Stripped Down for Parts: Unconditional Surrender: Western Campaigns

 

 

Personal note: apologies to regular visitors for the lack of new content the last couple of weeks. The first couple of cays in February were intentional, but then life intervened. I expect to be able to get back to a more regular posting regime for the foreseeable. Thank you for your attention in this matter.

When I started to get back into wargaming after about a dozen-year hiatus (moving house about fourteen times, and states twice), I couldn’t imagine the circumstances under which I could get to play a two-map game. And to be honest, strategic games didn’t hold the appeal for me that tactical – and later, operational – games offered; shorter games playing out on a single map. So, it didn’t occur to me that one day (nearly a dozen years later) I would come around to Unconditional Surrender: World War II in Europe (GMT Games, 2014 – a third printing is now available for pre-order on the GMT website). Unconditional Surrender has a reputation for being a very playable “mini monster” that runs at a good pace and keeps all the players engaged nearly all of the time.

The third printing of Unconditional Surrender may be out as early as later this year, but in the meantime, US designer Salvatore Vasta and Allan Hill have brough us Unconditional Surrender: Western Campaigns (GMT Games, 2025). Unconditional Surender: Western Campaigns – USWC from heron in – is a set of set-piece campaigns on much smaller maps (most just 8 ½” by 11”), which offer an on-ramp to the game, introducing the battle mechanics with much of the economic/political overhead stripped away. BGG suggests a given campaign will play out in between one and three hours. Small, footprint and shorter duration definitely place US: Western Campaigns in A Fast Game’s wheelhouse.

 

The box cover features a montage of photographs from the theatres represented in the game. The emphasis is mobile warfare, soldiers marching, columns of mechanised infantry rolling through dusty plains, soldiers stepping out of a landing vessel. Below the photos area listing of the five theatres covered in the game, Poland, France, Norway, Italy and French North Africa. This doesn’t tell the whole story about what’s on offer here, but I’ll come back to that later.

The Box-back. 

The back of the box offers a glimpse into the game content; there are maps (some of these are double-sided, so don’t go thinking you’ve been short-changed), and a selection of sample counters presented at actual size.

The box description does its best not to reference its progenitor (the plucky little game that wants to earn its place on its own merits, rather than its famous name). Instead, it offers some of the flavour of play, pointing out the small footprint – most of the maps are 8 ½” by 11”, with an additional page-sized Faction – and low counter density.

The scale of the game is in terms of armies, fleets, and sir-wings, with a map-scale of 30 to 40 miles per hex. The infographic advises that the game is of middling complexity (5 out of 9) and designed with two players in mind, although the solitaire suitability is rated at 7 out of 9. As always, the recommended player age is 14 and up, and a scenario might take between thirty minutes and four hours.

The Rulebook. Don't start here. I did. Don't be me.

The game comes with three booklets, A Rulebook, a Guidebook, and a Playbook. Ss I’m not repeating myself, all three ae printed on a mid-weight matt paper-stock familiar to anyone who buys GMT’s hex-and-counter wargames. The books are laid out in a two-column format and extensively illustrated with examples-of-play diagrams. Colour-coded box text highlights both important notes regarding rules and play, and designer comments scattered throughout. Each book has a short Table of Contents on the cover page, and the pages are helpfully numbered.

Rulebook - sample spread. Well-documented, lots of illustratrions.

The Rulebook runs to 28 pages, but the actual rules content is only nineteen pages. The rest includes four [ages of detailed explanations of the various Event and Tracking Markers, a comprehensive two-page index, and on the back cover, a single page USE Players: Fast Start, for players already familiar with Unconditional Surrender: World War II in Europe.

I’m looking at the Rulebook first because that’s how I roll, but the very first thing the rulebook tells you under General Information is, “If you are viewing the game for the first time, start with the Guidebook. The Guidebook contains a list of the game’s components, different methods of how to play, game scale, the writing style used, designer’s notes, etc.” Before We move on, I’ll just say the rules for USWC are very clearly and sensibly laid out, and it should prove an easy thing to locate any particular rule when you need to.

