Thursday 5 April 2018

Revisiting Rommel via Axis and Allies

 
A very nice set of rules and there is a whole heap of useful material available on the Sam Mustafa website


Way back in September of last year I acquired a copy of Rommel by Sam Mustafa. These are a grid-based operational level set of WW2 rules. At the time I was thinking about 3mm using the models produced by Tumbling Dice (of which I have supply lurking in the man cave) and half sized squares (in the rules they use 6" squares so a 6ft by 4ft table will be 8 x 12) - mainly because I already have some boards gridded up using 3" squares for my Portable Wargames.

Fast forward some six months (gosh, that went quickly!) and I am now knee deep in my Axis and Allies WW2 project that has given me rather a lot of 1:300th -1:285th scale tanks and artillery. These are quite basic and generic looking models (and by generic I mean that, for example, the Sherman looks like a Sherman but you would struggle to pin it down to a specific mark of that iconic tank) but they would work very nicely with Rommel using the smaller playing area.

I have yet to decide about infantry as originally for the Portable Wargame style games I envisaged using the appropriate units from my block armies but for Rommel figures would look better. I have a vast number of 20mm Axis and Allies 20mm figures that I want to use so may well dip into them.

Given the scale of the actions fought using Rommel a lot of low level detail is abstracted and this extends to equipment and weaponry. I have absolutely no problem with this and so using the Axis and Allies Boardgame pieces, as well as those available from Historical Boardgaming, means that I can get extra mileage out of the models above and beyond my planned Portable Wargame adventures.

Much to ponder methinks....





8 comments:

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

I seem to be going through a rule collecting phase
Should Rommel be on this list?

Ray Rousell said...

Sounds like a plan?

Jonathan Freitag said...

Sounds interesting. Ponder away!

David Crook said...

Hi Geordie,

Absolutely! They have some very neat ideas contained therein and whilst they will not appeal to the 1 figure 1 man skirmish brigade they are great for large actions.

Certainly worth a investment IMHO.

All the best,

DC

David Crook said...

Hi Ray,

It is a plan of sorts and rather unusually for me it actually quite achievable....

(Best I go and lie down in a darkened room....)

All the best,

DC

David Crook said...

Hi Jonathan,

I like to ponder, in fact I consider myself to be a leading authority on pondering.....

Where I struggle though is turning the pondering into something more tangible....

All the best,

DC

William Stewart said...

Looking forward to seeing the plan develop.

David Crook said...

Hi William,

There are a few ideas to throw in the mix but overall I reckon I am on the right track.

All the best,

DC