Earlier, I had put forward some thoughts on TFL’s What A Tanker and I’ve taken some time to develop them a little bit. Essentially, my unhappiness with the rules centres around the luck and lack of skill required. The rest of the TFL’s rulesets are all about making command decisions, not luck. In order to improve the rules and really bring out the goodness in them, I’ve adopted a 2d6 concept as the math is simple and elegant. So here are my thoughts (you will likely see them in action this week):
Initiative is unchanged. On your initiative, you roll 2d6 plus/minus modifiers.
Modified Roll Result
2 1 action, -1 to next round initiative
7 2 actions
10 3 actions
12 3 actions, +1 to next round initiative
*On a natural 11-12, you gain a wild die. Wild dice no longer shift actions or add actions, but otherwise are unchanged.
Modifiers
+1: experienced
+2: veteran
+3: ace
-1: per point of damage incurred
-1: 2 man turret
-1: conscript
-2: 1 man turret
A conscript T-26 would have a -3, while a veteran Pz IV would have a +2.
All actions cost the same
This means that if you get 2 actions, you can move and reload. Or aim and acquire. Up to you.
Damage
Instead of losing CoC dice, you suffer -1 to your activation roll.
At a total modifier of -5 (including your training/tank layout) your crew bails. A poorly designed but tough tank may be hard to knock out, but easier to force the crew out.
Each tank card/sheet, will have a slider for activation modifiers vs Chain of Command dice.
That’s it! I think it’s a simple but effective mod to make WAT so much better. These changes should make the early war combat a bit more compelling as the Germans will be able to out-do the tougher French tanks much more easily, but the Germans will also suffer when up against better trained or combat experienced units.
As always, thoughts are welcome!
Hi — Can a Wild Die still be banked to add +1 to your Initiative/Actions roll next turn?
Thanks
Hi Chuck, sorry for the delay in replying. As to your question: absolutely. The Wild Die either adds +1 to firing (to hit) or strike factor that turn, or alternatively, gives you a +1 on initiative the next turn. In our 8 games we’ve played using these rules adding a bonus to initiative is often the best option. Also, note that the newest version that we use is at this post: WAT (and some unrelated bits at the end)I think that we’ll see few changes. The only other thing that we have had to modify is to allow tank destroyers an auto aim in place of their ability to switch any command die. We’ve tried it in only 1 fight so far, so we’ll have to test it a bit more thoroughly yet.
Another clarification, please, re: Ramming — “2 full move activations are required to ram (down from 3 Drive dice). These activations must include 2 dice of movement between the activations. So pivot, move, move, ram, is allowed.”
So it takes 3 activations (turns; rolling for Actions) to ram? (I’m a bit confused here as what is meant by “activations” (Initiative) vs. “actions” (movement).
Looking forward to trying these rules in our next WaT gaming session in a few weeks (thus all the questions).
Thanks
Chuck
Keep the questions coming! I’m putting these house rules into a PDF and I’ll try to clear up some of the poor wording when I post them. You are right – the wording should be “action” not activation. Essentially, you need to use 2 move ACTIONS to ram (otherwise it’d take turns, as you said). Normally, movement gives you 2 dice forward, or 1 dice and pivot 90 degrees. For ramming, in order to be balanced, we decided that you needed to have used 2 dice of movement prior to ramming. So, those 2 actions can’t just be pivot/pivot/pivot/ram, but must include at least 2 dice of movement. You could, therefore, pivot/move/move/ram. Let me know how these rules play out for you!