Club Sunday 4th March

We finally managed to reschedule our campaign finale for Operation Crusader. With the British attempt to break out from Tobruk a failure it was already an Axis victory, but now I launched my forces in a final attempt to take the city against their reduced defenders.

To make a proper finale Luke came up with a 3 linked battle scenario. A force of Italian Bersaglieri had broken trough the lines and where in a cauldron scenario, whole another force launched an all out assault on another part of the lines, while my RECAFM force of armoured cars and light tanks launched a break through. The idea was that the breakthrough table led into the Italians side of the cauldron table, and the British side of the cauldron table led it the rear of the defences on the all out assault table. Forces could only move off one table to the next once they had won their table and took a full turn to arrive (the dust and noise signaling their potential arrival). In addition all undeployed troops formed a reserve pool and could be committed to any table, although no table could receive more reserves than it rolled to arrive.

I took my RECAFM force against Steve, while Luke commanded the defences against Scott's assault and new member Colin took the Allies against Rick on the final table.
I started with my usual recce moves and then smashed into one flank of the defenders and began rolling up their line, while on the other flank I chose not to dig my guns in and to use their full ROF to remove all threats. This very nearly worked, I certainly removed most of the anti-tank threats to let my armour roam free, but failed to knock out the MGs that then caused massed casualties among my artillery.
Meanwhile my vehicles swept around the flank and pushed on towards the objective. On the main assault Scott was pushing forward , while Rick had destroyed the immediate threats to his positions, but was coming up massed artillery fire and was unable to respond effectively.

As reserves began to arrive, we committed the mobile forces to my table and my motorcycle infantry joined in on the attack on the objective, while pioneers supported the main assault. With a secure position Rick received very few reserves. On the allied side Luke was left holding his defences with only the few units he started with, while Rick found more and more artillery added to his opponent and I faced all the light armour and anti-tank they could muster to stop my armoured cars.
Gradually numbers told and my force broke, while Rick had been pounded and with the arrival of Steve's forces was in an untenable situation. The bright spot for the Axis, is with no reserves Luke was in an increasingly stretched position and Scott finally became the first player to breakthrough and win an all-out assault.

Despite losing two and the three games and so losing overall, it was a Pyrrhic victory for the Allies as they had ultimately lost and their offensive had been repelled.

Club Night 20th July

At the second attempt Luke and I managed to get the penultimate campaign game played. All that is left now is a grand finale as the Axis forces make their final grand assault on Tobruk. Out first attempt was aborted due to the need to look after children at the last minute, but meant Luke and I still got a board game in. In this case it was Axis and Allies D-Day, and everything went the Allies way and as the Axis I barely manage to make a fight of it until the last turn, but was still fun.
Still, a week later we managed to launch Ariete against a mixed Indian and armoured force in a hold the line scenario. The massed Italian armour advanced in a cloud of dust, with the AB-41 recon unit advancing out ahead towards the nearest objective, held by allied infantry.
I assaulted this light armour straight into the Indian defences and drove them back, pushing them off the objective.
A second assault by a supporting tank platoon took over from where the armoured cars had been destroyed by the Bofors guns and almost wiped out the defending platoon, dominating, but not taking the objective.
The Allies then sprung their ambushes, with the hidden 2 pounders firing into the flanks of the armour, with the MGs shooting up the supporting motorcilisti troops (we have a house rule for the desert that a foxhole can count as concealing terrain for the purposes of ambush, if what is in it receives concealment). In response I hurled all my armour into the area around the objective.
Unfortunately I chose to join a platoon that was just below half strength with my company commander, and despite both units being fearless, failed my motivation check, and the re-roll from the C-in-C. I now needed to push the enemy off the objective to claim victory before I had to take a company morale check. But Luke continued to deny me, by just getting his reserve Stuarts in a position to deny my victory time and time again (1 turn it was only by managing to re-crew an abandoned tank).
Despite how close I got, my troops were all bunched up and under continued artillery fire and anti-tank gun fire, and finally casualties mounted before I could drive the enemy back, and my company broke. To add insult to injury post game I had a battalion destroyed and another damaged in the campaign.

Club Sunday 3rd July

On Sunday we played the first turns of the final campaign turn. First Steve H attacked Simon and was narrowly repelled, while Steve H launched a vital attack on Bardia, which he had to take if he wanted to have any hope of avoiding a an Allied defeat and reliving Tobruk, so I entrusted the defence to Rick who valiantly held, despite the impenetrable might of the Infantry tanks in the attack. The final games was Steve K again trying to break out of Tobruk against Scott. Again my subordinates excelled themselves and defeated the British attack.

