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Lascar has offered to play mirror games now that we finished our first 2 games. We've agreed on the following house rules to address some of the issues we had in the first 2 games. Here are the rules:

1. UK limits its BEF ground commitment to France to no more than 8 total corps with up to 2 being armor/mech (HQs don't count).
2. Axis limited to only 2 surface ship groups for raiding convoy lanes.
3. Axis limits its ground commitment to Libya/Egypt area to no more than 8 total corps with up to 3 being armor/mech (HQs and Italian garrison units don't count). Axis limited to 3 air units and Allies limited to 4 air units in Libya/Egypt. If the Allies invade Vichy North Africa then the there is no longer any limits.

Game on!

Sept 1, 1939

We expect Lascar to try a significant BEF commitment to France but the house rules should avoid anything too strong. So it will be a pretty standard Axis opening. I do plan to then try to capture Egypt with the house rule limit of units to see if its possible with less than last game.

Pretty standard German opening in Poland:

Sept 15, 1939

Poland and Denmark surrender.

Sept 29, 1939

About average losses (23 ground, 6 air) compared to most games I've seen. Now we prepare for the invasion of France!

April 26, 1940

Skipping forward to spring 1940 and the Axis invade Belgium. Brussels falls and the Belgians immediately surrender.

Casualties

The BoA has gone ok as the Germans sank 47 MM and 5 escorts. But they lost some of their surface fleet which the British hunted down.

Research

Pretty standard research but Heavy Armor is really slow and still about 2 months away at the start of the battle of France.

May 10, 1940

The Germans begin pushing into France and make slow but steady progress. So far we see 5 British units in France so not too worried at this point. If they put their best units in Lille then we'll probably just by pass it and push directly on Paris.

May 24, 1940

The slow progress continues and we are probably lucky that there isn't a larger BEF commitment though 1 additional BEF unit arrives for a total of 6 now. The French lines are starting to get thin though and unless they redeploy some units I think we can break through next turn.

June 7, 1940

And finally the break through we've been waiting for! The French lines collapse and German panzers reach the outskirts of Paris. It should fall within the next turn or 2 now.

June 21, 1940

Paris is captured! Lille and Lyon also fall so France should surrender next turn. But the Germans did make a mistake and the panzer that was sitting northeast of Paris at the end of last turn was attacked by multiple Allied armor causing it to be overrun instead of retreat like we expected!

July 5, 1940

France surrenders and the Germans pursue the remaining BEF units and force a few of them to surrender.

July 19, 1940 - Casualties

Here are the casualties so far after the fall of France. I think its pretty good for the Germans so far besides the 1 panzer corps that was overrun. BoA is going fairly well for the Axis as they have no sunk 78 British MM and 8 escorts.

Yugoslavia

The Italians start the invasion of Yugoslavia and capture Zagreb.

The Med

The British send a portion of the RN across the Med towards Egypt but the Italians send the the entire RM to attack it sinking both the Warspite and Malaya battleships!

August 2, 1940

The Italians reach the outskirts of Belgrade hoping to force Yugoslavia to surrender in the next turn or 2.

August 16, 1940

The Italians decide to wait for German reinforcements before assaulting Belgrade to minimize Axis casualties.

August 30, 1940

Belgrade falls and Yugoslavia surrenders!

Sept 13, 1940

The invasion of Egypt begins as the Germans move in 3 panzer and 5 infantry corps (max allowed under house rules). The British defenses look fairly weak at this point and the RM plus Axis air forces should control the Med at this point to support the invasion.

Sept 27, 1940

The Germans surge forward and using bombardment from the RM smash the British armor corps.