specific Rulebook
• Two 22” x34” Full Color Game Maps
• 560 Counters (one sheet of units and one BCS marker sheet)
• 6 scenarios total, 3 one-map scenarios
• Box and Dice 

One part of the Map

 These are the scenarios that are included:

• Kasserine Campaign, 2 maps, 10 Turns
• Operation Spring Wind, 1 map, 4 Turns
• Mid-Campaign Start, 2 maps, 5 Turns
• Between a Rock and a Hard Place, 1 map, 5 Turns
• End Campaign Start, 2 maps, 3 Turns
• High Water Mark, 1 map, 3 Turns 

Another part of the Map

 The game itself is the second one in the 'Battalion Combat Series'; the first one was 'Last Blitzkrieg' about the Battle of the Bulge. If one were able to travel in time to say 1978, one would really only be surprised about how the components and rules of the game were miles apart from any other game you looked at. This game does not come with all the bells and whistles that some new games come with, but so what? This is a hex and counter game that any wargamer from 1978 would immediately recognize and probably want to play. Age is a thing that varies in many different things. A forty year old Ali or Tyson, not good. An eighty year old Rolls Royce is a work of art. So just because the game follows an older pattern does not really mean anything. If the original pattern for a dress still looks good today, why change it? An aside: I have no problems with bells and whistles and actually like them, however a game does not have to have them to be good. The old analogy of putting lipstick on a pig works well here.

Marker Counter Sheet

 The first thing you will notice about the components is that while the game does come with two full counter sheets, the amount of units is very small. You will not need to be juggling stacks or using tweezers in this game. The game's complexity is higher on the scale than most of the games I have been reviewing lately. To explain, this is not a knock on the game. Sometimes a deep war game is exactly what the doctor ordered. The fact that the longest scenario is ten turns, coupled with the fact that there are so few counters, helps the learning curve immensely. The game states that it is a medium complexity one, with solo gaming also getting a medium.

Back of the box

 The sequence of play is:

1. Pre-Turn Phase
   1. Reinforcements and Weather
2. Assignment
    1. Both players can change units to (or from) support and/or assign (or reassign) Arty Asset Points. There is no Assignment phase on the first turn of any scenario.
3. First Player Determination
    1. If not assigned by the scenario, both players roll two die. The highest wins.
    2. Activation Phase: Players alternate Activating Formations
    3. Flip and/or orient  HQs to their Unused sides.
4. Game Turn End
 

   As with most series games, there is a rulebook for the actual series and another smaller one for the game itself. The series rulebook is forty pages long. It is in black and white, with some red inserts for certain game features. The rulebook also has a good number of colored examples of play. The rulebook for the game itself is sixteen pages long. The actual rules for Baptism by Fire game are only four pages long. The rest of the booklet are the scenario setups and it also has four pages of designer notes and historical background. There are also two 'Series Rules Crib Notes'; these are for version 1.1 , and are very handy for the players. The charts and tables for the game are on a two-sided sheet. The maps are very well done and pleasing to the eye. They are somewhat colorful given the terrain they have to show. The counters are 1/2" in size and I have to admit they are a bit busy with the printing on them. Older eyes might have to glance at them more than once to make sure exactly which one you are looking at. They use the standard NATO symbols so that is a help. The ground scale in the game series goes from 500m to 2km per hex. The maps are huge in comparison to the amount of actual unit counters. There are two full sheets of counters, but roughly one third are actually unit counters. The Designer notes explain that because of the actual conditions during the battle, many stories show how bad the mud conditions were. The road network is much more important than most people are used to in North Africa games. One of the game's main points is to show the infighting on the Axis side about what exactly this offensive was supposed to do, or what its goal was. Rommel, Kesselring, and the Italian High Command all had their spoons in the soup. The campaign game starts on 2/14/43. The real suspense starts on the 2/19/43 turn. It is then that the Axis player pulls a chit to see which objective he is really going for; is it Tebessa or Le Kef? So up until that turn the Axis player must try and make some headway to both just in case. The Allied player is equally left in the dark for the entire game, but can usually guess by the 2/19/43 turn which one the Axis player has pulled. The other scenarios all start with the Axis player knowing what objective he is headed toward. One of the other designer features that went into the game is that the American forces did not in reality perform as badly as they have been portrayed. There were some problems at the higher echelons, but the actual individual units showed themselves pretty tough for their first time seeing the elephant. The game's other rules follow the typical wargame ones with some of its own takes on the subject. Zones of Control, Terrain effects (on movement and combat), Command radius for HQs, Stack Activation and Movement, are all here. One rule that is different than most is the ability for a player to try for a Second Activation of a Formation in one game turn. The way this is handled is immediately after the first Activation, the owning player rolls a die and checks it against the HQ's Rolled Activation Number. Attack and defense during combat is decided by the addition or subtraction of Combat Modifiers. Then two die are rolled to determine the actual consequences of combat. This is called the Combat Table instead of the CRT.


