Alem el Halfa

 As regular readers will know I made the trek up to Posties Shed of war on Saturday to play a game of FOW hosted by Lee (http://www.blmablog.com/) . I have only played FOW once before several years ago so was reliant on Lee to use his knowledge of the rules. None of the other Rejects had played the e rules either, and Ray whom I was teamed with is not terribly up on the period either. John and Postie know the period somewhat more than Ray. We all have gaps in our knowledge.



For a briefing of the Scenario Please check Lees blog listed above. You might also want a more accurate AAR from Ray (http://onelover-ray.blogspot.co.uk/) when he gets round to writing it, but until then you'll have to put up with my BIAS account. The two German companies had eight turns to take one of the three objectives. Ray had to defend 3 hills (the objectives) And I as the Cavalry was to arrive in the nick of time and rescue him. And that is where is all started to go right. I had to roll a d6 to determine when my troops  ( a company of the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment) rolled a 1 indicating that they would turn up on turn 2. This was done in secret and the Germans were un aware of it. As this roll was before the game began Ray wanted to delay my arrival to let Postie and John get commited to the attack before my arrival so I could hit them in the flank.. Ray Quickly changed his mind on Turn one though and I arrived on turn 2. Far be it for me to quibble with the man. I am quite happy to let my allied players take the beating If it means my troops don't.


 Ray brings on some Hurricanes which were either shot down or driven off by the Vile Huns. In later turns we used out air support only on Posties troops as they lacked Anti Aircraft . We also tended to drop our HE 25lber artillery on him as well and leave John alone as Posties Infantry were in soft skin vehicles while John's tanks were well armoured as tanks tend to be. Although John was the bigger threat we could at least damage Posties troops and that is always a good thing.

 The assault begins Postie would attack one hill and John the other. Which would mean an infantry assault and a tank Assault. Personally I would have made a mixed assault but I was not going to mention that, so I didn't. The Infantry assault never got across the road, as the Artillery and Hurricanes mostly kept them contained. They did however do a very good job of picking of Rays infantry picking the first ridge line clean of troops until later in the game when ray bought up his reserves.

Hats of to Ray though as the centre hill was fighting off the armour very well indeed. John pushed his tanks across the mine flied, He only managed to get 3 tanks involved and one was crippled as it crossed the mine field. I must point out John usually has a great reputation with dice but today Lee's curse of dice rolling had transferred to him.

When John did manage to acquire air support they were mostly driven off and did minimal damage, claiming only one of Ray's Decans.

 There were several nice touches in the game.  Lee had mad dust cloud markers which we could use to indicate moving vehicles. These were brilliant props they worked well and made it clear which vehicles moved and which stayed still and boy did they look good. I NEED to make some.







Knowing a bit of the rules did give me a slight advantage in that I knew stationary tanks could fire multiple times where as moving tanks could fire only once. I was thus able to employ a fire and movement tactic where half my tanks moved and half stayed still. This would mean that 1/2 my force of Grants could get in 5 shots a turn within 24 inches. (2 from the hull mounted 75 and three from the turret mounted 37mm) While John having to move his tanks to counter me rolling up his open flank could only fire once in reply.

The guys look up the rules for tank assaults. While Johns  now Lone (the other having been destroyed by Ray's Deacons firing 6iber shells into it's flank) Bravely pushed for the objective. Ray was never in a position to destroy the assaulting tank, but could force it's crew to bail out if John rolled badly enough. Guess what!

 Rays Anvil and my hammer tactics were working. And turn by turn John had less tanks to control either because of bailed our crews or destroyed panzers. It was not all one sided though as he did some damage back with his platoon of Panzer 3's and reduced my armoured car and 2 Crusader platoons down to 3 vehicles in total. Fortunately for me my Grants out gunned them in the end. As they did his Panzer 4s by sheer weight of dice as mentioned above.

 Johns Bailed out Crew got back in and assaulted the hill again and again John needed to roll seriously low and again he did and they bailed out for a second time. It was not Johns day.

 The last two shots show the black smoke coming from the German tanks. Very nice smoke markers and adding a deal of atmosphere to the game. As once they had brewed up they stayed there for the rest of the game and did have a noticeable psychological effect on us as players.

Conclusion yes it was a clear Victory for the British this day, as it was historically. But If I had not have been lucky with troop arrival times it could have been so different. If I had arrived on turn 7 for example it surely would have been a disaster and almost definitely a British loss. I am not saying it all came down to that dice roll but it was I think the single most significant factor.

Thanks for Reading. I will post again tomorrow to get back on my normal schedule. So until then take care have fun and put a smile on the faces of those close to you.

All the best Clint