From: "Van Antwerpen, Coen" <coen.vanantwerpen@dsto.defence.gov.au>
Subject: The Legend Begins Game Report

Hello all,

After lurking for some time and not posting I thought the time had come to
contribute a game report.  Just as way of background, a few years back I
asked a question on the game The Legend Begins (Terran Games, 3rd Edition,
abbreviated to TLB) and from the glowing (well embers anyway) reports I got
back I went ahead and purchased it.  Then real life intruded (another child,
moving house a few times etc etc) and I had yet to play it not being able to
get beyond admiring the map and counters.  Well Markus (who gave a nice
report on TLB) recently posted a request to regarding gamers in Adelaide and
since one of them is me I replied hoping to maybe get a game of TLB
(although anything is good) in.  Another gentleman, Darren Percival, also
replied to Markus so we looked at getting together and having a bit of
cardboard pushing fun.  Unfortunately all three of us couldn't link at the
same time but we did individually.  Darren and I got together and played TLB
and then I linked up with Markus subsequently and played some more TLB.  The
following is a short game summary on two games played and a few comments.  I
thought about editing in some of Markus' and Darren's comments but rather
than risk butchering it I'll let them make their own here and maybe they'll
tell me to pull my head back in and correct my memory.

Darren and I had never played the game before and we sat down read the rules
(upto 33 but not the advanced or air rules or fog of war), chose a scenario,
set-up and were ready to go in about 1.5-2 hours.  The game consists of
turns broken down into 7 segments.  The order and type of segments, be they
allied or axis, is a chit drawn affair with each side having 4 chits thus
one segment is always skipped in a turn.  Each segement can be of a
different type placing restrictions on movement and so forth.  All the usual
ingredients are there, supply, trucks, tanks, dust, dirt, forts and the odd
88.  Enough of a summary now to what happened.

Enjoy with comments and analysis welcome,
Coen

Game 1
======
The scenario that Darren and I chose was the first one (why not start at the
beginning) involving the Italian offensive to attempt to take Egypt or at
least hassle the British presence.  Game length was 4 turns.  I had the
British (my daughter likes the colour red and wanted daddy to have the red
ones) and Darren the Italians.  The Italian forces are large but do have
some control problems (simulated by a commitment style die roll) and the
British are weak and strung out but have some strong armour on the
reinforcement list.

After our initial set-up I realised that I'd made a few mistakes like not
taking into account the exact locations of the victory hexes and so
deploying a little further eastwards than I should have.  I also put tanks
into a fort which was a bit of waste and one I didn't initially realise.
Neither of these were necessarily fatal nor game costing but certainly
didn't help.  The Italian drive commenced with a short sharp assault on the
southern flank of Sidi Barrani leading to a few cooked tanks and an orderly
withdrawal of the British towards Mersa Matruh and an attempt to establish a
front with the Quattra Depression protecting the flank.  There weren't
enough British and the Italians proceeded to encircle Mersa Matruh.  The
holding force in the fort at Mersa Matruh attempted to engage the forward
elements of the Italian force with disasterous results for the British.  It
was a victory of sorts but the bloody CRT resulted in a large number of step
losses leaving the fort venerable to counter attack during which it
subsequently fell.  The British were now behind the ball with ground needing
to made and victory hexes re-claimed.  The Italians proceeded to rapidly
re-enforce Mersa Matruh making it essentially impossible to re-take.

