What a tanker

[Jim Ando]

Hi
Had my first what a tanker game. What a hoot its just made for 10mm as a large number of different tanks are needed. As your career goes on you get a better tank. You only need maybe a platoon a side at most. Couldnt afford to do it in 28mm and even 20mm plastics. But as you can buy individual tanks from pendraken it would be perfect.

[jimduncanuk]

I ditched all my 20mm WW2 stuff a few years ago.

I do have some 10mm stuff so will give WaT a try.

I have the rules, just need to make the cards and the templates.

[slinky]

It's a great game, play it with 20mm with friends and use my 10mm stuff at home

[fred.]

We played WAT yesterday a 3 vs 3 game, with each player controlling a single tank. We used 15mm tanks mainly as they have loose turrets, unlike my 10mm tanks. I would think it would play well in 10mm to 20mm scales. 15mm worked well.

While the game is quite fun I'm not sure we will bother playing again.

The two main problems were:

1) Huge amounts of player down-time between each player's turn, most of the players drifted off to do other things between their activations, there is very little for the non-active players to do. And with 6 players there was usually a lot of time between your goes. An individual player turn can be very short especially if your dice aren't useful, or can be quite long if you get several shots off and have to resolve each of them.

2) Felt more like Whacky Races than WWII. We ended up with tanks chasing each other around scenery to try to get rear shots. I think this is in a large part due to no overwatch, and that the way the activation works it can be much harder to shoot than move. To shoot you need at least 3 dice, acquire, aim, shoot. To move you just need 1 dice, though you may not end up moving too far. It is very random due to the activation. And while some of it can be explained by narrative. The chasing of tanks up and down the table is odd to say the least.

Its a shame we thought it would be a good fun light weight game. But the slowness just kills it. It does seem hard to find wargames that work well for multiple players.

[Smoking gun]

We played our first game last night Germans v French 1940. Equal points forces 1 Pz2 and 1 Pz38t (me) versus 2 Renault R35's (Dave).

The French tanks suffer the "slow" movement rule and like the Pz2 benefit from being small. The French tanks are hard to hit and damage having a Armour rating of 4 compared to the German strike ratings of 3.

Eventually both the German tanks had lost 4 command dice each due to damage, the two R35's were fully functional and at this stage I was ready to abandon the two tanks and fight another day, as we weren't playing a campaign we carried on to the bitter end.

We both had watched the Youtube videos and read up on line how the game played so our first game was relatively painless and flowed quite well.

We will be playing again on Friday with blitzkrieg France era tanks again.

I found the tokens to be a bit small, fiddly, and light they are easily knocked off the "dashboard" I may have an attempt at making my own markers.

Martin

[slinky]

A company called Dark ops make nice mdf tanker dashboards, no more knocking the counters on the floor!

[fsn]

Link below*
https://www.darkops.co.uk/products/what-a-tanker-mdf-dashboard





*This link brought to you as a public service announcement; and while we're on it, don't swim in canals.

[Smoking gun]

As I stated earlier we had another game Friday night. Germans: (Dave) Stug IIIB, PzII, and (Jamie, Dave's grandson) PzjgI and a PzIVE versus (Me) French 2 of Char B.

The game started well for the French with the PzJg I and Stug III being destroyed. The Char B's suffered numerous hits from the Germans but the vast majority were saved with only temporary damage being inflicted.

The Pz II soon succumbed to the Char B's fire, leaving Jamie's Pz IV as the only operational German tank.

Due to Jamie's good luck and my luck running out the Char B's were destroyed.

Dave's ten year old grandson was the best tank commander of the evening, needless to say he wants to keep the Pz IV for his next game.

Dave and I are a pair of Tankers!

Martin

[Wulf]

On Saturday we had a late war game with some Big Tanks - a StuG IIIG, Panther, Tiger I and Tiger II vs. a SU-100, T-34/85, IS II and a ISU 152...

