Alan Snider  - Aug 6, 2005 11:14 am (#10541 Total: 10543)  
On the Playtest Table: Khyber Pass Games' "The Battle of the Little Bighorn"; 
and announcing the "Northern Knights Wargaming Group" in Vancouver, 
Canada with a retail store of it's own at http://www.stalag17wargames.com/
 	 
GAMENIGHT, Aug 5th: Brent Louie and I found that we were the only ones
who showed up on this night so, the Holy Roman Empire game is
postponed...and Brent and I headed to the shelf to find something we
could get into without too much trouble. I grabbed S&T #226 off the
shelf, and was delighted to find that Brent can get behind anything; and
we set up El Arish '67. I have been wanting to try this one for quite
some time and found no takers within my group. 

I took the Israelis and the "Hebrew Hammer" (the name we used to denote
a rather huge artillery piece that could roam freely and attack with any
division it wanted). Brent decided to try the challenge of the Egyptian
defence, which if successful; Brent was set to claim the title of
"Egyptian Magician". 

The Egyptians started set up in a few fortified positions near the
Eastern map edge, which suited them fine as only within these
fortification do they exert a regular ZoC. They do not have mandated
attacks from these positions either. The Israelis on the other hand, do
not have to observe ZoCs outside of those exerted by fortified Egyptian
hexes. The Egyptians are further hampered by attacking at only 1/2
strength when outside fortifications. It definitely looked to be an all
out defence for the Egyptian side. 

The Israelis rush forward and attempt to mobile attack the Egyptians but
are somewhat cautious not to leave themselves open to encirclement. The
CRT is bloodless and the only way to eliminate a unit is to retreat into
enemy ZoCs. The initial attacks were designed to hopefully push a few
Egyptian units out of the fortifications. I quickly determined that turn
2 attacks would have to take some risks to encircle the entire
fortifications in ZoCs and hope to shred 'em... This worked near Retief
just beautifully, and I was able to tear into the Egyptian positions. It
did cost the Israeli a couple of units, which is quite costly VP-wise (4
VP's vs 1 VP for an eliminated unit when comparing Israelis eliminated
vs. Egyptians eliminated). 

Over on the North-East edge (Il Qatari?- I forgot), the Egyptians simply
came out on top of 1 attack and forced the Israelis to retreat and this
gave them a bit of breathing room (read retreating room) for the balance
of the Israeli attacks. Th mop up operation on these two fortified
locations took the balance of the first day, before the Israelis were
able to set their sights on the next few VP map locations. Brent did
craftily encircle my helicopter unit and eliminate it as he bailed out
of Retief(drats!-that's another 4 VPs) 

Brent, being a master of SPI quad defence, set up speed bumps on the
freeway and minor roads, forcing the Israelis to stop and eliminate the
units to gain greater mobility. At the end of each turn, the Egyptians
score VP's for each of the VP map location they hold at that time. This
allows the Egyptians to rack up quite a VP margin for which the Israeli
must recover. Brent also opted to take the turn 5 reinforcement and the
VP penalty attached to them. This looks to be mandatory to me, as I
doubt they have a chance to win otherwise. 

We finished the evening at the end of turn 7 (of 11), and headed into
the night turn. The night turns are a bitch, as both sides take attack
penalties in the form of column shifts and have 1/2 movement. So, it
looks like the Egyptians have been successful in denying the Israeli and
1 VP tallies for units exited off the Western map edge. The Israelis
must now depend on 1/2 point scoring to have a chance at victory. 

I have nearly 3 divisions sitting across from El Arish, and have
attacked sending one unit back in retreat, and advanced in with a tank
unit. This valiant trooper is expected to be mercilessly attacked on all
sides on the next Egyptian turn; and will rely on defensive artillery
support to have any hopes of being eliminated. I have moved the Hebrew
Hammer and 3 other artillery pieces with range for just this purpose. 

This game does look like it will come down to the final turn to decide
the game...I always dig that. Brent will drop by to finish this one up
tonight!! 

Alan Snider  - Aug 7, 2005 12:45 am (#10545 Total: 10617)  
On the Playtest Table: Khyber Pass Games' "The Battle of the Little Bighorn"; 
and announcing the "Northern Knights Wargaming Group" in Vancouver, Canada 
with a retail store of it's own at http://www.stalag17wargames.com/ 
	 
GAMENIGHT, Aug 6th: Brent Louie and I returned to the table to finish
off our game of El Arish '67. A quick few corrections from last session
on the names of the initial 2 Egyptian fortified positions; they are
Rafiah and Umm Qataf (my memory did a number on those..haha). 

We picked up on the Egyptian 7th turn, with Brent reorganizing some
troops near El Arish to better take on the expected attacks...the single
tank unit which had been able to make it across the wadi was engaged in
combat by no less than 4 Egyptian units; while Brent had the artillery
units "soak off" attacks on other units, including the Hebrew
Hammer...making its' use in defence of the encircled tank unit
impossible (argh- nice playin, Brent). 

One pesky Egyptian unit remained in Abu Aweiqla managed to royally screw
up the Israeli movements...particularly during this turn, as it was
night. This proved to keep the Israelis from advancing in force, as the
wadi on that side of the map acts as a barrier in and of itself at
night. 

This set up the final day of combat that would decide the game. The
Israelis did push into El Arish and then pushed the Egyptians back the
the map edge, but were not able to get the total lockdown of ZoCs
required for a total kill zone. The final unnamed VP hex on the SW edge
of the map was the next to be captured and the Egyptians pulled back on
the following turn from the VP hex near Bir El Lafhan. This now left the
Israelis with all the VP hexes in their possession. It now looked to be
a race to exit units off the map edge and VP's for killing Egyptian
units to decide it all... 

It was at this time that Brent pulled a startling move: He did a quick
mental tally of potential VP's for the Israelis on the final 2 turns and
decided to take the withdrawl option and exited as many Egyptian units
off the map as he could. This allowed for exiting Israeli ZoCs, but not
traveling through them. I still had 4 Egyptian units trapped who could
not exit, but the final VP tally revealed that Brent had indeed earned
his title of "Egyptian Magician" with his late game disappearing act.
the game ended with a +2 differential for the Egyptian player....good
for a draw. This denied the Israeli of what would surely have been a
victory. 

We really liked this game as it provides interesting challenges for both
sides. It is partcularly interesting for the Egyptian player, as he
essentially has 2 tasks: forcing the Israeli player to take on some of
the fortification hexes by tying his unit up in ZoCs and a solid line on
units butted up against sand hexes...then a fighting withdrawl to hold
each VP hex for as many turns as possible. I sure am looking forward to
seeing more games in the system, as they are some quick play
entertainment that can be completed in one evening.