The Guidebook. The cover photo caption is a joke, but not really.

The Guidebook comes in at 32 pages and it meets all the expectations built up in the Rulebook intro. The “Learning the Game” section runs to 22 pages and, after noting the traditional Rulebook method and spending some column space on the Training Scenario method (playing through the Poland, Norway (also referred to as Scandinavia in some places, including the map) and France, 1940 in sequence will ease a new player into the rules), the next 22 pages are devoted to what the designers call the Example method. This is a step-by-step run through the third scenario, France, 40. This sounds like n example of play, but it’s much deeper than that, starting with a discussion of the components you need for the scenario. My first thought was to go the programmed scenario route, but having read through the first few pages of the Example method, I think I’m going to try this.

Guidebook- sample spread.

The Guidebook also offers a page of notes on the rules, two pages of Tactical Tips, along with some adjustments for Play-by-Email and solitaire play, another two pages of Designer’s Notes and Bibliography, and a representation of the counter sheet front and reverse (yes, this game manages to give you everything you need on a single counter-sheet!). The back cover lists the game’s full credits.

The Playbook. With nine scenarios, the game comes with baked-in replayability.

At just twenty pages, the Playbook is the shortest of the included booklets. Here is where you get an idea of just how much game is packed into the box; USWC offers nine scenarios across seven maps, including a combined France/Italy 1944 scenario (two maps). The first two pages cover general scenario information and set-up notes, and the remaining seventeen present the relevant details for each scenario in a clear and easily digestible format.

Playbook- sample spread. The left page demonstrates the complete scenario format:
the Balkan Campaign - two turns and nineteen on-board units total.

The scenarios range from one to fourteen turns in length and include details like month-to-month weather status and varying victory conditions for the two factions. They are presented more or less chronologically, and include a counterfactual France 1941 scenario, working off the assumption that Hitler delayed his western push a year.

Counter sheet. Half-inch counters one can work with.

Unconditional Surrender: Western Campaigns comes with a single, full-sized counter-sheet of 254 ½” counters. I’d be annoyed with the size of the counters if is wasn’t for the fact that the units are essentially force-presence markers. The units have no strength indicators; rather, they feature a NATO symbol for infantry (including some mechanised infantry), armour and air-support, with a flag and army-level designation (BEF, Afrika Korps). The fifteen nationalities (counting French Republic, Vichy and Free-French forces separately) represented are sensibly colour coded.

The track and admin markers are equally readable, with many performing double-duty on their reverse sides. These look generally playable, but the proof will be in the playing.

 

Player Aid Card (outside; Front panel (right) and rear panel.

Player Aid Card (inside the fold).

The Players’ Aid Cards – yes, there are two – are bi-fold, 11”by 17” that offer all the tables and charts you’ll need for the game. The Front panel presents a Sequence of Play Flowchart, with Phases and sub-phases colour-coded. I’ve wrestled with flowcharts in some games in the past, but this looks like it was prepared by an information sharer rather than an engineer. I like it. On the back panel is the Operations Phase Flowchart. This drills down into a little more detail around a deeper, more pernickety turn-phase.

Opening the folder reveals the Combat Results Table, tables for Weather, Movement and Production Costs, the Combat Resolution Sequence, Air and Ground Combat Results tables, and listings of various situation-specific Dice Roll Modifier lists. The separate sections are also colour-coded, and the whole thing is well laid out and easily navigable. And it’s worth mentioning again, there are two of them, one each – no waiting.

The Faction Card, for all your turn and points-tracking needs.