Above: The outskirts of Bardia, Below: British defences prepare to meet the DAK

Above: The British attack, Below: and are destroyed by massed MG fire

Above: Again Italian light tanks sweep around the British flank, Below: DAK Panzers drive into British defences

Above: The British attempt to breakout of Tobruk, Below: Ricks new (and beautiful) artillery OP team!

Club Night 24th June

Steve and I played another couple of games of the Crusader campaign. Our first game was quite a one sided game, with the British defending in a breakthrough scenario, but as they were an armoured force they had very little on the table and the Axis forces took full advantage of this.
My armoured cars rushed across the table to sit on the objective leaving an impressive trail of dust.Meanwhile the mass of Italian armour descended on the scattered British infantry and began to drive them back from their positions.Until they found themselves surrounded and were cut down by the tanks and another Axis victory was recorded driving the British forces North into another pocket.Our second game was far closer as played another cauldron battle, following our now familiar process of grinding each other down and trying to avoid defeat until the enemy broke, which they duly did, resulting in another pocket of allied troops destroyed or captured.

Club Sunday 5th June

Steve K and I headed up the club on Sunday to play some more games in the Crusader campaign. The first game saw my Bersaglieri from Trieste against a force of British armour with RHA support in a cauldron battle. The initial British deployment looked very sparse, but I know the 25 pounders were hidden out there somewhere.
The supporting armour from the DAK swept forward into a battery of 2 pounder portees. However there heavier guns and the massed fire-power I bought to bare on the enemy artillery reduced their anti-tank ability and enabled the Panzers to drive across the British positions and claim victory.

Our second game saw a German force attack more British armour and artillery support in another cauldron battle. Again the British kept their heavy artillery hidden until the last minute
This time it was much tougher as the force were far closer matched, and there were some nervous moments as two platoons of Stuarts arrived on the flanks of the Panzers. Fortunately their shooting was inaccurate, but then so was my return fire. The next exchange of fire was much more even.
In the end the Germans gradually crept forward, pouring fire on the British positions and managed to claim a narrow victory, although in the campaign we drove the British back, we lost the Panzer regiment which was a major blow.

Club Night 3rd June

The end of turn 4 was very good for the Axis forces as we managed to steal the initiative and push Ariete further south cutting off the major British thrust towards Tobruk. As we entered turn 5 the luck continued and I managed to win enough battle arrows to attack all the cut off elements, starting in the south and moving north, while an attack from 15th Panzer was launched to cut off another British attack towards Tobruk.

On Friday Steve K and I set up to play the first two attacks against the cut off British while Duncan commanded a German defence against an attack by the New Zealanders near Bardia. Duncan managed to hold off the British although it was a tough fight.

In the first game the isolated British Armoured regiment found that being out of supply reduced their strength while Ariete launch all 3 of its tank battalions against them. With the few British deployed in an arc during a cauldron battle I deployed a big arc of tanks against them. My superior numbers meant I could afford to sit and let the British come to me and destroyed them in short order by massed fire-power for a decisive victory, wiping out the British regiment in the campaign.
In the second game I attacked the second isolated British regiment with a force of Bersaglieri, supported by some heavy guns. In a breakthrough mission with an immobile force this could have proved problematic, but the allied commander made a mistake and deployed his armour forward, so I was able to deploy no less than 12 guns ranging in calibre from 47mm up to 100mm against them and destroyed all but 1, which sensibly was abandoned as the crew fled.
The rest of the battle was a little tougher as I ground forward under fire and tried to push the British infantry off the objective, but when their supporting armour turned up and also fell to my anti-tank guns victory was inevitable and once again the Italians were victorious, destroying another British regiment. The next game was scheduled for the following Sunday where I would attempt to wipe out a larger, but now totally isolated British force to decisively swing the campaign in the Axis favour by wiping out a large part of the allied armoured forces.

Club 29th Apil

As Friday was the Royal wedding and we had no interest in watching we headed up the club early for a full day gaming. We started off with some games for our Operation Crusader Campaign. While Rick defended with Ariete against Steve D's British I was to fight another defensive action with my RECAFM (an Italian reconnaissance formation) against a British attempt to break through towards a break out from Tobruk which if successful would open a route to through to Tobruk.

