"A Spot of Early WW2 Desert Action" Topic

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Back to some gaming action this week at YG.

A re run of an Op Brevity Scenario we did a couple of years ago. Another great game with a different outcome.

I try and design games to be full of chance, luck and confusion so that the same game played twice is never the same.

We see a plucky group of Italians holding a defensive position being attacked by a larger British and Empire Force with German reinforcements on the way to (hopefully) save the day.

There is a link back to the previous game for maps and orbats etc along with lots of pics.

Hope you enjoy.

Regards Ken
The Yarkshire Gamer

Great theatre of ops and I really love your attention to the earlier period.

Terrific AAR. Wonderful looking table and terrain. The figures and tanks are awe inspiring. Did you make the explosion/burning markers?

Good to be reminded WWII wasn't all Russia and Normandy.

Impressive.

Looks wonderful

Interesting, but the palm forests/groves(?) are out of place.

Thank you for your kind comments, here's a picture of some palm trees outside a Fort in Libya, for the doubters,

Very nice kit indeed there. I like a bit of desert mayhem. My deepest regret is that they retired the Caunter scheme before they ever put it on a Grant or a Sherman.

The Jebel el Akdhar area of north Africa, Cyrenaica roughly, is remarkably green and not at all flat. Palm and olive trees definitely in order.

This is the area O'Connor skirted south of to cut the Italians off at Beda Fomm. When Rommel arrived it's the area through which the Commonwealth troops fell back.

Siwa Oasis is likewise impressively green. You tend to think of an oasis as three trees round a pond, but at 600 square miles Siwa is getting on for the size of Hertfordshire.

Great pictures of a very nice game. Thanks for sharing.

Love your vehicles and your terrain.

So a couple of small palms make a palm forest? And of course no battles were fought in or near either Jebel el Akdhar or the Siwa oasis.

But in the end it doesn't matter what I say or thin it's your game and yo can put anything you want on the table.

Our tabletops are never near as varied and random as real life. The game looks awesome!

Again areas where the war wasn't fought. The first and second pictures are sand dunes those are deeper in the desert than where the armies traveled and fought, except maybe the LRDG. The large rocks in the middle picture would have made that area impassable to armor wheeled vehicles.

I'm slightly at a loss to how this thread has gone, I have done a fictional scenario based somewhere in a large area of the Libya Egypt Border with a fictional Italian Fort.

I have 6 palm trees on my 12 x 6 ft table which cover less than a foot sq. I have even put up a picture up of a Fort in that area at that time showing palm trees (only 2 out of 6, shock, horror). If the cameraman panned to the right there might even be 7 trees. I don't see what the issue is.

There is a saying here in Yarkshire "wind tha neck in".

I'm with you Yark – no idea what is happening here

Thanks Marc, 4th Cuirass, 47Ronin & TonyS you are legends.

I'm with you too, Yark, I think you did a fine job of it.
Can't please everyone I suppose.

Great pics! What rule set did you use?

Hi alphus99, we use a home brew set, a mix of Iron Ivan WW2 with a sprinkling of toofatlardies with some event cards for fun !

I should add that, re that photo of Siwa, the derelict buildings in the foreground are interesting because you can see the thickness of the walls – which is, not very. I had long thought the walls of the Airfix Desert Outpost were too thin. On the basis of that photo, yes they are, but not by that much.

Regarding the rocky terrain around the palm trees above, I vaguely recall one account where they were complaining about the damage the rocks were doing to their wheeled vehicle suspensions, so they must have driven through it occasionally.

Lovely looking game and models. I'm inspired to paint up my Perry's after seeing this.