Skirmish level WWII North Africa?

[FifteensAway]

Been doing well resisting adding any WWII to my excessive collection of figures but Khurasan is tempting for their North Africa range - or will be if they add the Americans.

Question is how workable is skirmish level gaming for this theater?

Thanks!

[carlos marighela]

Should be no more, no less doable than any other theatre. If your conception of the Western Desert is based around sweeping armoured thrusts then obviously skirmish gaming is unlikely to evoke much of a sense of that.

In reality, there were plenty of small scale actions that can be gamed. The siege of Tobruk was filled with small raids, recce and fighting and patrols ideally suited to platoon (-) games. Most major battles break down into  hundreds of small actions and that's just as true of the Western Desert as anywhere else. Have a read of Peter Dornan's book on El Alamein if you don't believe me.

Beyond conventional forces you also have all the exotica of the LRDG, SAS, Popski and commando raids behind the lines. Ideal skirmish fodder.

Chain of Command has forces for the Desert War and quite a few people have drawn up their own force lists, scenarios, game examples, AARs etc.

[traveller]

If you want a small skirmish I would recommend Rogue Warriors. Their next supplement will be North Africa:

https://tabletopskirmishgames.com/collections/rogue-warriors?page=2

[Silent Invader]

If you want a small skirmish I would recommend Rogue Warriors. Their next supplement will be North Africa:

https://tabletopskirmishgames.com/collections/rogue-warriors?page=2

That’s a great video 

[SteveBurt]

Raids by the LRDG or SAS make good games as well. 02 Hundred Hours has a desert war supplement

[Munindk]

There's also "DAK attack!" which is about SAS attacking DAK, not the other way around.
Its waiting for me in my mailbox, so I hope its good, but I dont know yet.

[Dubar]

I just ordered a copy of the Rogue Warrior rules, it'll be interesting to compare them to the One-Hour Skirmish Wargaming rules!  Dice vs cards, Oh Boy!!!

[robh]

I think the Desert War is really tedious to game at skirmish level, you can do it a few times and have fun but it soon becomes repetitive. You cannot really field tanks or support vehicles/guns as the movement and firing distances are too long for skirmish, so you are forced to find much in the way of options for tabletop units.
Also unless you have access to a sandtable or modular 3D terrain tiles getting good undulating ground with gullies and dunes is difficult.

For scenarios there were raids and patrols for sure, but unless something went wrong they were pretty much always carried out at night.

You need to find rules that challenge you to actually do anything. We generally play (in 20mm) with the "4 men in..."  rules or Crossfire as those are more familiar but the games tend to feel very "samey".
For what it's worth (as most people despise these rules) I think the best option is the skirmish scale variant of "Point of Attack" from the Piquet range. Getting anything done is a challenge and you can find that everything goes against you and you lose abysmally. However you get a narrative event that you will remember and chat about long after most games are forgotten.

[traveller]

I just ordered a copy of the Rogue Warrior rules, it'll be interesting to compare them to the One-Hour Skirmish Wargaming rules!  Dice vs cards, Oh Boy!!!

I really like them both. Rogue warrior a bit more detailed so suitable for smaller forces. It also has a clever solo mechanism. OHSM is a faster game and can be applied to all gunfire periods (looking forward to the medieval version released end of August). My plan is to use:
Battlescape: solo modern
Rogue warrior: solo WW2
OHSW: everything else(would love a solo system for this)

[Dubar]

I really like them both. Rogue warrior a bit more detailed so suitable for smaller forces. It also has a clever solo mechanism. OHSM is a faster game and can be applied to all gunfire periods (looking forward to the medieval version released end of August). My plan is to use:
Battlescape: solo modern
Rogue warrior: solo WW2
OHSW: everything else(would love a solo system for this)

Should be getting my copy of Rogue Warriors tomorrow from Amazon!!!  Is there any "character building" in Rogue Warriors, from one skirmish to the next?  I want to incorporate a bit of it into my games, but not to the point where the game becomes role-playing.

[carlos marighela]

Just make sure you double check your order. There's also the highly immersive RPG/ Skirmish game Vogue Warriors that pits battling gangs or 'houses' of New York drag queens in the Harlem Ballroom scene of the 1980s. 'Glamour, sequins, impossible heels, heavy attitude and MAC-10s' is the tag line. 

[FifteensAway]

Thanks for the replies so far. 

Lots of 'chatter' about rules but I already have rules I will use (and I will not name them because that part just doesn't matter, we all have our favorite sets and to each our own, my rules of choice are great for skirmishes in general).

I'm just curious if it is worth pursuing for this theater and it appears the opinions on that are divided.  robh, I appreciate your counter view; very glad to read your perspective. 

Part of what drives the question is that there is ZERO chance I will build a large army for this period but I might indulge in a skirmish, maybe a grand skirmish, level game.  But nothing larger. 

[carlos marighela]

Well leaving rules aside, let's take apart Rob's objections.

I think the Desert War is really tedious to game at skirmish level, you can do it a few times and have fun but it soon becomes repetitive. You cannot really field tanks or support vehicles/guns as the movement and firing distances are too long for skirmish, so you are forced to find much in the way of options for tabletop units.

Arguably, you could say that about any theatre, be it urban, jungle, the steppes of Russia or Normandy bocage. The limitation here is scenario design and imagination. Sighting ranges and the range of effective fire are different things. Effective fire against infantry after emerging from the murk of dust and smoke is not going to be the same as optimal spotting ranges. With skirmish games you are typically looking at one or two support weapons or tanks anyway. For much of the desert war the most effective support weapon of most tanks is going to be machineguns anyway.

Of course engagement ranges also feeds into the second objection.

Also unless you have access to a sandtable or modular 3D terrain tiles getting good undulating ground with gullies and dunes is difficult.

Well no, not really, not  unless you demand diorama quality set ups for every game. There are plenty of commonly used methods for outlining contour lines, breaks to LOS and cover that don't require bespoke terrain. What about the old method of lines of thread marking contour lines or depressions? Or the even older method of a cloth cover over foam, books, pre made hills etc? Neither is obtrusive, expensive or difficult to set up. The desert war was not fought on a uniform, billiard table like surface. By the time you get to the sequel, the fighting in Tunisia, you are dealing with complex, hilly, even mountainous terrain.

For scenarios there were raids and patrols for sure, but unless something went wrong they were pretty much always carried out at night.

Most rule sets have rules for fighting night actions. How this would differ from any other theatre I have no idea.

We all have our own preferences and prejudices and if skirmish gaming in a different theatre doesn't do it for some people then, fine, that's their preference and their POV. All I'm saying is that if you are interested, then there are ways of making things interesting or at least no less interesting than any other theatre.

[Cat]

I find it works as well as skirmish gaming in any theater.  Possibly even easier to build up a suitable collection of scatter terrain to provide the all-important cover for lines of sight and fire.
 
Given the compressed ranges for tabletop gaming, daylight/moonlight doesn't really matter a whole lot unless you just want to add that complication.
 
I must confess, I've long been tempted to build screen-accurate German vehicles from the Rat Patrol for skirmish gaming.  Watching the show will certainly give you lots of good inspiration for terrain and set-ups at the very least.
: 3

[FifteensAway]

Cat,

Those distant - far distant - memories of the Rat Patrol are part of what inspires be to, possibly, move in this direction.