Rommel: Battle for North Africa

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs

GAME DESIGNER:Roger Keating & Ian Trout
GAME DEVELOPER:Strategic Studies Group (SSG)
GAME PUBLISHER:Strategic Studies Group (SSG)
Copyright 1990, Strategic Studies Group (SSG)

The battles in North Africa, 1941-1943, were like no other up to that point in World War II. It was fought almost entirely in the hot, humid desert. SSG brought the best simulation of that period (although Decision in the Desert by Microprose comes close!). It is just one in a series of games that use an adaptation of SSG’s “Battlefront” game system. As in MacArthur’s War, you utilize the system, developing your strategy, and then you “RUN 5”. Fans of SSG’s wargames will no doubt recall, spending a good while on your turn, only to see your best laid strategy go to crap after pressing “RUN 5”. The 8 scenarios range anywhere from a ‘What could have Been’, a make believe Malta Invasion by an Italio-German force to the ‘Cauldron’ at Alamein. I especially enjoyed playing Montgomery against the computer Rommel in Alam El Halfa. Gameplay can be swift, precise while still maintaining a ‘fog of war’. As with all Battlefront games, Rommel is very drawing and enjoyable. This definitely belongs with the rest of SSG’s games in every wargamer’s collection.