Created By: Ramon Weston
Updated: 1/29/2015
The rules for Western Desert, for the most part, are very well written but a few details were left out or could use some clarification. These are organized by rule section.
12. Out-of-supply air units (house rule) – An air unit that ends its initial phase at an air base that is not in general supply has all of its combat factors halved and its range halved for all missions except the Transfer mission. If a supply counter is used for general supply, then an airbase that can trace a supply path to the supply counter is considered to be in supply. If a supply counter is used for attack supply, then an air unit at an airbase that can trace a supply path to the supply counter can be considered in supply but each such air unit counts as 1 RE against the limit of 10. EXCEPTION: Malta is considered a limited supply source for a number of air units equal to the port capacity of Valetta.
14.D. A headquarters is automatically AECA, AECD, and ATEC neutral, regardless of the AECA, AECD, and ATEC capabilities of its unit type symbol.
20.F.2.e. A unit may take a maximum of two harassment hits per hex in a movement or exploitation phase. Ignore harassment hits in excess of two in a hex. Use hit markers to record the harassment hits.
28.C. Once the neutrality of the Levant is violated, the Vichy forces in the Levant surrender if the enemy player controls all dot and reference cities in the Levant at the start of his initial phase. When these forces surrender, all Vichy ground and air units in the Levant are removed from play.
28.D. An Allied unit that is turned back from being shipped to Malta from an on-map port is returned to that port, has expended the 2 MPs for being shipped and may continue using its remaining MPs to move elsewhere, except it may not attempt to be shipped to Malta again this turn.
31.C. Since the Greek, Polish, and Czech units can never be replaced, when eliminated they are considered as scrapped when calculating victory points.
33.C. If this optional rule is being used, then units in these areas, the Delta, Palestine, the Levant, and Cyprus, are placed on the map in the following two ways: (1) If an Axis ground unit moves within 5 hexes of any hex of a region, then all Allied forces in that region are immediately placed on the map. (2) If the Axis player intends to invade a region with special forces, then he must notify the Allied player at the start of the initial phase of the invasion turn. All Allied forces in that region are placed on the map in their specified hexes at this time.