All of the off-board action takes place on the Faction Card, a shared tracking board, offering a Turn Track, National Will & Production track, Faction boxes for recycling eliminated units, a Weather Track and a handy Terrain Key. When a unit is eliminated, it is placed in the upper box on its Faction box, the appropriately named Elimination box. It is unavailable for the remainder of that turn, but in the End of Turn phase it’s moved down to the Mobilization box. From the following turn, the unit will be available for purchase (at the cost of Production Points). The Third box is for Event tokens. Each scenario will dictate which events are in play, and these will be located on the turn track. When the turn is reached, the Event token is placed in this box, ready for use by the faction.

The Poland map. With the scenario running to just one turn, this one will likely show
the least wear and tear.

The maps are numerous, attractive, and quite playable, with clear terrain and movement features (roads and rail). Playing out a whole campaign like the invasion of Poland seems incongruous on a single page map with a mere seventeen counters, playing out in just one turn, but I’m keen to try it out.

The France map does quadruple scenario duty for the France 1940, 1941, 1944,
and France/Italy 1944 scenarios.

The Norway/Scandinavia map. The Scenario is called Norway, but the playable map area
also takes in Denmark and part of the Pomeranian coast (as well as neutral Sweden).

Even on these small maps, the playable area can be somewhat reduced by the scale of the conflict, such as on the Scandinavia map, with Sweden (neutral during the war), which covers half the land area on the map shaded out, marking it as off limits for both factions.

The Balkan map. Note the "faded dot" hex at the bottom of the map, near Athens. These
areas prohibit land movement and cannot be used for amphibious landing because
the minimal infrastructure in that region simply couldn't support an army-sized
contingent. This, I think is a nice touch.

The North African map, covering the narrow stretch from Casablanca on the Moroccan
coast, to Tripoli, the capital of Libya. This scenario covers the period from Operation Torch
in November 1942, to around the time of the Axis evacuation from Tunis (the game runs to
June 1943, though historically the bulk of the surviving German forces had fled by May).

The Italy map. Geographically a tough nut to crack.

The maps are printed on the same weight card as the PACs and Faction Card. This is perfectly adequate for the purpose. I don't think I'll be breaking out the plexi for a two or four turn game on one of these maps (and of course, being mostly single panels, no crease-puckering to deal with).

Everything in the game is resolved by a d6 die roll, and two colour-appropriate dice are provided in the game. Baggies are also provided and appear to be sufficient for the game’s counter mix, though I think USWC is a good candidate for a GMT counter tray (a subject for a future unboxing – so stay tuned).

It's worth mentioning that the box is a solid, 2mm board construction. A fabrication engineer might argue it was built beyond its required parameters. Too bad – I for one appreciate the At two inches deep, you'll have no trouble accommodating the aforementioned counter tray.

-----

So, that’s all of Unconditional Surrender: Western Campaigns. For all my best-laid plans, real life prevented me getting much to the table in January. If the first couple of scenarios here are only one or two turns long, I really don’t have an excuse not to get some USWC games in in the next couple of weeks. Fates, be kind.

One final thought: to paraphrase a popular meme, the existence of an Unconditional Surrender: Western Campaigns suggests the possibility of an Unconditional Surrender: Eastern Campaigns. I don’t have any inside scoop on this, but it seems a logical addition. It would practically write itself; the Winter War (Finnish campaign of 1939-40), Barbarossa (North, Central, and South),  Bagration, Romania/Hungary, and Vistula/Oder. I would buy that game, just saying.

 

Next year's words: three years of A Fast Game

 

 

Saint Jerome in his Study, by Albrecht Dürer. While undeniably a beautiful work by a pre-
eminent artist, I think we can comfortably assume Dürer had never seen an actual lion.

 

"For last year's words belong to last year's language. And 

next year's words await another voice."

