Lost in Space

Peetza da Hutt, aka Ric LaBan, is doing something worthwhile like celebrating an anniversary or driving to California, so Kent and I are left to our own devices.  And so, we regressed to High School age and knocked out a couple Afrika Korps battles. 

It's been about 20 year since we played an Avalon Hill wargame and it took some resetting of the mental pongids.  But after we straightened out all the details of setup, logistics, movement, and combat, we were ready to go. 

Because we were playing a modified version of the full-blown game, the victory conditions were very different from the standard game.  But everything else seemed familiar--stay in the escarpments and fortifications, block supply with zones of control, use soak-offs to maintain favorable local odds. 

Game #1.  Herr General Holtz (as always) was armed with a plethora of strong armor but in the historical starting position.  He faced Lt. Gen. Smythe-Horak with lots of weak infantry, enough armor to be a problem, and a pitiful garrison in Tobruk. 

Holtz decided to go first for Tobruk and made a direct assault at 3:1 with all his heavy armor.  He did indeed capture the fortress, but in the process the Commonwealth forces were able to dig in deeply in front of Bardia and Alam Halfa.  Rommel's men could never chop through the heavy defenses in the escarpments west of Knightsbridge.  A desperate last minute assault at 2:1 odds left the Allies with a marginal victory. 

Game #2.  Using more flexible rules on intial setup, this time Holtz attacked Alam Halfa first and just invested Tobruk.  The Brits were forced back from the pass but spread out to the south and west.  In the end, an Allied counter-attack on the forces around Tobruk was successful and broke through to the beleaguered garrison for a tie game.