While Rick was successful and even managed to destroy the supporting Infantry tank formation I was ruthlessly crushed very quickly as my armoured car formation where held back in reserve, the supporting fusileri where ruthlessly cut down by the machine gunned on the British Crusader tanks.

Next we set out to prevent the British attack out Tobruk. Having fallen back to opposite this break out we had re-enforced the defenders so we had a good numerical superiority, and with engineers even managed to out out some Barbed wire.As the British moved forward under cover of darkness with supporting infantry tanks we launched our platoon of L6/40 light tanks down the exposed flank and begun to attack their machine guns and mortars. This forced them to turn their tanks around and by some miracle we survived their gun fire. This brave attack was enough to distract the advance and prevent British victory.

The Axis then had an opportunity to launch an exploitation attack which I did, launching the victorious Ariete south at a battered British armoured regiment trying to break a weak pint in the British lines and isolate the forces attacking towards Tobruk. This should have been an easy victory as we had a major numerical advantage. However the ability of the British tanks to move and fire was decisive and they destroyed many of the Italian tanks. However while they were doing this the motociclisti platoons had moved on from their flanking manoeuvre and taken the objective to claim victory.

Above: The Italian armour advance.
Below: Italian air-power attacks (unsuccessfully) the British armour

This means the Axis have now made a another major thrust south which the Allies will have to respond to as we start turn 5 and the penultimate turn.

After all these games in the evening I was joined by Mike to take on Ian and Colin with my Eldar against the ongoing raids of Colin's Dark Eldar. This was a thoroughly enjoyable and close game. With three objectives evenly spaced along the table we had a firebase of Guardians and Dire Avengers with harlequin and war walker support on one flank and a mobile force of primarily Warp Spiders and Jetbikes on the other flank.

But it stared going wrong from the start when they stole the initiative and went first avoiding out heavy fore and destroying the warwalkers, and most importantly getting their raiders a lot closer to our lines. However we started to pull it back as we used our manoeuvrability to hit and destroy units were we wanted.

As the game progressed casualties mounted on both sides. In the games clear highlight my Farseer found himself in combat with a Talos, but somehow managed not only to survive, but to destroy it! By the end of the game all that was left were our two generals, a single harlequin, the second Talos and an immobilised Raider. With no troops to take objectives and both sides virtually wiped out it was a clear draw!

Club Night 20th April

On Wednesday we gather to do turn 4 of the campaign and play some games. After some initial success and launching some attacks on Tobruk the British begun to win the initiative and launched some attacks north and a counter attack out of Tobruk.

The two games we played were the attacks on Tobruk. Against Luke, Duncan made his third attack, but the defenders are starting to learn from their experiences and proving much tougher. Duncan pushed them close but was ultimately unsuccessful.

I took command of the second attack and moved my troops against Steve K. My opening bombardments were mostly unsuccessful and despite a Khamseen blowing up I still took heavy casualties. I then breeched the first line of wire and destroyed the bunkers with my engineers.

However I then got bogged down, under heavy fire and found the poorer quality troops of the Fuscileri not so keen to become unpinned. Then it looked like it swung in my favour. I breached the second line and rushed through assaulting the pinned down remnant of two British platoons, wiping them out, killing the C-in-C and overrunning into the machine gun platoon. However I did not break this platoon, so the British held on, and my attacking company broke.

The game then swung away from me as the British reserves begun to arrive and my surviving troops where too battered to do anything. To compound the defeat in the post battle phase I lost my heavy artillery.

We had failed to take Tobruk, but we are trying, now we just need to ensure we stop the relief attempt and we can still be victorious.

Club Night 1st April

We played through a couple more campaign games. Duncan and Ryan attacked Tobruk with Luke defending. Again they pushed the British very close and although they failed to break through, they destroyed the defending infantry brigade which is now going to stretch the British line a their forces are reduced.
In the other game I (assisted by Chris D's dreadful dice rolling) defended Steve K's attack south of Sollum. This was going to be a tough game. Although my force was dug in and outnumbered the attackers, they had 6 infantry tanks that were virtually invulnerable to my heaviest available guns. To counter this I set up a heavy anti-tank obstacle across the table, with my main defences further back.However this proved to be a slight mistake, as the Indians moved past their engineers they overran the observers and so prevented me from successfully shelling the pioneers and preventing them from breaching the obstacle, and because they attacked under darkness, my main defensive line was too far back to put covering fire on the obstacle.The 8th army forces cleared the obstacle and unleashed their tanks (or as quickly as you can unleash as slow tank!) towards my lines. I managed to force some to be abandon a couple of the tank with the 75s that had survived the initial bombardment before they were destroyed by the CS Matildas.

