Normandy Breakout Game of What a Tanker!

Quote of the day – ” An eighth of an inch can get ya killed in this game”, Mike Morgan.

As the D-Day commemorative events have passed, its important to remember that there was also a hell of a fight for the Allies to break out of Normandy after the landings in the weeks after June 6th, 1944.  D-Day is iconic, and deservedly so.  I wanted to honor the Allied struggle in the Normandy Campaign.

To this end, I have been designing a suitable “Normandy Breakout” What a Tanker© game scenario for my 15mm/1:100 scale tanks.  This game scenario would be one that I could run at a convention or at our club in around four hours.  My goals were to:

• Create an interesting scenario that incorporates the appropriate German, US, and British armor that was involved.
• Make the scenario easy enough for new players to pick up and challenging enough for experienced gamers to also enjoy..
• Maintain the feel of individual tank command in the game, but add other combat forces differentially to each side to increase the historic reality and game action.
  • Add elements of reconnaissance and enemy force location uncertainty to the game.
  • Add elements of infantry, combat engineers, anti-tank guns, and artillery (HE and smoke) to the game.
  • Provide the Allies with naval gunfire support and air support, while the Germans get only a rare case of Luftwaffe support.
  • Add an element of communications breakdown.
• Make the scenario one where each side faces various risk/reward choices that have ramifications to victory in the scenario.

On June 29th, the Mass Pikemen gathered to play this scenario in East Brookfield, MA.  The tabletop set up was as shown here in the next two photos:

Rules and Scenario Modifications

The What a Tanker© rules are one of the best that I have seen in terms of a creating a tank crew experience in a fun and elegant way.  I have found that for a convention or single scenario game, modifications can augment the gaming experience.  In the rules, each tank crew on its turn rolls 6 D6 as COMMAND DICE.  These control what a crew can do, and as a tank takes damage, dice, and potential actions, are lost.  For the purposes of simplification for those unfamiliar with the game, here is basically what each COMMAND DIE does in the original rules:

• 1’s allow movement
• 2’s allow target acquisition
• 3’s allow aim at an acquired target
• 4’s allow firing at an aimed target
• 5’s allow a tank to reload after firing
• 6’s are WILD, and can be converted to any other die.

There is much more to the game, but this is the main action engine.  Certain tanks have special features/characteristics, like being “Fast”, which allows them to “convert” die to a “1”, or being “Low Profile”, which makes them more difficult to acquire by an enemy.  There are several vehicles that have features like these – and there are many others.

Here are my modifications to the rules for this scenario:

