East Africa Game 4, The Guban Desert 1940

Last stand of the KAR


My 2KAR platoon has barely sufficient men remaining to mount any sort of defence.  2nd Lt. Farthingdale and many of his Askaris are now prisoners of the Italians following the battle at the Wadi.  Things are not going well.

Worse still the platoon transport has broken down in the Guban Desert as the remaining KAR lads retreat towards Tug Argan and the concentrating Commonwealth defence.  It is down to Platoon Sergeant "Mufasa" Kakenya to organise some sort of rearguard action, and escape.

The honorific Mufasa (King) has been given by the Sergeant's remaining men, since he has saved them three games in a row.

But... Is that a pair of Italian tanks coming over the hill?

Kings African Rifles
Platoon Sergeant Kakenya

Section Two
Corporal Lekuton

Lewis gun Team
L/Cpl Timone, and 3 Askaris

• Lewis Gunner and 6 Askaris Riflemen
• 1 Boyes A/T Rifle team L/Cpl Pumba
• 1 2" mortar team

The Italian Spearhead


Primo Capitaino Alfonso Capone (the Special One) of the 1st Blackshirt Armoured.

 (to the sounds of the Automatic on his wind up gramophone, "What's that coming over the hill, is it a mobster, is it a mobster?)

• LS40
• M11/39
• 2 x Tankettes

Tenente Silvio Bellagropa 3rd Colonial Infantry
3 Sections of 9 "Poor" Colonial infantry (no section LMGs)

The Guban Desert

Askari Rafikii attempts to repair the truck.  Four tries left.

What's that coming over the hill?  Tanks!

An L6/40 and a M11/39.   What could go wrong?

Kakenyo gets his Lewis gun team out on overwatch

The Italian COC dice, four threes and a four.  The Colonial infantry platoon storms off the Italian Jump point

The Lewis gun shoots, but is apparently using wooden bullets today!

The Colonial Infantry reply. 

Five of the four men in the Lewis team are killed.  Timone was apparently shot twice to stop him singing Hakuna matata

The Boyes team get ready to take on the tankettes that appear on the left.

Kakenyo and his boys pop up in the sand dunes on the right and blast the Colonial militia.  I say blast but actually its just two kills.

Just as poor mechanic Rafikii gets the truck fixed the Italian Commander blasts it to smithereens.

Revenge!  The Boyes team take out a tankette

But the KAR are reduces to a handful of men in the dunes and the tanks are closing in

In time honoured fashion the call is "Run away, run away!"  Seven men from the original platoon survive.  Slightly embarrassing perhaps but the figure I used for the platoon Sergeant was a Rajput NCO, so I will have to find my original, who appears to have deserted in disgust at the overwhelming odds against the KAR.