First off, this is a very tough scenario to set-up, play and even more tough for the Commonwealth to win. There are also a wide variety of morales for different battlegroups; the axis has three different ones (9/7;7/6 and 8/6) as well as the Commonwealth (8/8;8/7 and 8/6). In the course of play it is highly likely these units will get mixed together in some way, whether they are fleeing from demoralization or reinforcing other groups.

Axis objective: keep at least one unit intact on the upper hill levels and eliminate 10 or more New Zealander/Britsh steps. The key to axis success lies in getting their trucks up the hill, unload reinforcements, scramble to the upper hill area and dig-in as fast as possible. The axis deployment leaves a gap between the West, Italian flank and the East, German one. And there is also a gap between the Bersaglieri units South of the flanks. These gaps must be filled as quickly as possible.

Commonwealth objective: eliminate all units in the upper hill area and link up with the Tobruk garrison. This is a tall order even though both New Zealand and Britain have superior numbers and a lot of tanks. However, to counter those tanks are plenty of A.T. guns along with an Italian 90mm A.A.gun which is just about as capable of knocking out a Matilda as it's German, 88mm counterpart. My advice is to forget linking up right away and focus all British units deployed in the West, foot and mobile alike, on stopping those trucks from getting to the upper hill area and with the Southwestern Kiwi force to rush right into the Bersaglieri in hopes of eliminating the 90mm before it can be moved. Once again, those trucks have to be stopped as they are the only means of transport the axis has.

I won't go into too much detail of the scenario play as it was long at 36 turns and it was clear midway through that there was no hope in eliminating all of the axis blockading forces. The Italians were successful in getting all of their trucks through Bersaglieri lines and transporting their field pieces. Some bren carriers were sent to try to stop the trucks but were too late and only managed to slow some unloaded German units down through morale checks but even they made it through eventually as OBA covered their movement, eliminating one of the carriers. Another factor which benefited the axis was the visibilty limit of 2 hexes as this was a night scenario. Had there been full visibilty the Commonwealth forces would of easily been able to eliminate both trucks and weapon units alike and roll on over with the tanks. Also, the axis had incredible OBA available to them at: 1x24,2x16 and 4x12. There were some curious random events which also worked against the New Zealanders -twice in play a Kiwi HMG unit rained friendly fire down on it's comrades at point-blank range!

The Kiwis have not had much luck in these 'Desert Rats' scenarios so far and with my play, after this scenario sit at only 1 victory and 4 losses but they did give the German flank a hard time and though they never managed to link-up with the Tobruk garrison they were able to eliminate 14 steps of German INF and destroy all of the 50mm A.T. guns the hard way, through assaults. The problem was that once a German post was taken the Kiwis were left stacked 3 high and the axis OBA obtained deadly results with sometimes up to a 70+ column on the bombardment table. The New Zealand losses were: 9 steps of INF, and 2 steps of HMG. With the British, the garrison kept getting pushed back everytime they tried to breakthrough and only managed to take two Italian positions and lost both of them soon after. In the Southern portion of the battleground the Bersaglieri positions were regrouped after the field guns were transported and formed a wall of defense denying access to the upper hill areas from the second Kiwi attack group and did not give up one post by scenario's end.

So it ends with a decisive axis victory and Tobruk must wait another day to be relieved. I rated this one a 3 out of 4 because of the challenge factor and the amount of coordination required. However, I did have to use smoke, wire and decoy markers to distinquish units of different morales that got mixed in together so play was as tedious as it was long, taking four days to complete. Not a bad scenario overall and though it was another loss for New Zealand they did give a good fight for once without the assistance of the Maoris.

Author	treadasaurusrex (Britain, New Zealand)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	Draw
Participants	Miguelibal
Play Date	2022-12-09
Language	English
Scenario	DeRa026

This was a very long, 7-session play through with another rapidly-improving rookie in a very tough scenario for both sides -- but especially for the leader of the Commonwealth -- this is a very hard pull. Being the more experienced player, I chose the New Zealand & British side, so at least I got some tanks! My estimable opponent wanted to practice his defensive skills, so he chose the defending Axis side in what ended as a very costly & frustrating DRAW. We used the FOW, smoke, excess initiative, consolidation and extended assault optional rules. The leader draws were fairly bad for the Axis, but pretty decent for the Commonwealth. There were 10 FOW-shortened turns out of 36 in this play-through and fortunately we ignored the random events table for sake of continuity.

As others have noted, this scenario is not well-designed, or properly play-tested. There are a variety of morale levels for both side's battlegroups: the Axis has three different ones (9/7, 7/6 & 8/6); as well as the Commonwealth (8/8, 8/7 & 8/6). Ours got all mixed up in the course of play, and it was an annoying -- but necessary -- chore to keep track of the varying morale levels of units from different formations in mixed stacks. The Axis side is required to maintain at least one unit intact on the upper hill levels and eliminate 10 or more New Zealander/British steps. This is a major challenge for the Italo-Germans as the several groups are set up widely on the single map, with significant gaps in between. This forces the Axis player to scramble and fill these gaps as soon as possible to ensure a better supported defense, and to do so while outnumbered. The Commonwealth needs to eliminate all enemy units on the upper hill contours, focus considearable effort on eliminating Axis motor transport -- and most crucially -- to join hands with the emerging British Tobruk garrison. This is a very tall order, indeed, given the number and lethality of the demonic AT guns deployed by the Axis player, and places a premium on a very rapid Kiwi advance and on pinning & destroying the high-morale Bersaglieri battalion before they move with their devilish 90mm AT gun platoon.

This nighttime, 36-turn scenario, was a giant slugfest, and it was fairly obvious that the Commonwealth force would not be able to prevail by the 20th game turn. However, the New Zealanders & Tommies kept punching to the end in hopes of throwing all the Axis troops off the higher hill terrace. This push nearly succeeded, but was foiled by multiple Commonwealth morale failures at critical junctures in turns 18-24. Most of these were caused by sporadically accurate and always heavy Axis OBA, combined with unlucky close assault combat rolls. A near link-up occurred in turns 25-27, but effective Axis counter attacks foiled this opportunity. Step losses at the end, were 22 steps for the embattled Italo-German force, and 12 steps for the Commonwealth.

I give this overlong scenario a generous rating of 2, only because of the challenging action and good companionship. It desperately needs more thorough play-testing to rate any higher, IMHO. Not sure that it is possible for the Commonwealth player to win this one outright, although I tried very hard to pull it off. It proved a very close draw. This encounter is probably better played in solo mode, and shortened to about 28-30 game turns.