Baptism by Fire.. was I being baptized? I think so.

This is my second attempt at playing with the new rules v2.0. I’m pretty certain I bugger several things up for want of my clear reading more than anything. V 2.0 is certainly better than the original, but I still find myself meandering around the rule book and 2^nd guessing my self, when either things go too well or too poorly for one side or the other and it just ‘feels wrong’.

I’ve since had a 3^rd effort, and made a number of errors which after three efforts it appears that I either am not concentrating or not able to grok what I can do, should or must do.

So here is what I did, right or wrong.

I shall revisit again once I clear the muddled mess from my head and see what is what with V 2.0 of the rules. This is by no means an indictment of the game or game system. I just dont appear to ‘get it’. Sometimes when you go at something too hard you end up spun up around an axle. I suspect this happened here.

Scenario 5.1

14^th February – 23^rd February 1943

Turn 1: 14/2/43

Axis 4 Air

• Chit pull sequence –

Scht

Axis roll 8, net 11.

2^nd Activation Yes.

They move Westward and then North heading for Sbeitla.

Axis roll a 2; +2 +1 -1 for using track, -1 ghost. Three means a partial.

Gerhardt

Now we make an error..duh, I grabbed 1/501 Tiger unit from REIM, and we use it during Gerhardt’s activation, the Tigers are a full red AV , but they still need to make a STOP, so they engage.

They garner a +4 on an engagement, due to FP & AR differential [9 vs 5 ]. +1 for Dbl Tap [Objective Chits]. The G/1 formation of shermans from CCA are wiped out.
The good news is I rolled a 12 here, so all would work out the same. ***

The Tigers motor on down the road and engage with Kern. The Train elects to roll for a soft bounce, guessing what’s coming. The 1/501 forces a retreat and a step loss on Kern. The pre-emptive roll for bounce of the TCCA 1^st Armoured supply train means a soft bounce for the CCA Train they relocate.

The 49^th & 11/69 encircle CCA HQ that is stacked with 701^st TD and 3/1 Tank Battalion.

49^th flips and moves adjacent. II/69 moves adjacent, approaching through the scattered palm tree groves.

I dig through the rules at this point missing a key intro point about Arty & Air usage on a given hex during an activation. After going around in circles for a bit due to some serious denseness on my part I sort out all the options. The II/69^th lead the attack. AR 4 Support +2 & Assist +1 =7. Defender AR 3 +1 for the defender. Net 4. A total of +3 difference for the attacker. The Axis roll a 7, for a net 10.

This result is [A1], D: situational traffic. Retreat to Sidi Salem from Sidi bou Zid.

Now if we had elected to run a different type of REGULAR attack as listed above. We could have run three[?.. or two?] air attacks, but not receive the +2 DRM on the Regular attack. Using the same roll and DRMS above would have resulted in a A1 result on a net 8.

The CCA roll up a partial activation. This allows all units to move 50%, and move into Prepared Defense.

Now, note below the Units from CCA that moved, we were attempting to consolidate the CAA units. But this will invoke isolation and Safe Path mandates. As a special rule the units in the main if they stay in their setup hexes, they can avoid attrition.

So you will see later that I move these [Drake, Waters and 3/168 all back to their at start locations, as the combined Supply Train jump and lack of safe path for the units to the HQ would mean severe isolation losses.

SCHT arrives next and motors thru Gerhardts formation and bounces the CCA 1^st Armoured Train on its way North. They get two full moves.

REIM arrives next

CCC 1^st Armoured arrives and takes a partial activation shifting units to the Hatab River East of Kef el Ahmar with 2/1 takes up a defense stance and drops into Prepared Defense. They have no 2^nd activation.

End of turn situation –

A lot of glare on this shot below but it shows end of turn status, and we need to adjust the locations back to at start for the CCA.

I believe the MSR is totally blocked for the CCA Train. So it gets its first MSR blocked counter….or perhaps it is removed from the map. At the time of writing I must confess I am not 100% which is right

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A very muddle effort. So we stopped here. Took a break and re set only to fall afoul of yet another missed rule regarding soft bounces, supply, etc.