— T.S Eliot, Little Gidding (Four Quartets)

 

Three years ago today, I launched A Fast Game is a Good Game. Three years later (today) I can say with some pride that A Fast Game is still up, and still (fairly regularly) presenting new – and I hope interesting and informative – material. I went into it with a couple of specific goals, one of which was to see out a full year. A Fast Game began as an adjunct to another wargame project, but over time it’s morphed into its own thing, and three years on, people are still visiting and reading the blog; in late October A Fast Game reached a milestone of 50,000 views, a figure I hadn't expected to reach until I was some way into 2026. Now, at the end of it's third year, the blog just topped 65,000 views. In the last year A Fast Game has received more than double the number of visits the blog had gotten in its first two years combined. Many of those visits are the result of the continued support of good folks like Rachel at GMT Games, Jerry from the Cardboard Commander blog and podcast, and Brant from the Armchair Dragoons. Thank you, all.

If you want a potted history of how we got to here, you could do worse than read last year’s anniversary post. That should bring you up to speed without getting too deep into the tall grass – I’m getting better at keeping my indulgences brief. You could say the blog began with a misunderstanding, and I’ve been buggering things up since. But along the way I’ve learned a lot, played quite a few more games than I otherwise might have, met some interesting, like-minded folks, and had a lot of fun.

Evidence of a quiet evening in, clipping Desert Blitzkrieg (Compass Games, 2025).

A Fast Game runs to two cycles. Regular readers will know I keep a calendar-year record, and present various wargame- and blog-related goings-on in a quarterly report (the next will be due at the end of March, if you’re interested; if you’re even more interested, you can click on the “Quarterly Report” subject heading in the column to the right and be confronted with all of them, starting with the most recent). But my first post for A Fast Game, went up on January 31, 2023, so this (today, I mean) is the actual anniversary of the blog, and it’s become a thing to me to mark the date with an entry separate and apart from the usual stuff.

Year three has been a mix of good and less good. We had a death in the family late 2024 that cast more of a shadow over the last twelve months than any of us were expecting. That and a third bout of COVID (not as bad as the first two, but awful enough), along with other less serious ailments kind of set the tone for the year, which had an impact on output for A Fast Game.

I haven’t written as much this year as I did in the one previous, but more than in the first year of A Fast Game. At the beginning I thought two posts a week, about a hundred a year, would be workable. I nearly made this count in 2023-24, but the number has steadily dropped over successive years, with 2025 being punctuated by long gaps, sometimes a fortnight or more. Still, I’d rather post worthwhile content than make targets, but I am going to try to maintain a more regular output. Here are the relevant numbers.

 

* The first post to A Fast Game was supposed to go live on February 1, 2023,
however, due to the vagaries of International Time Zones, Blogger disagreed,
and so the official launch date is the 31st.

If A Fast Game was a novel, it would be a bit longer than David Copperfield, but would fall somewhat short of Don Quixote. Over the last three years, I’ve written ninety-four After Action Reports, fifty-seven unboxings and twenty-seven reviews. I’d like to up the number of reviews, try for twelve to fifteen a year. I also don’t write up every game I play. I do try to capture the interesting ones, and those that highlight something the game does well. I also have three or four more unboxings to write up even now (as well as some new games due this quarter). Stay tuned.

As for the coming year, I’ve already written at length about my abbreviated plans here (with a minor amendment here), so I won’t rehash all of that, except to say that I hope to get more games in generally this year than last. I’d like to spend some time working on something bigger, like last year’s research project or 2024’s two-part rumination on how to build a wargame library, but at this stage I have absolutely nothing in mind. I’m open to suggestions if anyone has any thoughts.

I intend to wind back spending money on new games in the coming year (though that’s what I said in 2025). As a result, you may see some more time and attention spent on older ones. Or to evoke Eliot once more:

“We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring /

Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.”

 

 

State of Play: Commands and Colors Tricorne: The American Revolution - Yorktown

 

 

 

Initial assault on Redoubt No. 9; an inauspicious start.

We had our last game of 2025, and I told T to surprise me. And surprise me he did. For our diversion, he’d set up the Yorktown scenario from the French and More! Expansion (Compass Games, 2018) for Commands & Colors Tricorne: The American Revolution (Compass Games, 2017). The full game of the scenario is Yorktown (Assault On Redoubt #9 & #10)  14 October 1781, the last scenario in the set. It sounds like hard work, and it was.

