#UnboxingDay – France ’40 – Armchair Dragoons

Billy Riley, 21 January 2021

Operation Dynamo and Operation Sichelschnitt (Sickle Cut) by GMT Games

Another game from one of my favourite suppliers – GMT and another game from one of my favoured designers Mark Simonitch

This game covers two battles in 1940 – Operation Sichelschnitt (Sickle Cut) – the drive through Belgium and across the Meuse to The Channel and Operation Dynamo – the British retreat across Northern France to the English Channel.

According to Wiki – Operation Sickle Cut was actually the name termed by Churchill after the events. The German name for the operation was Fall Gelb (Case Yellow)

I have to say I’m not hugely knowledgeable in these battles. Of course I’m aware of them – but broadly speaking. But the detail is not something I’ve got into.

click images to enlarge

Box Art

Unbox-F40-1 — A nice selection of photos from the era

Box – Rear

Unbox-F40-2 — The rear of the box shows the Sickle Cut map. It also shows samples of the game counters, game scale, contents of the box and the difficulty and solitaire scores (both 5 for this one)

The Manual

Glossy and nice layout. There seems to be around 14 pages of rules, 1 page of Special rules, a couple of pages dedicated to each scenario and then an Extended Example of Play.

It also has Designer Notes and some cracking historical maps as well as counter scans and an index.

Counters

There’s a truck load of counters. These are all bagged up because I bought the game second hand. They’re only ½” – so it could challenge the eyes.

Unfortunately the person I bought it from had not heard of the Oregon Counter Clippers

Dice

Couple of 6 sided dice

Errata

The box came with the available errata. It looks like the manual may have been updated (looking at the scores through some paragraphs)

Player Aid Cards

2 of them – double sided – and they’re printed on decent card

Scenario Setup Cards

The game comes with 2 double sided setup cards – 1 for the Allies (for both Sickle Cut and Dynamo) and 1 for the Germans

The Dynamo Map

Unbox-F40-13 — It is a cracking looking map covering France, Belgium and The Netherlands

The Sickle Cut Maps

Unbox-F40-14 — Again – cracking looking map covering the drive to The English Channel

That’s it. Looks great and I do love the system in these games – Holland ’44 and Ardennes ’44. Normandy ’44 is on pre-order.

I keep doing these unboxings and end by saying I’m looking forward to getting it on the table…and of course I am – why would I buy them otherwise?

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