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.
Well, summer has arrived here on the Island. The grey is gone, and we won’t have rain for another few months. For now, the grass is still green and my roses are very happy.
Yesterday this was just a bud.My happy flowers offset my less than happy models
The weekend was busy and hot (over 30 degrees Celsius which is hot for here). My house has no shade from any large trees (almost all of my trees are fruit trees or ornamental) so it heats up a lot, especially in the addition where I wargame and paint. I did not expect any challenges due to the heat but I’m learning.
I was putting a wash on my FJ supports and it got warm enough to separate the wash a bit.
The wash pooled a bit on the Tiger
The Tiger looks pretty good, the PAK 40 was fine, but the Hanomag however… well, see for yourself.
The wash became sticky immediately and pooled
The end result is that the vehicles look pretty dirty. I will be adding camouflage paint (and painting the interior and the stowage), so it’s not a total loss but it is a frustration.
Lucius and I tried our hand with TFL’s “What A Tanker” ruleset.
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.
Ready for action
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.
Big Cat charges forward and kills my 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.
Uh… guys?
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)!
So the Warrior ships are coming along. I’ve finished stepping the masts and hoisting the sails. I’ve also put them on their basic bases. I will be trying to use some PVA-soaked black thread for rigging and then I’ll do some touch-ups and finish the bases. Having spent far too much time at sea, I think that the emphasis on some of the details in the sails in certain painted models is a bit much. I don’t mean to suggest that it is “BADWRONGFUN” but that from a mariners perspective, you only get hints of detail on sails until you’re close. I considered highlighting or washing some of the detail present on the sails before I thought of that; which not only makes me feel salty, it also saves me work! So here they are awaiting their standing rigging etc:
The first three roll off the waysIn line astern
I’m happy with how they are turning out and am looking forward to getting to the rest of the ships once I’ve finished my Fallschirmjagers.
Speaking of which, I sprayed the base-coat on some of my FJ supports this afternoon.
The help for the heer… well, almost.
Things are moving along, which is great. I’ve sidelined all of my medieval and fantasy miniatures and I’m going to make a concerted effort to get my FJs done in time for the Arnhem campaign. So I’m going to get the vehicles done, turn to the troops, and then work on bashing out some more terrain. We don’t have a firm date for what “in time for the Arnhem campaign” means, but we want it to be before August. There is much to be done.
