This is a neat, light game that captures a lot of the feel of battle in North Africa without all the detail and additional rules of many traditional miniatures sets. It is also inexpensive, allowing you to use your collection without needing to buy add-on cards or rulebooks. The tactics chart is a nice way to do Command and Control without too many die rolls or using card pulls or chits. Place yourself in command of a company or battalion, not the gunner's seat or even a tank commander's cupola, and it works very well.
To give an idea of the versatility of the game, my desert war models are mostly based as platoons on 3 inch wide bases, two vehicles per base. Rather than pull them off to play Armoured Storm, I simply use them as full units - the tanks in a platoon are supposed to stay together anyway, that's right in the rules! Fire on the platoon is either all front or all flank, and each platoon fires the number of times equal to the remaining tanks. Since a company or battalion commander wouldn't be picking targets anyway, I assume each tank fires on the target tanks 1-1. If more tanks are firing than targets, I double up on the first or last target, and damaged tanks are always shot at last. If a command tank is present, it's either last to be shot or a die roll for any hits determines if that was the target. Markers are dropped on the base to show damaged/brewed up tanks until the last tank is destroyed, at which point the base can be removed. Simple! The game moves fast because I'm not shifting so many individual tank models.
Gunnery ranges are fairly short, and movement can be slow depending on the scale used. I'd suggest starting a move or two out of gun range, maybe each side 1/3rd of the way into the board, rather than at the edge or you will spend a good deal of time moving up. This isn't really a knock on Armoured Storm, it is a problem with many miniatures games. I would suggest players alternate placing units if you aren't starting with a scenario, to avoid unfair starting positions.
I am presently playtesting a scenario for 4th Armored Brigade (Stuarts) vs. 21st Panzer at Gabr Saleh during Operation Crusader. I'm thinking about tweaks to allow 22nd Armored Brigade vs. Ariete at Bir El Gubi and Babini Brigade against 7th Armored Division at Mechili during Operation Compass. All are primarily tank on tank engagements. I probably would not try to shoe-horn the various assaults on Tobruk into this game format, or the Caldron battles during Gazalla, although the DAK vs. the scattered 8th army brigades in that battle would work easily.
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