From: Peter Card Subject: Re: Battle North Africa (GMT) It is a classic with some rough edges. The game system is simple and easy to get the hang of, despite a slightly murky set of rules. There are two pairs of missing activation counters - I hand crafted replacements for these. You do get a Desert Berg counter, which not everyone thought was sufficient compensation. (That's 2 Berg counters I have seen so far, is this the start of a Hitchcockian trend?) No doubt we will get replacements for the missing counters at some stage, but I am not missing any sleep over it. The long double map, by Joe Youst, is a thing of beauty, with one famous flaw. The colour coded counters are a touch garish, but do the job nicely. Turns are monthly. Units are mostly Division/Brigade level, with a range of smaller assets, for recon, artillery, AT. The action is driven by selecting activation chits from the cup, giving a chaotic sequence of play. This is basically the same mechanism that Berg has used in Glory, Battles of Waterloo, etc. You have to commit the resources up front at the start of the game turn for the units you intend to activate. Most units are organised into divisions, and it is Not A Good Idea to let the combat units stray out of range of the Div HQ. You also get a handful of commanders. (Graziani, Rommel, Wavell, Auchinleck, O'Conner and Monty) The supply route rules place an upper 55 hex limit from the ultimate supply sources for either side, which are basically the E or W map edges, Bengazi (unless/until the Italians sink their blockship), or the curiously unnamed Libyan port in the centre of the map. This makes for some fiddly hex counting as the Axis player decides exactly which frontier hexes are in supply while the Commonwealth player holds Tobruk. ( Bardia is IN, Halfaya Pass is OUT, I think ...)