What a Tanker!

The lad wasn't at work today, so we set up a quick game of What a Tanker! as he likes it and we hadn't played in ages. To keep it simple I selected a T34/85 (Strike 8 / Armour 8 / Fast) and he had a Panther (Strike 9 / Armour 9 / Fast), so a fairly even match. In retrospect, this was a mistake as neither side had  the edge, so the game went on a bit longer than expected. I dug out my winter terrain but noticed that it could do with a bit of tarting up, so the cloth is now in the washing machine! Anyway, it was a good game and we now have a refreshed grasp of the rules. 

In the game, the T34/85 advanced into some woods, from which it managed to get several hits on the frontal armour of the Panther, with little effect either to the tank or the crew, which failed even to acquire the Russian for several turns. When it did, the shots flew backwards and forwards but again failed to do much damage, leading the Russian commander to shift out of cover to get a clear shot on the enemy panzer. 

This worked up to a point, with the Panther suffering some permanent damage to the hull and some temporary hits, causing the commander to shift up a gear and cross the bridge, in an attempt to get a flank shot on the T34. With the range now down to point blank, which was a bit ridiculous, the superior fire power of the Panther led to some nasty damage on the T34, eventually resulting in the loss of all the command dice and a hasty crew bailout.

In retrospect, this game highlighted both the good and the not so good aspects of the rules, the former being the simple turn sequence and neat dice pool mechanisms, and the latter being the tortuous damage system and lack of decisive outcomes. This is partly down to having evenly matched tanks but also cropped up in previous games that I've played at the club. I think it's one of the reasons that it never took off at my local club, even though I've run a few games in the past. It didn't spoil our fun, however, and both of us enjoyed the game immensely.