It feels as if I have been spending a lot more time and effort lately reading and memorizing rules and pushing counters around solo than actually playing games with real opponents. Over the last couple of weeks I've been through this process with 3 fairly meaty games: Revolution, von Manstein's Backhand Blow, and Rommel in the Desert. On Saturday all this effort paid off at last when I drove over to Amesbury to visit Dave, and was able to talk him into playing Rommel in the Desert. It was great, a first class wargaming experience. It took me about 1/2 hour to explain the rules - some of the concepts, like the turn structure and the supply rules - are a bit tricky until you see them in action. But once we got going, it flowed really well. We played the Crusader scenario, with Dave as the Germans (as usual!). On the 3rd month I successfully double-bluffed Dave on the Initiative phase, and as it turned out that was crucial - my position was beginning to collapse, but when we counted up our pieces at the end it was an exact draw - that extra card would have swung it for Dave. This is a very satisfying, exciting game, and I hope it won't be too long before I get another chance to play.