Last Saturday, December 1st 2018, the Mass Pikemen Gaming Club held their monthly gaming session with a lively game of What a Tanker© by The Too Fat Lardies company. The scenario we used was one from France 1940, with available forces from that time frame.
Each team was given poker chips to represent available points to choose and deploy their tanks. In this scenario, each had 25 points to choose three tanks. If a tank was destroyed, the winning team would get that many points in chips – which they could use to either upgrade a deployed tank, buy a new tank, or purchase a Bonus Card. The destroyed tank would respawn in the game. There was a river in the middle of the board, with roughly equivalent terrain on both sides of the board. I said that any tank on the opposite side of the river at the game’s end would count for two times as many points for victory. This gave each side an incentive to move forward.
For initial forces, the Germans chose two Panzer IVD’s (2 for 14 points) and a Panzer 38(t) (one for 9 points), leaving them with 2 chips extra. The Germans passed on choosing a Panzer IIC. The French chose two R35’s (2 for 14 points) and one SOMUA S35 (1 for 10 points), leaving them with one extra chip. While there were StuG IIIA and Char B1 bis vehicles in the inventories, I did not allow either to be chosen initially for reasons of play balance.
At that point the game was called. The French crossed one R35 to the other side of the river and got 14 points. The final score was France 38, Germans 12. It was a good rolling day for the French and a bad one for the Germans. The best tanks did not get to deploy, but both sides needed to use terrain well, and they did. It was nice to have some new players (Leif, Ethan, and Scott), thank you for coming. Everyone had fun, and I will run this scenario again.
Score Breakdown:
French 38 chips:
- 1 chip left over from initial deployment (1 chip)
- Two Panzer IVD’s knocked out (14 chips)
- 1 Panzer 38 (t) knocked out (9 chips)
- 1 R35 on the other side of the river at game’s end (14 points)
Germans 12 chips:
- 2 chips left over from initial deployment (2 chips)
- 1 SOMUA knocked out (10 chips)
Our next session will be on January 5th at 2 PM at 110 Pleasant Street, East Brookfield, MA. Please follow us on FaceBook at the Mass Pikemen Gaming Club.
Mark A. Morin 
Some very nice pieceson that board Mark.
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Thanks it’s as close to building a diorama that I’ll ever do.
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Awesome – WAT is a great game, and WWII tanks are so evocative… perfect combo really!
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Oh yeah you’re right!
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Looks like it was a fun game and well planned! Great seeing your new tanks in action! I think I want some Somuas!
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Love to see you paint some up! Thanks JNV!
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Didn’t realize those tanks were that small. Looked so much bigger in the previous posts, haha!
Interesting game scenario. Don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a war-game with a respawn. Is that uncommon? I like the poker chips idea too. Might be a good one to adopt for Blood Bowl…
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Well, the idea is to not have a player get knocked out of the game and never be able to continue playing. It works as the original tank is still dead, but the respawn is actually another crew in another tank. The way I ran it the team that initiated the kill can either keep the chips towards a victory, or upgrade an existing tank, or buy a new tank. Makes it more fun for a larger group too. The chips make it easier on the GM score wise too.
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That looks like it was a great game.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Interesting battle report Mark with some rather nifty rule additions too, I too would like to sing out over your lovely scenery! Great stuff all round.
Cheers Roger.
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Thanks, and what song would you sing Roger? As someone who spent most of whose youth listening to the Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, and many other Brit bands, my expectations would be commensurate of course!
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Well as a massive Alice Cooper fan, probably one of his though I’ve been racking my brain for something appropriate and the best I can come up with is “No mans land” or “Pass the gun around”.
Ozzy / Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Doro / Warlock, Metallica, Ramstein, and Pink Floyd among other were all in the running too 🙂
Cheers Roger.
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A fun sounding game, the poker chips were a great idea.
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Looks to have been a really fun game – and that table looks fantastic!
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Thanks, those R35’s armor was sturdy enough
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The title made me think you’d shifted time periods again, though!
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I guess 1940 is a time shift!
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I was meaning 1400-1500’s Battle of Marignano or Battle of Pavia-type timeshift when you were talking about French vs Germans and Pikemen!
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Ah! I have a game to create and market, “Pikes and Panzers”. Very short game, hint, pick the panzers.
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