Operation Flanker was about to commence.  Placing a few ambitous Italian
units out of supply on the southern flank of Mersa Matruh a small armoured
British force launched a daring flanking raid bypassing Mersa Matruh and
appearing to head towards a weakly defended Sidi Barrani.  This caught the
Italians by surprise and the race was on to re-enforce Sidi Barrani.  This
race the Italians won but at the cost of still leaving Sollum lightly
defended.  Could the British, currently re-grouping on the cross roads south
of Sidi Barrani, string together a concerted effort and make a drive on
Sollum?  The answer was yes and the armoured drive left clouds of dust and
the Italians at Sidi Barrani wondering "where'd they go?".  Unfortunately
the pasta loving people at Sollum found out and were distrubed from their
tables making a quick exit as the British arrived.  The cost in British
armour was large and the end result was only a fraction of the initial
assault force was still functional but they did it, they held Sollum! But
could they continue to hold out now that supply was completely consumed in
the mad dash.  The next segement (the last of the scenario) was Italian.  A
small but reasonably strong Italian force was quickly assembled and the
final attack commenced.  Once the dust settled the valiant British were
driven from the confines of Sollum allowing the Italians to resume their
pasta feast.

Victory to the Italian army upon the completion of the last segement of the
last turn.

Total playing time about 5 to 6 hours (can't remember exact times wasn't
watching the clock).

Some closing comments on Game 1:

I made some silly set-up mistakes and found out just how punishing the CRT
was to the attacker as well as defender even when a victory occurs.

We made a couple of errors with the rules but nothing major or game
affecting and the few ambiguities we took the "spirit" of the rule.

We had some discussion afterwards as to whether the British should forward
garrison Sollum and that point is still an open one.  Forward garrison and
risk being flanked or try and fall back orderly but risk loosing too much
ground.
 
Game 2
======
Marcus and I got together and played TLB.  In our case we played the
Operation Crusader Scenario (3 turns as opposed to the 4 turn initial
Italian one).  Marcus had the allies and I had the axis so I was on the
defensive most of the time.  I was a little nervous about attacking
especially given my disasterous (sp?) effort during game one so I spent most
of the time maneouvering to block and contain.

Markus opened the assault with a push against the front south of Sollum
confronting the 15th Panzer set-up there.  The clash resulted in a heavy
loss of tanks by both sides and the mauled 15th retreating towards Tobruk.
This drove a wedge between the 21st and 15th Panzer with the British armour
subsequently preventing a link-up from occurring.  The remains of the 15th
proceeded to protect the Tobruk-Bardia road for most of the rest of the game
after some light weight engagements.  The few axis armour now left, aside
from the 21st, were some Italian units protecting the south-western flanks
of Tobruk and blocking the western approach of Tobruk.  The 21st retreated
in good order to Bardia and holed up waiting for the British.  The few 88's
were intially deployed forward and were over-run but at least had the effect
of being speed-bumps.  After the dust cleared Bardia was strongly held but
essentially cut-off with the British armour blocking access.  Tobruk was
still well contained and the southern front was secure.  Then it was the
axis turn - I sent a small Italian armoured force, up until then containing
the western approaches of Tobruk, rushing over towards the eastern edge of
Tobruk in order to entice the British to engage and maybe ease some of the
pressure on Bardia and cook a few British tanks in the process.  This they
did but they were decimated in the process.  Unfortunately what I forgot was
that there were now no longer any active covering forces blocking the
western approaches to Tobruk.

The game now entered the phase of "let's bang a fort" with massed attacks
occurring on Bardia (a victory hex).  The fort with stood two strong
assaults but was beginning to have trouble.  The British were also burning
supply at a high rate and things were getting interesting.  It was then that
the British capitalised on my earlier mistake of "unblocking" the western
approach to Tobruk.  A small force was sent on a mad dash scooting past the
Italian infantry napping in their trenches and heading for Merchilli.  I now
added insult to injury by not effectively screening the approaches to
Merchilli and the British made it to the city pushing aside the small force
there.  They now had victory without the need to take Bardia if they could
hold Merchilli.  The Arieste and Treiste (spelling? my notes are else where)
divisions protecting the southern approaches to Tobruk now made a mad rush
towards Merchilli.

