This scenario begins Vince and I's early Desert war campaign played without leader characters with a few campaign and scenario victory condition adjustments. I have played all of the 'King's Officers' desert war scenarios once before but shared plays are a different matter and will likely have far different results and outcomes.

This first battle with the Italian invasion of Egypt went quite differently than my solo play. The British set up first with a very modest defending force attempting to prevent Italian forces from getting past the Egyptian border of the east edge. Control of the road was one of the objectives, worth more to the Italians than the British so I set up most of the defending force there, dug-in, in the north with a few INF closer to the center and brens loaded with 2-pdrs directly center to anticipate the movement of the tankette "cans of beans" otherwise known as L3/35s and L6/40s. Vince took a logical approach knowing that getting a potential 50+ steps (and victory points) off the east edge was far more important than trying to gain control of a road worth a mere 10 VPs. So he set up his force's units as far from the road and to the south as possible making the first few turns a race. Honestly I don't know what the best deployment for the British could of been and I couldn't very well leave the road unguarded but perhaps should of placed just a token force there with more units central to move more quickly to where the Italian invasion would actually begin.

Surprisingly, despite the overall predictiment, the British did have some luck with a lot of the initiative rolls and got full use out of the 2-pdrs by incredibly eliminating 3 steps of L3/35s early on but that favor was repaid with the more tankish L6/40s taking out both of my bren carriers that had moved in too close chasing down the horde. I did manage to get my foot units to cut-off a sizeable portion of the advancing/exiting force and did manage to keep them cordoned off from getting further. There was a lot of battle going on for the second half but the Italains did have the advantage of superior on-board and off-board artillery and one aircraft each turn. Honestly, I think the British did quite well considering being at an overall firepower disadvantage. I was able to keep a lot of Italian units and leaders in disrupted or demoralized condition. Soon though, both 2-pdrs were eliminated along with my only source of indirect fire, the 3-inch mortar. I would also lose 3 steps of INF along with a Lieutenant before this little battle was finished. I did manage to eliminate 4 steps of Italian INF through assaults but even that was difficult to manage.

In the end though it was a clear, major Italian victory with 30 Italian steps exited with relative ease added to 8 British step losses for a total of 38 Italian victory points. The British received a modest 5 VPs for keeping control of the road and inflicting only a mere 10 Italian step losses for a total of 15 VPS giving Vince a 23 point lead in this campaign. Other than blundering with the bren carriers, driving right into range of AT fire I believe I did fairly well considering my initial deployment and Vince's entry points. I think that the scenario would have to favor the Italians just a hint as they should be able to start this war off with some sort of success or else there would be no need of cause for the upcoming 'Operation Compass' in response. The practical choice of the Italians avoiding gaining control of the road made the difference between a major and minor victory or draw with Italian VPs gained and this being a campaign it's the amount of points that matter. I gave this shared play a '3' rating though solo I had rated it a bit higher previously and when played with the leader characters months ago. The only reason I didn't rate it a '4' this time was because I believe Italy has a heavy advantage though not overwhelming. Still, personally and against a crafty and experianced axis player this was chock full of action and hope to get the Brits in gear to go on the offensive in the next battle and balance, if not actually tip the scales.