Shifting Sands another game hits the table.........

Obtained another board wargame from EBay (a very dangerous place for me to frequent !!) entitled 'Shifting Sands The Campaign For North Africa 1940-1943' from MMP.
A clear derivative of Paths Of Glory/Barbarossa To Berlin using essentially the exact same card driven system and point to point map.
Units are still big and small but now Divisions and Battlegroups rather than Armies and Corps.
Besides the usual special rules for various events/locations this makes learning the game rather easy and plying it similarly smooth.
Have played through first two turns (having this Public Holiday off) and enjoyable stuff so far.
Despite being primarily about the Desert War the game also covers Near East and East Africa (as sub-maps) which whilst side-shows as such can influence events in North Africa (mainly affecting reserves).
Cards decks are split into Axis and Allied and into 1940/1941/1942 with all the events one would expect for this theater of war (Rommel appears in 1941 up until then its the Italians only)
Much lower unit density than the other two games should make this one much quicker to play.
Of course I had planned to start a bit of figure painting today after a long hiatus (close to a year) with some Old Glory Prussian Napoleonic Grenadiers calling to me but they were shouted down by this one !

Overview

The cards decks 

The Near East and East Africa sub-map areas

Allied 1940 cards 

Axis 1940 counterparts