Seeing French troops set up on the board, I realised this was the first scenario we would have ever played from the French and More expansion. This is an embarrassment as I’ve stated several times here in the blog that C&C Tricorne is probably my favourite flavour of the Command and Colors family, and not just for the eras it covers. It brings a few tweaks that add a little swinginess to the proceedings that I enjoy. The lack of plays from the expansion is something I plan to remedy in 2026.

Opening positions: some manoeuvre required.

T had set himself up to be the British/Hessian defenders manning the stout redoubts, and I took the Continental Army and their French allies. The antagonists have a stronger force going into the game – fifteen infantry units, supported by three artillery formations, against the British eight leg units and one not inconsequential heavy cannon unit – but the two redoubts are tough nuts to crack. Under the Tricorne rules, units behind fieldworks can ignore the first retreat flag in a ranged attack and the first symbol hit of a melee attack.

I was fortunate to start the game with a decently strong hand, offering
some options for proceeding.

But first I had to get my fellas up close enough to make any kind of worthwhile attack at all. This took three turns. The Continental player goes first, and the early turns involved edging Colonial and French units into position to advance on the enemy’s works. Meanwhile British potshots had some success in thinning out my troops. Cannon proved wholly ineffective against T’s lobsters. Whoever engineered the redoubts deserved a commendation.

At turn four I was finally in a position to make a concerted effort against Redoubt No. 10 (Continental Left). Three Brave French Line attacked on a Bayonet Charge order, throwing themselves against the desperate British defence... to an inconsequential result. No casualties on either side. This initial strike set the tone for the whole game.

The initial French assault on Redoubt No. 10, with
the road to Yorktown visible on the right.

Over the course of the next eight or nine rounds, we both took some hits, but neither of us had lost a unit (or gained a banner). Fearing the possibility of the No. 10 Redoubt being overrun, he had begun to T had begun to bring his heavy cannon down to lay fire on the French attackers. It was already a good way toward the redoubt when I saw my chance. I’d moved two Light troops up to the tree-line between the redoubts, attempting to bring them behind No. 9 for a clearer shot – Light units are better at range than regulars, and can move more quickly if they forgo combat, but other issues kept cropping up needing attention.

Mid-game: much blood spilt, with nought to show for it.

At turn fourteen, I had my lightbulb moment. By this time, we’d both taken some hits and scored off one another. I’d managed to get a much-diminished Regular unit behind the No. 9 battlements, and to replace it with another the following turn, when T’s counterattack finished off the first. The tide had begun to turn, but no end to the game was in sight (it was starting to get late by now, and it was a school-night). I’m not proud of my actions, but something had to be done, or we would have to call it a draw short of any clear victory.

I interspersed my following actions between maintaining the gains I’d made (the Continental player gets (or keeps) a Temporary Victory Banner for each fortified hex they occupy) and double-timing my two light units up the road to Yorktown and its two vacated Fieldworks hexes. I held two, and we had by now two legitimate Victory Banners each (T was about to get is third).

I didn’t announce my intentions to take Yorktown, and T was too distracted with the redoubt action to notice until the final move. By the time my Light troops entered the vacated fieldworks at the edge of the occupied city, I had managed five Victory Banners, and this action gave me the last two to win the game.

End state. Yorktown Occupied, but at a cost.

It felt like less of a victory than it might have, but the game had been a twenty-two round slog, and I come back to my earlier comment; the Yorktown defences are a terribly hard nut to crack for the Continental player. I think I may have still won if I’d gone ahead with my original intention of flanking Redoubt No. 9 and likely capturing its attendant officer, but this may have taken another five or eight turns. T tends to feel that a win is a win, but to me this felt a little gamey to take too much pride in the success.

