Pot90pouri

Firstly, commiserations to Jonathan Freitag over at Palouse Wargaming Journal, who, in case you hadn't heard, has broken his leg. Get well soon old chap, and I trust you will find a productive way to use the time.

Last night was day 2 of Sidi Rezegh Day 2. You may have formed the impression that I didn't like either the scenario or the the rules, and you would be correct in doing so. I'm not going to say any more about the set up of the game, except to remind you that it involves the Germans charging onto the table, the British moving towards them and then eventually someone winning. I am however going to be rude about the rules. Now, clearly James really likes them, and he is a person of high standing within the wargaming fraternity, whereas I am just some chap who dabbles in toy soldiers in such intervals as a heavy schedule of cultural activities and wanton women allows. Nevertheless, I don't like Blitzkreig Commander.

In no particular order:

• I don't like the way the benefits of being in cover increase in an exponential manner while the benefits of better quality or greater quantity are linear.
• I don't like the lack of a target priority rule, which inevitably results in ganging up on the opposition's strongest unit.
• I don't like the key role played by command radius, a spurious concept at the best of times and one that seems out of place in the period. In practice it is a significantly greater handicap to attackers than it is to defenders and makes it difficult to co-ordinate close assaults with artillery support. There is a small tweak in the rules to somewhat ameliorate this issue, but James has taken it back out of his house rules; wrongly, in my opinion.
• I don't like the activation mechanism. It is crude and offers the player no real choices; one simply keeps rolling until one fails. I would compare it unfavourably with, for example, the process used in To the Strongest!, which achieves a similar objective, but relies on the player making some real decisions. 

So, to recap, I don't like it.

Laser cutting continues, and I am pleased to say that I think I am beginning to get the hang of the various programmes and machinery involved. Which makes it all the more surprising that my first attempt at a corner for the wall didn't fit together and had to be thrown away. In happier news I have produced another attempt at a warband base, which is shown above squaring off against a couple of Roman units. 

This is it compared to the base I have previously been using; much better I think.