It was now the last segment of the last turn with a 50% chance it was to be
either a British or Axis segment.  If the British won the draw then the game
was theirs, if the Axis won then victory relied on the successful expulsion
of the small British force in Merchilli.  The British won the chit draw and
thus the game.  The final status of the British forces was largely burnt out
with hardly any supply left and depleted armour.  However, a final attack
was made on Bardia which finally succummed and fell sealing the fate of the
garrison there and securing the victory.  Well done to Markus.

As an aside we played the attack out on Merchilli just as a hypothetical
Axis win last chit draw.  The Italian Merchilli relieving force was
successful with the British driven off into the desert.

Total set-up/poke around time about 30-40min, playing time about 3.5 hours.

Now the inevitable post game analysis:

I made a mistake of not blocking a road with an Active ZOC and Markus sent
some units out on a mad dash through limited ZOC from Tobruk (adding insult
to injury) to claim an extra victory hex which, if Bardia had held, would
have sealed the game for him also - boy was I kicking myself.

As with Game 1 though we didn't use any advanced rules such as air etc.  I
had a lot of supply but since I didn't really attack it just stockpiled.
Markus had a few supply worries if the game had continued on from the
scenario though as he burnt pretty well all of it in the effort to take
Bardia.  I certainly would like to play more of this game to explore the way
the system works over a period of several turns/offensives and to add in air
etc

Those British tanks, when set-up as divisions and stacked, are a powerful
bunch to try and contain/attack and I see what some people were saying about
this at the time I made initial game enquiries.  The 15th and 21st panzer
are pretty good too but 15th took the brunt of the initial attack by Markus
and never had the opportunity to link up with the 21st after the armour
spearhead separated them.  The 15th went running to Tobruk and 21st off to
Bardia.  We had one magnitude 4 combat and a few 3's IIRC during the course
of the Bardia conquest.  Interesting to see an attack against a 17 step
defence rating of 104.  Markus managed a 1-1 and to help burnt lots of
supply in a heavy artillery attack.  Alas a poor roll (i.e. no advance)
meant punishment was taken but the fort held out to be reduced to 69 and
then another attack to become 33 before finally not being able to withstand
the final push and falling on the last segment.  I think a key for the axis
(apart from properly blocking roads with AZOC's <kicks himself again>) is
get the 15th and 21st to link-up early and hold in reserve as much as
possible to prepare for a counter attack around the flank.  Another thing to
do is properly set-up some 2(4)-12's around Bardia along with a couple of
blocking AZOC's to slow the advance down (love those speed bumps).  Then
again another look at the map may change those ideas again.

All in all a great time and another last segment nail-bitter finish.

From: Markus Stumptner <mst@dbai.tuwien.ac.at>
Subject: Re: The Legend Begins Game Report

>Those British tanks, when set-up as divisions and stacked, are a powerful
>bunch to try and contain/attack and I see what some people were saying about
>this at the time I made initial game enquiries.  

Yes, Steve Thomas has pointed out that this actually runs counter to British 
contemporary practice - they used the armored divisions only administratively 
and typically deployed the brigades separately, so giving the British such 
a drastic stacking advantage via the armour HQ's seems ahistoric.  What
I overlooked in the game was the possibility to stack two more armoured
brigades with the division right on the first turn.  This seems too strong.
It would make sense actually to limit the contents of the British armoured 
division HQs to at most three or four of the possible subunits before 
El Alamein (when Montgomery started changing the practice), and I would 
recommend trying such a rule if you find some scenarios favoring the British 
too strongly.

I had actually played only a couple of the scenarios ftf before (most of 
my play experience being with the campaign), and was again pleasantly 
surprised not only by the tension and fun of play but also that the 
scenarios are indeed playable in one sitting.  A very enjoyable evening.

	Markus

Last 3 games played: Black Wednesday, Up Front, The Legend Begins (Deluxe)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Bakayaro! Bakayaro!"  ("Stupid Bastards!  Stupid Bastards!") -- Admiral 
Aritomo Goto's last words to his staff, October 11, 1942