 

 

Stripped Down for Parts: Desert Blitzkrieg: Rommel’s North African Campaign

 

 

 

I have mentioned several times over my time with A Fast Game that I don’t and won’t ever ask publishers for review copies of games, and that I wouldn’t accept offers of copies in exchange for content or reviews. This is still the case. I don’t judge other content creators who do this; they all have their reasons, and I enjoy their hard work. I just want to keep my independence and not feel like I have to write about games that didn’t do it for me.

Now, I’ve also mentioned here and elsewhere that I won a copy of Desert Blitzkrieg: Rommel’s North African Campaign (Compass Games, 2025) that was part of viewer draw for around a dozen different prizes all up in an extended pre-Christmas Compass Town Hall. This came as a complete, but timely surprise. I’d actually found seller on eBay with a couple of copies and was going to buy my own in a week or so, but now I didn’t need to! To maintain karmic balance, I put the cash I was going to spend on that toward a copy of Christopher Moeller’s really gorgeous-looking Burning Banners: Rage of the Witch Queen (Compass Games, 2024); I finally game into its sheer awesomeness and bought a copy, but I haven’t decided whether I should write about it on A Fast Game or not. If you have an opinion about this, let me know in the comments.

So, this was a situation I hadn’t anticipated. In the end, I decided to go ahead and write about Desert Blitzkrieg, even though I didn’t technically buy it myself because, a) I was going to buy it before this copy landed in my lap; and b) it’s too interesting looking a game not to spend some time over it and share what I learn. So, here’s my first look at Mike Vitale’s Desert Blitzkrieg.

The box top captures the essence of the game in a simple montage of images split between British Cruiser tanks from very early in the conflict, with an inset Rommel looking typically heroic, and the iconic photograph of the one of the Long-Range Desert Group (LRDG) teams prepared to set out on another mission below. The Desert War, at least in the early years managed to keep a veneer of gentlemanliness that had well and truly worn off by the time of Operation Torch. This game covers the early part of the North African campaign, roughly up to Rommel’s historical defeat at Second El Alamein.

Designer Michael Vitale has been involved in wargame design and production for longer than I’d realised. BGG lists Desert Blitzkrieg as Mr Vitale’s third game design credit (the earliest being the extraordinary Timelag (Gameshop, 1980)). I was pretty sure this didn’t tell the whole story, so I contacted Brittani-Pearl Eaton-Koch from Compass Games (and Desert Blitzkrieg’s editor), asking about Mr Vitale’s other work for the publisher. Ms Eaton-Koch replied, “He's the co-designer of Iberian Tide with Gregory Smith, and the designer of Desert Tide & Hannibal's Tide.* [….] I think the big thing BGG fails to cover in his designer credits, though, is the fact that he was one of the original partners in Nova Game Designs (original publishers for Ace of Aces, Axis & Allies, the Battletech book games).”

Box back. For the first time I can remember, I'm questioning a little the standard
"recommended for age 14 and up." There's just a lot more going on here than a
straight-forward hex-and-counter game. 

The box back offers a view of the whole map, along with some sample unit and HQ counters. The written blurb doesn’t spend any time on the history covered, jumping instead into a thumbnail description of the game and its design philosophy.

The graphic key familiar from other Compass games informs the reader that the complexity of the game is rated Medium (with which, with my limited reading of the rules so far, I would concur), each turn represents a month, units are primarily Regiments, and the game is designed for two players, though solitaire suitability is rated Medium-High. A shorter scenario will play out in two-three hours, but a full game will likely require ten hours or more to see to its conclusion.

The rulebook follows the Compass custom of the cover match the box-art.

The Desert Blitzkrieg Rules of Play runs to thirty-six roughly 100gsm, light gloss-finish, full colour pages. The booklet is usefully illustrated – lots of example pictures and diagrams, thin on the filler historical photographs or illustrations found in some rulebooks. The whole book is presented in a readable double-column format. At this stage I haven’t spent enough time with the game to comment on the clarity of the rules (at time of writing, I haven’t even punched and clipped the counters yet), so that will have to wait for an AAR, but I have every confidence in the editor.

