From: "Louis R. Coatney" <mslrc@UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU>
Subject:      A great game of 1ST ALAMEIN ... and play-balancing it.

Robert and I were playing it, again.  (He keeps coming up with a new
  Axis attacking method or Commonwealth minefield/box setup to try.)
  Anyway, the game is FREE, right?  :-)

I should point out that the game starts with the Axis *Breakthrough*
  Operations phase ... not at the very start of the Axis turn.  (An
  incautious initial Axis attack can Spend the best Axis units for
  the following turn, giving British armour a chance to catch up.)
  I like the way this system models initiative *locally*, as it
  should be modelled.

Anyway, our first game I was the Axis.  He tried the same dummy
  box fakery I did, in the South, and I broke through early.  He
  rightly threw in the towel on about the 6th.

He kept wanting to play again, so I agreed, as long as the Allies
  could use both Desert Air Force units.  This time, I had a no
  nonsense setup.  I was weak in the south, though, with only one
  "live" minefield to defend the 3-hex frontage of my Deir el
  Munassib (I6) box.

Robert started the game aggressively and went for my southern
  flank, again, since the North--El Alamein and Deir el Shein boxes
  --were obviously so well fortified and manned.

So he hit the South Africans at Munassib with everything he could:
  15. and 21. Pzdivs, Rcce Gppe, and Littorio gave him 12 factors
  against 1. SA Div and 2. SA Brigade's terrain-modified 6.  I had
  put my one minefield on the I5/I6 hexside, and he had moved DAK--
  15. and 21. Pzdivs--onto Alam Nayil.  Ugh!  Then he remembered he
  had better NOT concentrate his armor like that, with *two* Desert
  Air Force units buzzing about, and he shifted the 15. PzDiv to I5,
  instead!  :-)  I really gigged him about it, when the live and
  dummy minefields were revealed for his attack ... of course.
  (Auchinleck works on Rommel's morale.  :-)  )

I ordered the 2-factor SA Div "NO RETREAT!"--the rule now states
  that at least half the terrain-modified defending factors have
  to be so ordered, if you are invoking it--and Robert rolled an
  S, anyway, thereby Spending his units for most of his next turn:
  no attacking in the Initial Axis Operations phase and no full
  operational movement at all, thanks to where the Recovery of
  Spent Axis Units phase is now located in the sequence.  (Much
  better!)

After that, with the British armour to counterpunch, the game
  became a seesaw battle of position.  I well needed the two
  Desert Air Force units--you should have seen Willy( the
  Wellington)'s victory roll after intercepting the Stuka before
  it could pound the British armour trying to cover the back door
  to the New Zealanders' Deir el Shein box!  :-)

*Very* strangely, neither of us lost a single unit, and incredibly
  I didn't lose a single box or minefield!  Nonetheless, Robert did
  have a big breakthrough in the south, later in the game, and even
  took the eastern end of Ruweisat Ridge (F7)!  My reinforcements
  were just able to stop him as time--and, theoretically, Axis
  supplies--ran out on the 10th/final turn.

I think 1ST ALAMEIN is game-balanced, using the two Desert Air Force
  units.  The only further change I would make--other than rewriting
  those abysmal retreat route rules--is making attacks against
  Spent *Italian* units *2* columns higher, instead of just the one
  for the Germans and Commonwealth.  (Although I attacked the Italians
  on Tel el Eisa late in the game, I was no real threat to the Axis
  A1 hex ... as I should have been.  Rommel complained bitterly about
  having to disengage from the center and shore up the Italian
  positions in the north.

Anyway, Robert was trying to get me to play him *again*, at midnight
  last night!  Is he trying to replicate the historical battle's mutual
  exhaustion factor??  :-)

Lou (The Desert Toad) Coatney, mslrc@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu
  www.wiu.edu/users/mslrc/  ... home of your *free* game of 1ST ALAMEIN