 The game is, for lack of a better word, tense. It is mostly due to the above design decisions. The game rules are based on the real world strategy of keeping your units together as a cohesive force. A player who willy nilly throws separate units about the board will pay for it. To help the new player even more, there is even a glossary of the terms used throughout the Series Rulebook on page four under '1.6 Terms'. There is also an excellent 'Designers Notes' section in Series Rulebook. This goes into the gestation of the game series and all of the thought processes that went into the rules. You will see that the Battalion Combat Series was an offshoot of the Operational Combat Series. It is a very interesting read and follows the designers' rough road to actually bring this series to what it is now. I know the first game in the series 'Last Blitzkrieg' received many kudos, but it is a monster game. Baptism by Fire will allow many players who were put off by the latter's sheer scale to enjoy the series with a much smaller time stamp. For someone who has only a small interest in the North Africa campaign, I seem to be reviewing a lot of games about it. Even with my lack of interest(I am not interested in the Battle of the Bulge either), I know a good game when I play one. The way that the game keeps both sides guessing in the longer scenarios is excellent. The Axis player has to try and push forward to both objectives. He cannot afford to gamble on one or the other. The position is reversed for the Allied player. He must defend both objectives as well as he can. MMP have come up with a real winner. Having short scenarios which only use one map makes the game playable for even people with limited space, or who can only keep a game up for so long.

 I received permission from 'Hugewally' on BGG to post these excellent inserts for the  counter bags for this game. I have never seen their like, and am kicking myself for not thinking of something like it much sooner. Speaking of BGG, the game was a nominee for the Golden Geek Best Wargame of the year in 2017.

 The game has been given a high rating by players on BGG, and here is the link to the game on BGG:

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/207568/baptism-fire-battle-kasserine






Robert

 

  

Desert War 1940-1942

by

Matrix and Slitherine Games

 We wargamers seem to be split at times into two camps. First, we have the generation that grew up on computer wargames. Second, we have the grognards that cut their teeth on board wargames before they found computer ones. To me, Desert War is very much like a board wargame ported to the computer, and not a game that was built from the ground up as a computer game. This, I think, is where the almost Jeckyll and Hyde reviews of this game have come from. The younger computer generation seems to find the game hard to get into and the UI not user friendly, while those of us who have manually picked through stacks to figure out battle odds are more at home with the game and how it plays. I know I am over simplifying each side of the argument for length's sake. 

 In terms of what games wargamers really want, the North African campaign is always near the top of any poll. I believe this is because there has been so much written about the campaign compared to many others. Rommel has been put on a pedestal as the greatest German general, and a master of tank warfare. The Italians have unfortunately been labeled as inept, and very easy to defeat. I think you would get a different answer to that label by the English soldiers who were in the desert campaigns. This desert war has been shrouded in myth, much like T.E. Lawrence and his desert war. So let us see what exactly you get when you purchase Desert War:

  "Air, Naval, and Ground Assets are off-map capabilities that can be brought into play when the owning player sees fit.
Air assets represent squadrons that can conduct counter-air, interdiction, ground attack and ground support missions. Air reconnaissance (recce) assets represent flights of two to four aircraft. Air recce assets can collect information about the location and type of enemy ground units on the map.
Naval Assets represent individual ships able to provide of ground attack and ground support missions.
Off-map Ground Assets provide additional capabilities that can influence the on-map battle. Ground Assets include electronic warfare assets, command and control (C2) activities, and Special Forces.
Unlike in many computer wargames, Desert War 1940-42 employs a WEGO system. WEGO by its nature is about the Player’s ability to plan for and manage chaos; to find solutions to perceived challenges to accomplishing the mission with the tools at hand.
In this way, every decision you make must be carefully considered. Learn to think three moves ahead and outsmart your opponent!

• Re-discover surprise on the battlefield!  The WEGO game system makes for great fun and realistic game play.
• 12 scenarios that explore the action from the Italian Invasion of Egypt in 1940 to Rommel's defeat at El Alamein in late 1942.
• Control land, air and naval forces at the battalion, air group, and individual ship level.
• Allocate Command, Special Forces and electronic warfare (EW) assets to influence the battles.
• Simple on-line gameplay using Slitherine's PBEM system.
• Full game editor; build your own maps, forces, and graphics.  Includes an AI scripting language that provides a challenging AI opponent capable of "changing its mind" based on the human player's actions.