Sample page of the rules. The illustrations are nearly all useful rather than decorative.

I can say the rules are presented following the Sequence of Play. I’ve noticed recently that this pattern has helped me to grok unfamiliar games more quickly than when they’re laid out to some other system of logic. I like to get to know a game by laying out the map and pushing some counters around, and the manner in which the rules are presented suits this learning-style much better (or maybe I’m just growing more impatient with age).

The rules run to sixteen pages, with another page of optional rules. The rules envision play of the full twenty-one turn game, but two shorter scenarios – O’Connor’s Offensive (a four-and-a-half turn “training” scenario), and the five-turn Short Game Scenario are included. Both of these can be played in an evening. Also included are five pages of Designer’s and Player’s Notes, and seven pages of Examples of Play (and a full-page Table of Contents in lieu of an index).

The mounted map-board. As usual, apologies for the sub-par lighting.

The mounted map represents the theatre of operations in the North African campaign, from Aghelia in the west to El Alamein in the east. Movement in the game is point-to-point, which makes sense for a Western Desert game at this scale; the desert is vast but offers only so many serviceable paths for regiment- or brigade-sized formations. The board- and counter-art are the work of Bruce Yearian, a veteran wargame artist whose name should be familiar to anyone who pays attention to such things. Mr Yearian has a talent for combining usability and ascetic value in his maps, with a view to playability.

Built into the map-board are separate Victory Point tracks for the Allied and Axis players, various holding boxes for the two sides for Eliminated units, Reinforcements, and for the Allied player, Withdrawn units, as well as marked positions for the shared Event Card deck and discarded cards. Perhaps the thing I love most about this board set-up, though, is the Turn Track, which is amended with places for all of the Axis and Allied reinforcement units, all right there and ready for action. I’m always appreciative when reinforcement schedules are included in a game – the extra time sorting through counters to populate them is well worth the inconvenience for uninterrupted play – but to have it there on the board is a boon. The whole play area is an exercise in good planning and layout.

The Battle Board, printed on a good weight of card-stock, with pre-rounded corners.

Manoeuvre and supply tracing are the domain of the main board, but when one side attacks the other, the action transfers to the Battle Board. This is an 8 1/2” by 11” board, about the same weight as the counter card-stock, divvied up width-ways into two halves, one each for the Allied and Axis forces. Each half is in turn split into two rows, representing each sides’ Front and Second Line. The box-description mentions that battles can play out like a mini-games in themselves.

In the event of a Combat action., the Battle Marker counter is placed at the point of action on the map-board, while beach side arranges their units in two battle lines on the Battle Board, starting with the player with less units in play (discounting other assets, like Air Support). Here the clash will play out for at least one full round before a side may withdraw. In subsequent rounds, the players may move units from the Second Line to the Front Line but not off the Front Line. Combat continues until one side withdraws from battle.

I’m keen to see how the battle board works in context of the game. Battle boards aren’t a new concept – I’m most familiar with them in terms of block wargames – but should add extra depth to individual combat situations, zooming in on the brutality of the action like a slow-motion sequence in a Sam Peckinpah movie.

Two counter sheets, nearly zero waste (just one unused marker).

The game includes two 5/8” counter sheets, 352 counters in all, of which probably a little more than 40% are unit counters; these are all clearly readable and quite attractive. The counters are printed on a nice weight brown-core card-stock and punch out pretty cleanly. Of the units, the Germans are presented in a light grey, Italians in a creamy yellow, British in khaki, and the Commonwealth units get an olive drab background, with the standard mix of NATO symbols for leg units and silhouettes for the AFVs. The national colours are understated, but clearly recognisable. 

The rest are an assortment of administrative and DRM markers. Most of the markers are generic tokens for mnemonic service, such as Combat Attack/Defence, Interdiction, “Entrenched”, Supply Units, and Out of Supply, while a few are function specific, like the defensive bonus level for the Tobruk fort. The counters are all clear and readable. 

