Saturday, August 16, 2008

Field Commander: Rommel

I recently acquired a copy of Field Commander: Rommel, a solitaire WWII wargame, and I've been dying to get it on the table. In the game, the player controls the Axis, while the Allies make moves based on a pre-determined set of rules.

As luck would have it, my wife had to attend a company function tonight, which left me with plenty of time to explore this intriguging game. I just completed the Ghost Division campaign, which marked the events of the invasion of France. The game took about 2 hours, and I can safely state I am not the commander that Rommel was; I didn't even come close to the victory requirements.
The initial turns started slow, and my forces were not able to break through the Allies at Dinant. This caused a bottleneck, and a crucial delay that contributed to my failure. It took me a full two turns before I was able to subdue the Allied forces there. After the break through, I was able to bring my forces to bear on the Allies in Brussels and Cambrai, before proceeding onto Arras. This secured 2 victory objectives, but precious time had already been wasted. Additionally, I did not realise that there was one last victory checkpoint located at Cherbourg, which I had no hope of reaching at this point.
I was only able to barely hold onto Cambrai and Arras, whilst the Allies commenced their counterattack. I was completely hammered, and held on only by the skin of my teeth.

I really enjoyed the game, and I look forward to playing again (and hopefully winning too!). The moves made for the Allies posed quite a challenge, a lot more than I would have thought. But I'm quite sure that given enough tries, I'll be able to prevail eventually. There are two more campaigns in the game after I conquer this one.

1 comment:

Chuang Shyue Chou said...

Thanks for the photos. You have got my interest now.