The table had some city streets off to one side, a river, then some woods & a village - I posted a couple of pics on the WaT facebook group.

The Tiger commander was apparently related to the one in Fury, and drove out into the open, and promptly got one-shotted by the SU 100...
The rest of the game went far better for the Germans, the T-34 & Panther chasing one another round hills & woods over on the flank away from the city, the T-34 getting temp damage time after time while the Panther kept reversing into cover.
The StuG, backing up the Tiger II, got the SU 100 as it attempted to cross the river, and the dice roll stuck him on the bridge! But the ISU 152 then blew bits of StuG all over the map and pointed it's Big Gun at the Panther...
The Panther, seeing an opportunity to flank the ISU with lots of DRIVE dice, put him out of the fight and made a break along the road to flank the IS II and assist the Tiger II, but got an 85mm shell up the exhaust pipe that put paid to that idea... Never forget the T-34 behind you...
The Tiger II & IS II, biggest baddest tanks in the game, basically just sat glaring at one another & trading shots the whole game, one in the woods, one behind a wall, until the Tiger II finally got a fatal shot in.
That left the T-34 vs the Tiger II, and the T-34 decided discretion was the better part of valour...

Lovely game. We intend to try a campaign with upgrades, once I get enough tanks to allow a full career path painted up!

[Maenoferren]

Is anyone playing this in 10mm?
Just wondering as I have the rules and some 15mm tanks but only a few Sherman's, a couple of Stug's and a MKIV.

[Smoking gun]

Hello,
You don't need many tanks to play the game, the late war tanks do tend to die quicker than early war. The problem with 10mm is that the models are not really designed to allow for turning turrets, which is essential to the game. If you use plenty of terrain your games will last longer.

We usually play with 20mm tanks as that is our established scale (used since 1970s) for ww2. I have seen 15mm games and they seem to work well. Given the Sherman is the allies work horse and the StugIIIG and panzer IV are the German workhorses you could add a few more tanks to each side and have fun with those.

Regards,

Martin

[Wulf]

Is anyone playing this in 10mm?
Just wondering as I have the rules and some 15mm tanks but only a few Sherman's, a couple of Stug's and a MKIV.

Yes, I've been playing most Saturdays since the book was first published with 10mm tanks, mostly Pendraken, a campaign through the East Front (currently in 1942). 3 Sherman vs. 2 StuG & a Pz IV would be a good match, depending on the precise marks of each (and whether you care if that mini is really an Easy Eight or a 75mm...) We play with 2cm instead of each inch, allowing a much bigger battlefield on a smaller table.

[Orcs]

I have played a three or four games in 20mm, and agree with a lot of Fred's comments.

The game works Ok.  You have to check on the Tanks special abilities - a Tank Hunter like a Panzer jager 1 always can convert one dice to an aim, fast tanks can always convert one dice to a move etc.

Best to give more than one vehicle to each player when you are familiar with the rules, so less time between moves.

It does feel strange having no other forces on the board especially for late war where A/T guns and infantry anti tank weapons were effective against tanks. It probably suits periods where tanks were prevalent like Western desert.

The campaign will only work if you start together and progress roughly at the same speed as other wise you end up with an A10 v a Panzer 4 f2 or worse

While I will play it if nothing else to play, it would not be my first choice. As you need lots of 20mm terrain I would always choose Big Chain of Command over WAT

[jimduncanuk]

Is anyone playing this in 10mm?
Just wondering as I have the rules and some 15mm tanks but only a few Sherman's, a couple of Stug's and a MKIV.

Yes, my group played a few games using 10mm tanks at the end of last year.

[jimduncanuk]

You don't need many tanks to play the game, the late war tanks do tend to die quicker than early war. The problem with 10mm is that the models are not really designed to allow for turning turrets, which is essential to the game. If you use plenty of terrain your games will last longer.

I converted all my 10mm tanks to using magnets for the turrets.

Not too difficult if you drill bits and magnets the correct size.