Gazala/Cauldron Boardgame

Last week, wife and self having gone down with a bug of some kind, and not feeling up to a game with figures to pass the time, I sorted through my boardgames, which I have not played for decades, and chose one I thought I could play solo. 

One map, not too many counters, straight-forward rules and victory conditions, and a pretty clear task for each side - British: hold Tobruk and keep open the supply line, Germans/Italians: capture Tobruk and cut the British supply line while establishing their own. Destroying the other sides units was going to help as well. I decided the British would fall back to the ridges and hold them, hanging on to "boxes" where sensible to slow the enemy, counterattacking if a suitable chance arose, and not trying anything daft. For the Germans/Italians, it was to keep trying to outflank the British with the Germans and use the Italians to pin them in place.

The map - East is at the top, West at the bottom.

Opening deployment - the British scattered around all over the place, the Germans concentrated to the South, the Italians, with a few extra Germans, to the West.

One person's narrative of their boardgame is probably another person's torture, so I won't do a blow-by-blow account. I took a photograph every three turns, which seemed more than enough to get a sense of the game's ebb and flow. The arrows show the general direction of movements and action: British arrows in green, German/Italian in brown.

As can be seen, the British are pulling back fast for the ridges, abandoning their minefields, while the Germans and Italians shift south and east. Bir Hacheim took an almighty big offensive to take, armour and artillery being needed to knock out the Free French quickly. Although tempting to ignore, it has to be taken to open up the German/Italian supply route. However, it meant the German armour was not as far east as they might have liked by this time.

The British have established a front along the ridges, leaving the minefields to slow the Italians, while the Germans are stretched out trying to cut the British lines of communication.

The Italians ground forward and the British pulled back from in front of them, while the Germans hammered away at the eastern end of the British line; the latter threw brigade after brigade into blocking the breaches and also making opportune counterattacks. I worked out very quickly it was not a good idea to attack any German armour or infantry backed by AT units!

Success for the British in pushing back the Germans after the latter overreached themselves; the Italians continued their slow drive eastwards.

The Germans rallied and pushed back against the British, but were still not able to break through. The lost units on the right of the picture show it very much in the Germans' favour, but while the British hold Tobruk, they can take the losses and still win.

Germans and Italians grinding their way forward, but still no British collapse, the latter having enough units to fill gaps here and there.

British counterattacks and the Germans are in trouble, but their line stabilises.

The British on the back foot once more in the east, but holding on.

A general movement by the British back to closer positions around Tobruk and their lines of communication still open as the game ends.

I really enjoyed playing this game after such a long time not plying boardgames. I admit playing a game solo is not as interesting as against a real opponent, but this one seemed to have enough to and fro to it that it made me think carefully about what to do and could, at times, have gone either way. It was certainly a good way of getting back into the boardgames I enjoyed decades ago. I intend to try another one soon.