Fall-In - The Battle at Sidi Rezegh

Bwana Bill and I ran the Sidi Rezegh scenario on Saturday morning at Gettysburg during the Fall-In convention.

The game went according to history - which shows that even with a point's based gaming system, a historical outcome can be achieved.

Before the game began I briefed the forces - both British and German - on the way the battle went, how it was won, how it was lost.

After the overall briefing I lent a few words of advice to the British side, since I had played the Brits and lost only once in all of our test matches. In that one loss, I forgot to stick to my plan, and I did as the British forces of 1941 did - and indeed as our players on the British side did as well!

Not to say they played poorly! On the British side were three fairly new players, somewhat inexperienced. In addition, telling someone to 'wait' to build up their forces when turn after turn they fail to roll for reinforcements is hard. All that time waiting and the Germans and Italians are marching across the table - you have to do something!

Unfortunately, that need or desire to "do something" led to the British forces trickling into combat a little at a time, with their combat power greatly reduced.

The German 21st Panzer Regiment accomplished their mission of taking the critical airfield at Sidi Rezegh back from the dowdy Brits.

The New Zealanders managed to hold their flank, and had the game not ended on turn 6, the Germans would have turned their attention to the hold-outs near the barracks of the airfield. It would only have been a matter of time.

All in all it was a good game and I hope that the players had fun.

I know Bwana Bill and I are pretty burned out with Flames of War at the moment, as we have played this particular scenario to death - and we both played in a tourney on Friday at Fall-In that lasted until quite late in the evening.

Still, we love the game - but don't expect to read about FoW for a while as we dust off some other games we've neglected in the run up to Fall-In!