The card-deck, still sealed, sporting an iconic AAK promotional photograph.

Desert Blitzkrieg is a card-assisted game. As such it features a small (twenty-six cards in all) shared deck. These offer some advantage to the drawer, and most of the cards must be used in the turn they are drawn.

Sample Event Cards.

While the Sequence of Play lists the card draw as the first step in a turn, the draw is optional. Moreover, each player can only draw from the deck six times across the game’s twenty-one turns (draws is recorded on two six-sided dice – red for the Allied player, grey for the Axis – provided in the game for this purpose). With less than half of the cards being drawn from the deck in a single game,

The general PAC, covering the Sequence of Play on one side (pictured) and
Combat procedure and notes on the verso.

Desert Blitzkrieg comes with two general, double-sided Player Aid Cards, and two administrative cards, one specifically for the Allied player, and one shared. The general PACs cover a detailed Sequence of Play one side, and a comprehensive guide to the Combat sequence on the reverse. These are thorough and well laid-out and should cover 85% of questions that arise at the table.

The Commonwealth/British Withdrawal/Return/Upgrade Schedule. More than a mouthful.

The Commonwealth/British Withdrawal/Return/Upgrade Schedule does what it says on the label; it offers a schedule of (mostly) unit removals, with some returning units and three unit-upgrades (mostly reflecting new equipment arriving for the Allied forces). The complication of the steady down-drawing of Allied forces will resent a challenge for the player, but the Axis player will have their own challenges to face as the game advances.

Omnibus PAC. This is the one that will likely see the most use.

The other shared card is an omnibus PAC covering British and German Armor Upgrades, parameters for Replacement units (these are drawn from the Eliminated box; units not choses for refit are removed from the game), HQ Return after capture (not a given), Capture and Supply Rolls, some specific instructions for the Axis First Turn, and Victory Point Scoring guidelines for both sides.

The clarification slip.

Included in the box is a half-sheet on "Official Clarifications." Compass Games gets a lot of grief from some quarters about errata (I've been guilty of this myself, but just the once), but everything listed here is either a legitimate clarification (something stated in the rules, but maybe not repeated often enough to sink in) or a really minor typo, like the misnumbering of two illustrations on page 12. There is nothing here that will otherwise break your game. Still, it's worth a read.

Box and dice (and baggies, not mentioned in the text).

Finally, the game comes with a set of dice; two d6s (as mentioned earlier, these are to keep tabs on how many Action Card draws each player has made), and three d10, though the rules note that the values on these rolls run 0-9 rather than 1-10. As stated, I haven’t gotten through the whole rulebook yet, but I haven’t got to – or maybe just skipped over – what the third white d10 is for; the other two, in colours matching the d6s, are for rolling combat results, bonus supply tokens and such. I’m sure the purpose will be revealed as I get deeper into the rules, and I’ll bring along some answers in an AAR.

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I feel very lucky to have randomly won Desert Blitzkrieg in the Town Hall lottery and want to “pay it forward” by getting it to the table sooner rather than later so I can talk to the game with a little more experience than I can here. It’s going in the queue; I can’t see an opportunity to play out an entire twenty-one turn game for a couple of months at least, but I think the two shorter scenarios seem doable. The plan is to get confident in how combat works, then try out O’Connell’s Offensive. If it all goes to plan, I should be able to post an AAR in a fortnight or so (there are a couple of things ahead in the queue).

In other news, A Fast Game is coming up to its third anniversary at the end of January. I’m going to try to get one more post up before the anniversary post, but we’ll see how we go. In the meantime, thanks for reading this far, and stay tuned for more on Desert Blitzkrieg.

 

* Sorry, but none of these titles have BGG entries established yet. I am however looking forward to all of them. I'll try to remember to come back and add the links as they become available.