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Sunday 27 May 2018

What a Tanker I Am

I had my first trip up to Perth this year for some games with Richard.  We played 2 games of What an Tanker and plotted some future games with these rules but  more of that anon.

Many moons ago I had a plan to do the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 28mm.  I did a fair bit of research and got as far as buying some diecast tanks but eventually gave up on the idea.  Still on the backburner but may well end up being something I do in 10mm. The tanks were Corgi 1/50 models, 2 M47s for the Turks and 2 T34/85 for the Greek Cypriots.  To fit the rules we ran the M47s as Panthers - marginally superior to the T34/85s but not by too much.  We gave each of the tanks a card and the Greeks one extra one to even things up a little bit.



My What a Tanker I Am moment game when I got the tanks ready for the game.  I thought I had 2 T34/85s one boxed and one unboxed.  It turned out the box was  in fact empty and I had hung on to it in case I wanted to resell.  Richard was able to proxy with a 20mm tank so we were at least able to play but I felt a right plonker!


In the first game I took the Greeks.  Richard used the terrain rather better than I did putting his tanks into a couple of the woods.  We ding donged back and forth for a while as I improved my position.  We had one battle in a central wood but I got forced out and although the damage was mainly temporary it suddently racked up and the crew had to bale out.  Two to one was too much for my other tank which soon suffered the same fate.


We swopped sides and once again Richard got into a good early position, hull down this time.  However a roll of four 1's enable one of my tanks to race up the board and get behind his flank.  He was able to reposition himself but soon after it was good throw v bad throw and he was brewed, 


The other T34 had been manoeuvring behind his mate but then suffered an even more extreme roll off.  To explain the mechanics in a head on attack the M47 needed 5s and 6s as hits rolling 9 dice and the T34 also needed 5s and 6s as saves, rolling 8 dice.  Three unsaved dice = brewed up.   The difference on this roll was so great that even adding his dice pips together to try and make up 5s for saves (not something you can actually do) the T34 was still destroyed!


The second game was over very quickly which gave us time to plan future games before my drive back to Airth.  We had both enjoyed the nights gaming and thought it would be good to try a short campaign.  I am also keen to build up some WW2 forces as I am woefully short on that era. The main issue was scale.  I like 28mm but it is both expensive and a bit overscale for more than 2 vehicles a side.  Richard has some 15mm stuff but it is a scale that I am not really interested in investing in for the period.  We settled on 10mm British v German in Normandy.  More details when there is something concrete to share and hopefully some pictures! 


Games 55

 Rules played 22 New 9
Places played 9 New 0
 

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