My current preoccupation with a sideline project about the inter war years (between ww1 and ww2) has led to the acquisition of “armour”. To be specific, armoured vehicles and not some renaissance suit!
As it happened I was a bit slow on this aspect of 20th century warfare having focused on the infantry who appeared in my scenario Observer.
The idea was also that infantry heavy weapons would follow. And then finally the armour. The heavy weapons are still in the painting queue. The armour is on the factory production line………or maybe in the repair shop.
And of course the next problem is how do you fight armoured vehicles using infantry with no heavy weapons or anti tank kit either?
Use “What a Tanker” of course!
What a Tanker (WAT) by Too Fat Lardies is a game that only uses tanks and in my case some armoured cars – or rather thats all you need and actually you only need a 4-6 to play a game.
I have suddenly thought you could probably play 1 tank a side if the scenario was sufficiently rigged to stop one tank simply moving off table to end the game prematurely.
Maybe you could play a really powerful tank which is unable to move versus a much less powerful/armoured tank which has to try and manoeuvre to get in its killer shot before it is picked off.
In my next post I will explain the armour on show which is a story in itself. Suffice to say it is not what WAT is aimed at. WAT lovers I suspect lean towards the back end of the war with greater variety and dare I say it the more impressive bigger tanks.
I have got into WW2 only because of my interest in inter war era mechanisation and some various blogs that promote the Spanish and Russian Civil Wars plus 1941 Vichy middle east etc. In other words, variously considered marginal theatres in the journey from the WW1 tank invention to the great tank battles of WW2.
First up I am using armoured cars which don’t even feature in the ruleset.
I simply took a look at the values and had a punt. So this game was in a way a test of the rules to cope with weak kit. Would the game even work. Actually the secret is in the Japan tank table where some really weak options can be chosen. And I think TFL(Too Fat Lardies) really test their rules hard.
The Reds had three Renaults
- 2 Renault FT17’s – they got armour of 2 and strike of 3
- leading this pack was a Renault NC29 apparently exported to Japan by a France that straight after world war 1 had the largest tank army in the world and led tank development. Armour 4 and a whopping strike value of 5 was given.
The Blues had
- One Crossley 6 wheeled Armoured Car armour 2 and strike 3
- One Marmon Herrington 4 wheeled Armoured Car armour 2 and strike 4
- The Blue force was led by an M3 Stuart or maybe its a Honey Armour 4 strike 4
As WAT abstracts heavily WYSIWYG does not have to apply and I was the only one looking so that was fine. Apologies to the purists.
I put the two big tanks in the centre opposite each other.
No scenery was provided so it was a straight knock out.
I belatedly got the camera into action so what follows is a truncated record of the action.
I have only played WAT a few times properly and spaced out over time – end result was I could not remember the rules. I played the “long ball” set up – with three vehicles per side – set up opposite each other. Points were not the priority so absolute balance did not matter..
The Renault NC27 succumbed but so did the Marmon which seeking to support the M3 left the FT17 behind only for the dice to roll very kindly for the FT17. The FT 17 simply took the Marmon in the rear.
Meanwhile the other FT17 eventually destroyed the Crossley and returned to the remaining action just in time.
Luck was running out for the M3 Stuart and so it did. It failed to quickly destroy the FT17 by the Marmon and so the two FT17’s were able to slowly kill it with some good dice throwing.
So the M3 Stuart was first deprived of its weak armoured car supports and then finished off by the FT17’s. Thats Fauxterre 1930+ for you – what a tanker style.
I will post about the vehicles separately.
The Wargaming Erratic 