An Unexpected Surprise

For the soloist, looking into the eyes of an opponent and not via a screen is a surprise – a nice surprise.

In this case it was a “live” wargame for a soloist. What to play? Time of the essence – it had to be quick. Although Neil Thomas is invariably a draw, it was “What a Tanker” (WaT) by Too Fat Lardies that won the decision.

I set up a congested scene after a recent solo run out of WaT had proven to be a bit too much of a target practice event.

Points tally was dictated by wanting at least 3 tanks a side playing wide across a 6’x4′ or 1.8m x 1.2m board. And with one gamer wanting big German tanks to figure, we ended up as follows.

Germans (43pts)

1 Pz VI Tiger I 21pts – armour 10 and strike value 10 with slow moving turret and heavy armour

2 PzIV E-F1 9pts – armour 5 and strike value 4

3 PzIV H-J 13pts – armour 6 and strike value 7

they were up against

British (45pts)

1 M3 Honey 9pts – armour 4 and strike value 4 Fast

2 M3 Grant 10pts – armour 4 and strike value 6

3 M4 Sherman 12pts – armour 6 and strike value 6

4 Sherman Firefly 14pts – armour 6 and strike value 9 slow mover

The British were so short of tanks the Honey had to be sent into action in bare metal (ok plastic) and some white primer!

The scene was near a destroyed bridge with a village of sorts clustered around a crossroads.

What a Tanker requires scenery classification.

The starting points were random. The tiger was in one corner. The M4 Sherman was opposite. The weaker PzIV EF and Grant were at the other flank. In middle the Honey and Firefly faced off the other PzIV HJ.

Everything was a minor obstacle except for some tough hedgerows which being MAJOR obstacles required extra effort to cross. These were my recently completed “sponge hedges”.

Victory conditions for this game were destuction of all enemy armour.

The Germans were a bit sluggish yet the Tiger took out the fast M3 Honey even before it moved. Things were not looking good for the British. The M4 Sherman (in the wide open) and opposite the Tiger had maxed out on moving (getting lots of drive dice to use in its first turn) and also rolled high (you roll dice for inches of movement). It promptly raced for the relative shelter of the village.

The Firefly was soon engaged with the PzIV HJ and stayed on the west road exchanging light damage.

The Tiger struck again and the Firefly was no more.

The odds were still stacked against the British. Fortunately the Tiger failed to get “drive” dice and the remaining M4 set about the PzIV EF1. Meanwhile the M3 Grant which had struggled to do anything useful managed to get on the north road despite halting in line of sight of the Tiger which this time failed to “acquire” dice for an easy target ( the tiger was at one end of the board, the Grant at the other – 72 inches away).

The Grant then scurried into south east wood before heading north!

Finally some better luck for the British as the M4 took out the PzIV HJ – striking at its weaker flank. Yet the Tiger was now hunting in the village.

Now the Tiger was really on the move and almost caught the tail of the M3 Grant. Random movement allowed the Tiger to then reverse back onto north bridge road to confront the M4 Sherman that had carelessly decided to chase the action.

The M3 Grant continued to skirt the east side of the village arriving at the north end of the village at exactly the right moment – what a journey!

The Tiger dice were thrown and they were “drive” dice and no “fire” dice. The Tiger simply drove straight into the M4 Sherman and then – nothing – it failed to crush the M4.

At that point the M3 Grant had completed its own circumnavigation of the village and acquired the weaker armoured rear of the Tiger 1.

At last the dice really went with the British and another lucky shot destroyed the Tiger 1.

Game over!

This game had all the twists and turns WaT offers. After the early dice rolled well for the Germans, luck ran out later on as the British crucially threw two sets of “tank destroyed” dice.

Great fun and we even gave the “oldhammer” measuring sticks a run out.