Iron Cross - North Africa

I've just taken a few shots of the table I'm preparing for a game against my friend, Russell, this weekend. We'll be playing the Capture scenario in Iron Cross. I will be playing with 544 points of Deutsche Afrika Korps versus Russell's 327 points of 4th Indian Division. Those points are not strictly 2:1, as per the scenario, but they are close enough and gaming's about fun, right?

The terrain is much more open than I normally play, but the scenario is set somewhere in North Africa, perhaps Tunisia, where it's a bit more fertile than the full-on desert area.

I've quickly knocked up a bit of extra terrain this afternoon. I've made three dug-outs, so that some of Russell's defending troops can be dug-in and hidden in the open terrain, and finished off eight lengths of barbed wire and eight telegraph poles. Every wargaming table needs something with a bit of height on it to make it look more realistic. Most of the trees are pretty small, so the telegraph poles will serve that purpose nicely.

Russell will be defending the village with a meagre force of infantry from the 4th Indian Division, reinforced with a divisional 6-pounder and two Matilda IIs. In total, he has 12 units, though quite a bit of anti-tank fire power. Two of the infantry units are equipped with Boys rifles, plus the 6 pounder and two tanks. The three Indian Pattern Carriers are equipped with Bren guns, so quite useful against infantry; the HMG has good infantry stopping power too.

I will be attacking with 20 units of Deutsche Afrika Korps constituted of:

• HQ in a Stoewer command car
• 8 x infantry all mounted in trucks
• 1 x mortar
• 1 x heavy machine gun
• 2 x Panzer II
• 5 x Panzer III
• 2 x Panzer IV

I forgot to take a photo of the force prior to deployment, other than a convoy of trucks.

I will post up an after action report on the game shortly.