This last Saturday, March 14th, I hosted a game at my local FLGS, Play or Draw in Surprise, AZ. I had 4 players for this game including 1 veteran, 2 that had not played in quite a while, and another that had not played before.
This was my standard introductory game set in North Africa called "Cruisin' for a Bruisin," pitting the British 8th Army against the Afrika Korps in the Summer of 1942.
We played through 5 turns in about 2 hours before we called the game. At that time, the British had the upper hand although if the game had gone a couple turns longer things may have turned out a bit differently.
I think all the players enjoyed the game and I was happy that it flowed smoothly with a minimum of problems.
What makes this scenario a good one for beginners, in my opinion, are the following reasons.
1. The terrain is fairly simple. There are 4 low hills and a village to fight over but there are no woods and no rivers. There is enough terrain to be used to block lines of sight but nothing complicated.
2. The tanks are fairly evenly matched. The Panzer IIIJ series (1 and 2) match pretty well against the Crusaders in terms of speed, armament, and armor. The Panzer IIs are less effective but they were there.
3. By using tanks only, the players are able to concentrate on the basic mechanics of the game and not have to worry about all the additional add on module rules until they have a decent understanding of the main core rules. This also speeds up play in that each player commands a single company sized unit and has less decisions to make in terms of what to do.
4. The victory conditions are fairly simple. Control the crossroads in the village and points for knocking out or brewing up enemy tanks.
Here are a few pictures from the game.
