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News from the North: ‘Rommel in the desert’ (Columbia)
Charlie is turning up tonight with Rommel in the Desert – Phil is rubbing his hands with glee, he thinks he is about to be taken back to his adolescence where many Saturday afternoons were lost amid the desert of North Africa and the peregrinations of the Afrika Korp.
Rommel came about after the previous week’s game of Napoleon’s triumph where Phil very happily whipped the Austrians round the map - the highlight being a heavy cavalry charge to shatter the lead Allied corps. Charlie mentioned that Rommel hadn’t yet been played and Phil felt obliged to offer to try it out. Warning signs, however mounted up early: the rules email ran to thirty-six pages; Charlie offered to let Phil choose a different game; Phil’s rules-read lasted two hours. Hmmm, could be a long night!
6.30pm and Charlie is ensconced. It is to be the first scenario. The idea is that Charlie’s Italians are going to slog forward into Egypt, so that Phil’s mish-mash of Allied troops can cut their supply lines, force them to surrender in droves and drive to the other end of the map. The British have mobility on their side, a better rate of supply replenishment, more armour and a position close to their base; the Italians on the other hand don’t have much going for them – lots of plentiful cannon fodder, no need to actually go anywhere and that’s about it.
There are a lot of rules, but they do contain several very original ideas. Movement comes in two types - either a group of units from one hex (and the six hexes surrounding it) can concentrate into one target hex, or units from one hex can scatter out from it in any direction. To complicate matters, only two units can cross a hexside during any one turn, (some hexsides allow only one unit). Pushing lots of units into a combat thus needs a lot of setting up. Phil can feel a headache starting about now.
Fortunately, the unit density comes as a pleasant surprise: Charlie has eight blocks on the map, Phil a mere five. Play begins and, in the manner of a Matilda heavy tank taking a detour through the Qatarra depression, the lads are soon bogged down. There’s a lot of everything knocking around in the rules book: routs, disruptions, pursuit fires, disengagements, and that’s just running away. To make things worse, Phil has had the bright idea of saving paper by printing his rules pages back to back; unfortunately half are upside down, the page numbers run in both directions and he’s forgotten to staple them. Charlie develops a faint sheen of sweat and calls for a very early second cup of tea.
Matters are not helped by Phil’s daughters being in happily sociable mood. “Who’s winning?” asks Daughter #2 on one of her visits. “We’ve only just started.” Cue pitying look. Charlie arrived over half an hour ago.
Phil opts for a lightweight defence of the coast road. Massed Italian infantry create a meat-grinder effect and shred Phil’s clearly inadequate force. “How do I retreat?” Search the rules book. Apparently it can be done without penalty (armour moves faster than infantry and so can avoid Pursuit fire). “I could have retreated before the combat then” says Phil. Charlie is magnanimous and Phil does so.
More interruptions. Daughters are watching the X-factor results and feel that a running commentary on what Simon Cowell has said to some poor deluded wannabe is just what a game of Rommel in the Desert really needs.
Meanwhile Phil apologetically drives two large armoured brigades into Charlie’s successful infantry, rolls four fives, wins a Ford Fiesta and creams the defenders. In the manner of England openers on the first morning of a Test Match, things are beginning to get a little easier.
Pepper the Dog needs to be let out. Time for a very early glass of wine. Charlie’s flank attack retreats back through the desert. Phil begins to mass his own flanking move. Things are looking up for the British.
And then daughters decide to fall out. “One more word from either of you and it will be bed straight away.” Charlie chuckles indulgently. He can afford to: his daughter is only seven and Armageddon is still a few years away. But it will come.
Phase one of Phil’s plan unravels. His storming flank attack runs into two Italian armoured brigades and lots of supporting infantry. No one is going anywhere very soon.
Phase 2 of Phil’s plan now also goes wrong. Instead of rushing his recon unit up to the coast to cut the Italian supply lines, he uses it to cover two brigades disengaging from the tank battle. Charlie burns two supply cards to charge an infantry unit into the stack and drives the whole mass backward in rout.
Daughters are now banished downstairs. (X factor is over; some bunch of young women wearing very little clothing has gone out of the competition). Threats are made to daughters and duly ignored - back to the desert. It’s time to throw in a last-ditch attack along the coast road. It is successful. Amazing! Unfortunately Phil failed to notice a pass leading from Bardia into his rear (so to speak); his last hope is surrounded and out of supply; by the end of this turn he will have no units left whatsoever. He also has gone out of the competition.
There’s time for a brief chat about how it went. Both players (surprisingly) are up for a return to the desert in the near future. Charlie departs and there is just enough time for Daughter #2 to resurface.
“Dad, before mum gets home can you iron me my school trousers?”
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