Desert WWII 20mm Game

Hello There! Back at last! Well agency work and a number of days abroad I have got back to posting. I have a few posts to catch up with my catalogue of  photos which has started to pile up!

On the day I realised that I had left my camera at home so Adrian kindly supplied the photos for this post

First up we have a 20mm WW II desert game. Adrian and I played  a few weeks ago. I have a large collection of desert forces and took the opportunity to get the French Foreign Legion, Italian and DAK forces onto the table. Above is an oasis which I made for Adrian and this formed part of the defences of the French.

The Axis forces advanced on a broad front and well spaced out. They were in two groups ordered by nationality. The armour led the way with their lorried infantry support close behind. 

The drop on scenery of the dunes go well with my desert scenery and further scatter of sand and Cotswold buff stone chippings.

The Opel Blitz lorries are old Esci models from the 1990's while the remaining models in the above picture are SHQ metal models. The lorries have brass wire canvas rings and plasticard planking.

The Italian forces had a group of Semovente in the vanguard of the Italian attack.

The Italians lorries were the now defunct Minimi models resin models.

Many of the tanks and AFVs have commanders and crew visible

This old and recycled Esci Panzer II was also in the attack. The main gun was replaced with a piece of brass wire to make it more wargames proof. The model came from the scrap pile of a number of Esci models and I was able to reclaim a number of models from that pile.

When the forward armoured units started to come under fire the infantry debussed and started to spread out to the attack. Here the Germans are supressed so go prone. This has the effect of making them harder to hit but also stopping their advance.

The French Foreign Legion occupied the ridge of one of the dunes, in trenches, and had a company behind in support with a further company ahead of them at the foot of the dunes. The had a link to the mortar of their heavy weapons company.

As the axis forces got closed to their enemy positions they started to take casualties. This caused a problem for them in that the tanks could not close with the enemy without infantry support. Eventually the more numerous Italian infantry were able to assist.

This Morris conversion is the Airfix towing vehicle from the bofors gun set and with a resin flat bed from Moonlight Models in Canada. It was a beute conversion from vehicles captured at the end of the French campaign.

The French, despite being in trenches suffered a lot of casualties, mainly caused by the off table 105mm howitzers that the Germans could call upon. The French were waiting for tanks to come to their rescue but the dice throws that decided when they would arrive were not kind.

This old Esci Matilda has an AB commander. The aerial is a cat whisker.

Eventually the Valentines and Matildas arrived, almost too late! They soon started to take a toll of the German armour.

As tanks started to brew up across the board the French infantry had to retreat due to their high losses leaving the tanks to fight it out.

The Allies also had a recce unit to help. Here this Daimler is a Hasegawa model. Again the aerials are cat whiskers.

Hand to hand fighting started in the oasis as the Italian infantry started their assault.

At the end of the game, which had been very see saw, the Allies were compelled to give up the field to the Axis forces.

It was a really enjoyable game with mixed fortunes going to both sides and was really close. We use a modified version of Rapid Fire rules and had the troops who came under artillery fire to go prone but could still slowly move forward.

Another game is on the cards for the future.