In The Style Of El Alamein

We played a game of Blitzkrieg Commander last night, using 15mm figures and a scenario based on, I think, part of El Alamein. Dug-in Italians, supported by German armour faced an attack from Australians. There was flat desert and tanks aplenty.

My tanks attempt to move into position, but failed command rolls meant that this took some time.

The Commonwealth forces get themselves organisied. Their command rolls were worse than mine, including a number of early blunders.

Australian infantry advances.

My tanks form up behind the cover of a railway line.

One of our more unusual vehicles - an amphibious ... thing.

The British armour pushes towards our lines.

The Germans still attempting to get into position. This tank company had lost a couple of elements to artillery fire.

Some Shermans strayed too close the the active Italian anti-tank guns.

The Italian positions. They suffered a couple of heavy artillery barrages, but just ended up suppressed. They also fought off several air attacks.

At last - the Germans get a proper defence line together. Just as the Commonwealth forces pull back from that particular axis of advance.

Geoff's face says it all; the Australian infantry is wiped out by an artillery barrage. From their own artillery.

At that point, with most of their infantry gone, and the Germans and Italians still in strong positions, the Commonwealth players conceded. Our defence lines were strong, and some good artillery barrages would have been required early on to weaken us. As it was poor command rolls on the part of the Australians kept us safe. The battle was won by the side that made the fewer poor command rolls, in fact.

Thanks to Ralph for putting together the scenario, and to various people for providing figures and terrain.

By the way, we discovered that if you order the print copy of BKCII from Lulu, what you get is a copy of BKCI. At least that's what had happened to two players.