It was then a desperate attempt to repel them with whatever I had to hand and some I threw engineers with flame-throwers and all the infantry I could at the tanks in an attempt to stop them. And I was almost successful.

I forced them all to be abandoned and so destroyed as they could not fall back, but lost my final attacking force in the process, which included my company commander. However the Indians needed to take a company morale first, which they past, leaving me to automatically fail mine as my turn came round.

This meant the Italian lines south of Sollum where now breached. As Sunday was mothering Sunday I was not at the club, but Steve H took over the Axis forces against Steve K. The first battle they had to fight was an incredibly outnumbered Italian force falling back against this breakthrough. Although they lost, they managed to avoid any further damage. The Indians then continued to push through, moving to cut off Bardia, they ran into the 15th Panzer and were defeated, losing one of their infantry tanks forces.

Club Night 4th March

I played a couple of 1,000 point FoW games against Chris Dell to give him a chance to learn the rules better. Since I only have my Italians and Chris only has DAK we conducted some 'training' exercises.

The first game was a hold the line with the Germans defending. Initially my reconnaissance force did its usual job of rushing forwards and overrunning the front German lines quickly. This forced Chris to keep sending troops forwards piecemeal to deny my victory, until his armour arrived and I had nothing to stop the heavy armour and my company broke.

The second game was a breakthrough scenario and again I used my speed to flank the defending Germans and push them back and managed to destroy the first platoon and the kampfgruppe with the antitank guns in. However on the other flank my artillery failed to impact the German armour in the direct fire role and were destroyed by the counter fire. My company then broke before my reserves arrived.

Meanwhile Duncan was commanding an attack by 90th Light against the South Africans who had been beaten back earlier in the campaign. After some initial difficulties the reserves arrived and Duncan was able to claim victory and wipe out one brigade and seriously damage the other.

Club Sunday 6th February

Sunday saw a great gathering of warriors ready to fight in the North African desert as Operation Crusader continued. With so many players I decided as supreme commander I would not play, but helpfully lend advice where it was not needed and oversee my grand plan!

Rick and Steve D saw each other across the table again, this time with Rick conducting a fighting withdrawal which he did successfully, holding the British advance.

Steve K played the role of the British while Steve H and Simon attacked him. First was a breakthrough by 21st Panzer. After some initial bad luck the Germans were on the back foot and defeated, a second attack by 15th Panzer met with similar results, although got very close.

Finally on the third table Chris D and Duncan conducted two excellent defences with 90th Light, first against a South African infantry attack which they decimated, and then against an armoured attack which pushed them closer, but they still held.

With the first round of battle almost completed, no attack had yet been successful, but, I hope tellingly, the British lost a number of support units and had a number of units battered, while the Axis forces came off slightly better. All that is left is for an Italian attack on Tobruk and then the exploitation moves and turn 2 will be complete.

Club Night 4th February

We kicked off Luke's Operation Crusader campaign with the initial moves of the British trying to turn the line south of Bardia and the Axis committing Ariete into a spoiling attack. As this was the only battle we had we decided to play three game with the same forces, but different terrain and missions and play the best of three for the campaign result.

Rick met Steve D with a meeting engagement and by pressing forward managed to win his battle. Steve H and Mike took on Steve K in the same mission, but this time the Allies seized the initiative and won the day. So with one battle left this would be the decider. And with each side having decided which table they would fight on without knowing their opponent I came up against my old adversary Luke.

However it was not to be my evening as Luke was defending with numerous 2 and 25 pounders in a Cauldron scenario and all I had was armour to throw at him, which I valiantly did, but to no avail. The British had won the first battle and held the Italian attack.

This left the supreme commanders to make their next moves. I fortunately won the initiative for the redeployment phase and was able to deploy the Germans and Trieste using the escarpments to extend my lines to prevent any further unopposed British attack. As we moved on to out combat actions I launched 21st and 15th panzer into attacks on the British right, while on their left, south of Tobruk they attacked Ariete and 90th Light divisions. These battle would be resolved on the Sunday.