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.