• To keep the game moving, any vehicle touching a road could additionally convert one of its command dice to a “1” (a MOVE die).
• I keep score in the game using poker chips.  Each side starts with 100 or 150 chips, depending on the number of players.  At end of game, high chip total wins.
  • Both sides choose their vehicles from a menu, and is charged chips equal to the value of each vehicle.  The starting vehicles must be chosen from different categories, such as “scout car”, “medium tank”, “tank destroyer”, “heavy tank destroyer”, or “heavy tank”.  See examples below of the menus.
  • Chips can be gained by:
    • Successful recon of potential enemy positions (gains two chips).
    • Destruction of enemy vehicles (gains point value of destroyed vehicle in chips).
    • Successful crossing of the battlefield (breaking out) by the Allies (gains chip value of vehicle that successfully crosses tabletop).
  • Chips can be spent to get:
    • Additional Bonus Attack Cards (cost two chips each).
    • New tanks or to get a better tank when you respawn a destroyed tank.
• I added the category of “armored car” for machine-gun armed light reconnaissance vehicles such as the Daimler Dingo.  This allows them (at their peril) to fire at a heavily-armored vehicle and force them to button up, or have a chance of damaging other lighter vehicles.  There are no rules for armored cars in the original rules.  Some armored cars did have some anti-tank punch, and that is reflected in how I treat their offensive capability.
• For vehicles that would have been more likely involved in traditional armored cavalry/scouting/reconnaissance roles instead of tank-to-tank combat, I created the characteristic of “recon“.  Recon vehicles could be armored cars, or light tanks like the M3/M5 Stuart.  Recon vehicles get two advantages.
  • The first is defensive.  To reflect the difficulty needed to acquire a well-hidden scout in cover, anyone trying to acquire a recon vehicle in any cover would need an additional “2” in addition to any other cover or vehicle feature benefit the target would get.  This advantage is lost in the open.
  • The second is offensive, in that a recon vehicle can convert any command die to a “2” – so they can acquire targets more easily.
  • The third is also offensive, and involves the use of Bonus Attack Cards as described below.  Each recon vehicle gets two Bonus Attack cards at the game start, and one free card per turn.  A recon vehicle can use two Bonus Attack cards per turn.
• To represent the need for and the value of reconnaissance (and the uncertainty of knowing the exact locations of enemy positions), I use 18 wooden discs across the gaming mat.  These discs denote potential German positions.  At the beginning of the game, the Germans would secretly choose each of their vehicles and a deployed location.  This information is only known to the GM and the Germans.  Next, the Allies would choose their vehicles and deploy them openly on the deployment side of the tabletop – at positions the Germans would not have known when they made their selections.  German positions are only revealed if successfully reconned, or if the Germans move or fire their vehicles.  The Germans still roll their Command Dice, and can acquire targets and use Bonus Attack cards without revealing their locations.
• To represent the other combat arms, I made and use the Bonus Attack Cards.  Each recon vehicle gets 2 cards to start the game and every other vehicle gets one.  Each turn, a recon vehicle gets a free card, and extra cards can be bought for two chips each for any vehicle.  A recon vehicle can use 2 Bonus Attack cards per turn, others just 1 per turn.  The target must still be acquired, and hit by rolling a “6” with two dice added together.  The decks for each side are different – and of course randomized when distributed.  The decks are built as follows:
  • 72 Allied “Bonus Attack Cards” made for my What a Tanker© Normandy scenario
    • 18 Infantry Assault Cards
    • 6 Combat Engineer Cards
    • 9 Anti-Tank Gun Support Cards
    • 6 Artillery HE Attack Support Cards
    • 9 Artillery Smoke Support Cards
    • 6 Artillery HE Attack Support Cards
    • 6 Air Support Cards
    • 6 Naval Gunfire Support Cards
    • 6 Commo Problem Cards
  • 72 German “Bonus Attack Cards” made for my What a Tanker© Normandy scenario
    • 18 Infantry Assault Cards
    • 6 German Pioneer Cards
    • 15 Anti-Tank Gun Support Cards
    • 9 Artillery HE Attack Support Cards
    • 9 Artillery Smoke Support Cards
    • 9 Artillery HE Attack Support Cards
    • 3 Luftwaffe (Air Support) Cards
    • 6 Funkprobleme Cards

Hopefully the following photos make these changes clear.

Now I hope to share some photos of the game – and thanks to Mike Paine for sharing many of these.  Mike is a gaming legend in New England and it was wonderful to have him attend!

We had 6 players – and the game was hard-fought.  In the end, the Allies won 124-115.  It was close and a lot of fun for the players.

These shots are indicative that there was a LOT of action.  I plan to run this game again with more vehicle choices, probably at least at BARRAGE.  Thanks very much to the players!

The vehicles shown here were posted previously  – if interested here are the posts:

• US Armor for 75th D-Day Anniversary
• A Preponderance of Panzers
• A Preponderance of Panzers – Chapter 2 – Scout Cars and Behemoths
• Dingoes and Greyhounds for Normandy

The next Mass Pikemen gaming session will be on July 27th at 2 PM at 110 Pleasant Street, East Brookfield, MA.  Join us!

If you have any feedback or questions about this post, please share them in the comments section – thanks!