The African Campaign
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 | |
| Designers | John Edwards |
|---|---|
| Publishers | Jedko Avalon Hill |
| Publication | 1973 |
| Genres | WWII board wargame |
The African Campaign is a board wargame published by the Australian game company Jedko Games in 1973 that simulates the North African Campaign during World War II. The game design was based on Avalon Hill's popular wargame Afrika Korps, but Avalon Hill recognized some improvements had been made to the game, and became the North American distributor of Jedko games including this one.
Gameplay
The African Campaign is a two-player wargame in which one player takes the role of Allied forces, and the other controls the Axis forces. The game begins in December 1940, when Italian troops under General Rodolfo Graziani dug in instead of advancing towards the strategically important Suez Canal, allowing the British to counterattack. The game ends in January 1943, following the Second Battle of El Alamein.
The game uses a standard "I Go, You Go" mechanic, where the Allied forces move and then attack. The Axis forces then move and attack. This completes one turn, which represents two weeks of game time. There are also rules for ports, air power, flak units, and minefields. The game is 50 turns long, representing the entire campaign between December 1940 and January 1943. There are no shorter scenarios included with the game. Despite its length, game critic Nicky Palmer called it a "brisk" game.[1]
Movement
Units move the number of hexes indicated on their counter. The exception is "Strategic Movement", where any unit that begins and ends its turn outside of an enemy zone of control can double its movement.
Combat
The game uses a "step-reduction" mechanic, where damage taken reduces a unit's effectiveness by a step at a time, until finally, after several hits, the unit is eliminated.[2]
Supply
All units must be able to trace an unbroken line a maximum of 15 hexes to a supply source or a friendly road that leads to a supply source. Each turn, the Axis player must roll a die to determine how much fuel made it through the Allied naval blockade.
Victory conditions
The Axis player wins by moving 12 combat factors off the eastern edge of the board before December 1942, but must keep them in supply for two turns after they leave the board. The Allied player wins by either preventing the Axis victory conditions, or by eliminating all Axis units on the board.
Publication history
In 1968, John Edwards was visiting a friend in the United States and came across a copy of Avalon Hill's Akrika Korps. Edwards took the game home and, not knowing any other wargamers, played it solitaire for several months.[3] In 1971, Edwards reached an agreement with Avalon Hill to become their Australian import agent, but Edwards soon realized that the Australian import tax of 52% made Afrika Korps unaffordable.[3] To overcome this, Edwards designed his first professional game, The African Campaign, a game based on Afrika Korps, and founded the publishing company Jedko in 1973 to print and publish the game in Australia.[4] Avalon Hill realized that the game was not a photocopy of Afrika Korps — Edwards had made enough substantive improvements that The African Campaign was now a different game. Edwards and Avalon Hill reached an agreement that Avalon Hill would print and distribute copies of The African Campaign in North America.[3]
In 1985, Jedko produced a second edition of The African Campaign. In 2000, the Japanese publisher Kokusai-Tsushin Co., Ltd. (国際通信社) published a Japanese language edition of the game in Issue 31 of the wargame magazine Command Japan.