Scenario List:

• 2nd Battle of Bardia (introductory scenario)
• Operazione E: The Reluctant Offensive, 13-20 Sep 1940
• Into The Blue: Battle of Sidi Barrani, 9-12 Dec 1940
• Beda Fomm: Death of an Army, 1-7 Feb 1941
• Enter Rommel (only Multiplayer - no SP)
• Battle of Sollum: Operation Battleaxe, 15-18 Jun 1941
• Sunday of the Dead: Battle of Sidi Rezegh, 18-24 Nov 1941
• Rats vs The Ram: Battle of Bir el Gubi, 19-21 Nov 1941
• Gazala--First Five Days, 26-30 May 1942
• Gazala--The Cauldron, 29 May - 10 Jun 1942
• Gazala--Fall of Tobruk, 11 - 21 Jun 1942
• High Tide at Alam Halfa, 30 Aug - 5 Sep 1942
• 2nd Alamein: From Lightfoot to Supercharge, 24 Oct - 3 Nov 1942"

Options Screen

   So the first thing to notice about the game that it is a WEGO, and not a IGOUGO game. This type of action is where a computerized wargame really shines. To those unfamiliar with the term WEGO means that both sides determine their moves, and then they are simultaneously played out during the movement and battle phase. Board wargames have come a long way with simulating time and fog of war, but computer wargames are still better at it. The only thing that computer games cannot replicate is the ability to see the consternation in your opponent's eyes. 

Scenario Selection Screen

 The next item to notice about the game is the large amount of different scenarios that the game comes with. The game simulates the incredible difference in warfare from 1940 to 1942, not only the large difference in the armaments, but also how it was used.  

Battle of Sidi Barrani

  The third item about the game is that is has a lot of counters. I am talking a Grigsby game amount of counters. It seems funny that I have no problem, and actually enjoy, a board wargame with hundreds of counters. However, in computer wargames it is always nice to have an AI adjutant to hand things over to such as artillery fire etc. I can see where some gamers might have a problem with the amount of counters and data that a player must absorb in order to play the game correctly.

Introductory Scenario

  The developer likes input from buyers, but also non-buyers. The game has been worked on continually from its first version until now. That is one of the biggest reasons to support different developers.

 I am not a big fan of the North African campaign so maybe it is that fact that has given me more pause than usual in digging into the game.

Second El Alamein, These are just the Axis Units

  So I am not truly ambivalent about the game. It is just that I have to be in the right state of mind to fire it up. It is not a game that you can start and then play for a half hour, and then head off to dinner. For this game I have to be ready to invest some time and to sink into my chair for a good long while. I am sure players of 'World in Flames', or 'War in the Pacific' will understand. I like the game, I just have to be ready to delve deeply into it. For those of you who like 'beer and pretzel' games, please stay far, far away. For anyone who is looking for a deep wargame, here it is. It is unbelievable to me that this started as a labor of love. This was a free download once. The game has come a long way since then, but it's still really only a hobby project. For everything that the developer has added into the game this is still hard for me to grasp.

 If you noticed, the review is late. I waited for the first patch to see if some items cleared up. I was having 'artifacts' show up on my screen after playing for a while (an artifact is a left over portion of a window that has since been closed). After seeing that no one else was complaining of this, I updated my drivers etc., and it no longer shows up. The AI in the game was another matter. In some of the scenarios the AI would not really attack at all. The developer has worked on this and has said that he would continue to look at the AI. It does seem to be better after the patch. The other thing is this review seems to be cursed, at least for me. I have lost the rough draft twice on it, which is funny because it has never happened to me before. 

 So, bottom line, this is a good to great game as long as you are interested in putting the time into learning it. One good thing about the game is the number of tutorials that have been done. Some of the best have been done by "Slick Wilhelm" from the Matrix Games forum.

Robert

In An Army at Dawn, Rick Atkinson offers a comprehensive telling of the 1942 invasion of North Africa by American and Allied forces.  The reader bears witness to every phase of what happened, from the very top decision makers, down through the ranks of officers, and finally to the tip of the spear. Even though you know the end of the story, Atkinson is able to put you in the moment, wondering, alongside the men in command, whether their forces will be able to get the job done.

The book covers a fascinating moment in the history of WW2: The before, during, and after of the first major clash between American and German ground forces. We all know history of what happened later on, the Allies rolled over Europe and into Germany, but what happened before all of that? This book covers a time when the American army was untested and hardly respected. Coming off of years spent with almost no military at all, they were now entering the single most violent and massive conflict in human history. It was little wonder that enemies and allies alike had doubts.

Atkinson has crafted my favorite kind of military history here. We see things from every perspective imaginable in the conflict. The stories of numerous individual soldiers are told in gripping detail, while their officers struggle with the burdens of command, and Eisenhower, overlooking it all, is forced to spend most of his time playing politics. At every level, Atkinson is both informative, and a good story teller.  Although the book mostly focuses on the American army, a decent number of pages are devoted to their allies and enemies, so you get a very complete picture of things. 

This book actually pushed me over the edge into buying the wonderful game Command Ops, as I finished reading it with a strong desire to capture the feeling of commanding a large ground force in battle, giving orders and then watching them filter down the chain of command.

An Army at Dawn is the first in a trilogy which goes on to cover the war in Italy and Western Europe in the same style. While I have not read the other two books yet, they are high on my list. If you are at all interested in the topic, this book will have you turning pages deep into the night.

- Joe Beard