The Dark Sands continues

 Played Turns 13 and 14 today.  Two turns done in three hours.

Start of turn 13.  The Germans have the initiative and attack to the push the Allies back.

End of turn 13.  The Germans manage to push the Allies off of the center map and get a foot hold on the East map.  

End of turn 14.  Due to the auto Defender Retreat result for a map edge the Germans manage to keep the Allies at the map edge for the turn.  The Allies attacked the Axis units on the edge, which either died or retreated and then the Axis used a chit to attack forcing the Allies back again.  With only 11 more attacks possible (11 attack chits in Allied hands last three turns) the Allies have to go 14 hexes to reach the first VP space (Sollum) and a few more hexes to reach the space further up.  If the Axis can keep a line of units in the way the Allies will only gain one hex per attack - and depending on losses keeping that line is very possible.

The game started out very promising, handling the early part of the campaign well.  Then the impossibility of taking Tobruk combined with there being no chance for the Axis to gain VP without it make the 1941 portion of the game almost meaningless.  Rommel has no real incentive to push on to take the Allied base since there is no real chance of doing so.  The best to hope for is by making the Allies fight for it they lose units.  The instant 1942 comes along Tobruk is an instant death trap for the defenders (needing to retreat 4 hexes means losing two steps at least if defending the forts and losing more if overstacked).  The map edge, auto DR sounds good in theory but in practice it makes it a slugging match if utilized as a defense point.  Finally there is no incentive for Rommel to try and move off the center map, extra VP would be nice but even if the Allies managed to have a VP by now (they can get one if things work out well in the early game) the Allies would HAVE to retake Sollum to get a draw.