The rules looked good and fun, so we grabbed some 15mm armour, threw some basic terrain down and worked our way through two fights.

For the first one, we thought we’d be smart and use cm instead of inches to make best use of the table area. This was a mistake. It was really hard to move into or out of cover.

Nonetheless, I took a troop of Shermans (1 Firefly and 3 Mark Vs) and Lucius threw 2 Pz IVs and 1 Panther up against me.

The Firefly charged bravely out from cover to shoot the Panther… but didn’t get enough movement. The Panther responded, moved into the clear and brewed up the Firefly.

Oh. My Sherman on the left moved up and missed, while the Pz IV on my right flank found a gap in the trees and brewed up one of my Shermans. Uh oh. My last Sherman on the right bravely raced (or rather crawled in cm) up past its burning compatriot and destroyed the Pz IV that had menaced my right. My remaining tank on my left engaged in a duel with the Panther, damages its optics, as my other Sherman lines up a long shot at the Pz IV on my left and blows it up too. Things are looking much better, but that Panther’s gun… misses. The cat is torched and my troop is victorious!

A swingy fight for sure, but fast and fun.

The second fight had the same forces but distances in inches. My Shermans engaged and hit both Pz IVs right away, but did effectively nothing. The Panther moved up to take cover beside a building and brewed up one of Shermans. My Firefly tries to return the favour and badly damages the Pz IV on my right flank. I move my forces to the left, trying to limit the angle the Panther has on me and concentrate fire on my right flank. The other German tanks move up as my tanks miss and another Sherman goes up.

Crap. My two remaining tanks pour 3 more rounds into the damaged tank, which forces it to withdraw a little but it stays in the fight with one activation die.  The Panther moves up, shooting at the Sherman that is more exposed, but doesn’t knock it out over several shots. Meanwhile, the Pz IV on my left races up the flank. The Pz IV on my right takes even more hits (total of 9 hits from a Firefly and Sherman V) but somehow I can’t seem to roll high enough to do anything to it. The Pz IV on my left rounds the corner.

My Firefly traverses left and closes but I am unable to shoot for 2 turns (the way the dice work). My damaged Sherman keeps its glacis towards the Panther and puts two shots into the Pz IV, forcing it back up to the table edge. The Panther and the 2 Pz IVs hit the exposed Sherman, bringing it down to 0 activation dice, which we decide means that the crew has had enough and bailed. Game over. The dice were against me for sure, but the tank fight was fast again.

How did we find the rules? They were clearly laid out but the activation  system left us both in position but unable to fire. It would be frustrating if you only had one tank, but playing with 2 tanks solves the problem somewhat. So not a campaign game or likely to supplant Chain of Command’s armour rules, but a fun pick-up game to be sure.

Lucius is a former armoured officer, and he says the speed and deadly nature of the fight is realistic. But… being restricted in what you can do – rolling all of your dice to move but not being able to fire when you have acquired and aimed is silly. Perhaps an alternate activation system is needed if this is to be a more serious game.

Chain of Command’s strength is that you have to spend your activation resources wisely, in this game it’s a crap shoot. An alternative would be rolling dice to determine how many actions you have and then deciding how to spend them. A simple solution could be a 2d6 system with a tank’s rating. Roll over the tank’s rating (lower rating is better). If you roll under you can do 1 action of your choice. Meet the rating, 2 actions. 3 or more over the rating, you have 3 actions. So you could acquire, aim, and fire in a round. Or move and reload. Or simply beat your crew into slewing the turret the right way. This would allow experienced crews a real advantage. While inexperienced T-34s are dangerous, they would not be able to react quickly to threats. A tank would start with a rating of 6 if a veteran, 7 if trained, 8 or 9 if conscript or with a smaller crew (early war French tanks I’m looking at you)!

Thoughts?