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....