William Terdoslavich  - Jun 27, 2007 11:37 am (#18954 Total: 19395)  
I'm tired of playing Euro games. I want to kill!!! 	 

RE: Shifting Sands.

It came down to the last battle on the last turn. It was that bitter. 

First, I'm really pleased to have played my first complete game of
Shifting Sands. In the previous three or four attempts, I got hosed off
the board by turn 5 or 6. This did nothing to build my personal
enthusiasm for the game. I saw the merit of the design, even while
getting routed. But this was the first time I actually got to enjoy it. 

To resume the situation, two SA divisions were marching north to Addis
Ababa. One Australian division was in Jerusalem, waiting for hell to
break loose. The 8th Army was holding the line south from Bardia on the
Libyan/Egyptian border. Rommel arrived with some infantry and armor
battle groups, no divisions yet. 

So far I was lucky that the two Panzer divisions did not show up. Those
two units plus the Rommel two-column shift were often hellacious. I kept
the focus of allied attack on hitting the German stack to whittle it
down so that Rommel had no mass to smack me with. (That German stack
eventually picked up the 164th Infantry and 15th Panzer.) The South
Africans maintained their push on AA, finally taking it after three
turns of attack. (Italians die hard when they want to.) Once East Africa
was secured, two divisions could go north. I only lost one VP for
failure to make the East Africa deadline. 

The Vichy French got revolting. So did the Iraqis. The sole Aussie
division had a lot of work to do, barging north to Beirut. The lone
armor battlegroup I thought I was going to send to Khartoum to smack the
Italians from the north got re-routed to Palestine to help oust the
French. This consumed a couple of cards, but I secured Beirut and the
Vichy problem went away. The same armor group/Aussie division then drove
on Baghdad to repeat the experience. No more Iraqis. 

German card play was quite good. I got hit with the Aussie withdrawal
card (thankfully after Baghdad fell), before I could get two Aussie
divisions as reinforcements. (Several times I got hit with cards that
pulled divisions away.) 

Monty arrived and so did the armor upgrades. Now I could do things.
Malta was secured, cutting the Axis card hand to six. Chris' 88s fouled
several of my attacks, but I still managed to pry the Axis out of Tobruk
and forced them back to Benghazi. (Still, he's burning Herkules cards
for ops now that he could not sue them as events, and those cards pack
punch!) But Cyrenaica became paved in gray and I reache dthe limits of
my supply lines. Limited supply is a bitch, and 8th Army attacks faded
to pinpricks. 

Torch came very late--Turn 11. I did not fully undestand the sequencing
here, having to burn several post-Torch cards to maintain ops in
previous turns. One card I should have held on to eliminated limited
supply in Algeria/Tunisia. So my invasion was hobbled upon entry. 

The Americans swung southeast around the Dorsals, aiming for Gabes and
Mareth. To keep the Germans from shifting southward, Brits pressed
attacks on Tunis and Bizerte--without success. Now we are running out of
time. I need to secure 2-3 more VP spaces and I am getting no where. A
German offensive (four attacks with +DRMs) failed to oust a lone British
division holding the dam west of Tunis. 

It came down to the Americans. The Patton card took away their negative
DRM and allowed the higher stack. A limited move pushed a lone division
plus two battlegroups to the space just west of Tripoli. Attack. The
Italians get pushed out. The Americans go into Tripoli. 

Fifteenth Panzer teleports to counter-attack Tripoli with out-of-supply
column shifts. The two battlegroups get scragged and the division gets
chewed, but holds. Two more American units (one a division) moves in.
Hold. 

It was now the last die roll of the game. If Chris rolls a six and I
roll a 1, Germans retake Tripoli and restore supply lines for Afrika
Corps/Italians. If not, they wither on the vine. 

The die is cast. 

I roll a 1. 

Chris does not roll a six. 

The Americans suffer losses, but hold Tripoli. 

Axis units vanish at the end of the turn. Benghazi and El Agehila go
over to Allied control. VPs accrue. End of game. 

I cannot complain about a close-run thing when the game is so well
played by my opponent. Thank you, Chris.