Tank War – a Newbie’s First Battle

By Troy Hill

Photos by the Author

If you’ve been following our blog, you’ll know that Mitch Reed has begun playing from Warlord Games. He’s mentioned on a few podcasts that I’ve begun the game as well.

Rather than re-walk the newbie road that Mitch has already traversed with three stories and a podcast here on No Dice No Glory, I’d like to take a look at one of the offshoots from Bolt Action: Tank War.

(You can find Mitch’s previous posts on BA here: , , and ).

Bolt Action typically uses the infantry platoon as its core force and limits armoured options for the player to only a few vehicles at most. Tank Wars changes that equation and uses the main Bolt Action rules (with some alterations) to allow armoured vehicles as well as fully mechanized infantry units to play a larger role in the game.

Tank wars is available as a 96-page softcover supplement to the main BA rules. I found it interesting that the blurb for the book says “Recreate such great engagements as the battle of Kursk with the scenarios, army options and special rules found in this book…” That line made me wonder how large of a gaming table they have in the Warlord studios in Nottingham. Even with tanks in a scale as small as 28mm, that game would need quite a bit of room.

The jeep I kept forgetting didn’t have an MG in it.

The Tank Wars supplement includes special rules for using cumulative effects of experience on the tank crews, which would work well with an ongoing campaign. The rules also offer a list of noteworthy tankers from historical records. These special rules allow you to field the likes of Michael Wittmann, Lafayette Pool, Sydney Valpy Radley-Walters (Rad), or Zinoviy Kolobanov.

The generic Armoured Platoon Selector used for the game allows players to choose:

• One Command Vehicle (Tank, Tank Destroyer, Assault gun, SP Arty, AA Vehicle, or Armoured Car), plus two additional vehicles for the main armoured platoon
• 0-2 Vehicles from the above
• 0-3 Infantry Squads
• A Lt, A Capt or Major, A Medic, An FO, And: MG gun, Mortar, Sniper, Flamethrower, AT Gun, or Artillery teams (one each)
• the platoon must also include enough transports and tow vehicles for all of the models.

Command Vehicles

The game allows the players to keep their command vehicles anonymous, so their opponents can’t single them out during the game. Since the command platoon has three vehicles, you can conceivably keep your commander anonymous, but being able to give his snap to orders, and provide morale benefits will probably reveal which vehicle has the commander if your opponent is paying attention.

Lack of Radios

Since some forces lacked radios in their tanks during parts of WWII (Soviets, French, and Japanese, for example), Tank Wars reflects this with a special reduction of commander morale distance.

Other Rules Differences

If the three vehicles that must be taken for the HQ unit are all of the same type (and that don’t have the Lack of Radios rule) they benefit from special bumps in morale in certain circumstances.

Pinning rules for vehicles also change, making it more difficult to pin vehicles with small arms fire.

Additional Scenario

The book includes an additional scenario where d6 objectives are placed on the table. The game ends on turn six. Objectives are taken by having a unit within six inches of each objective, without an enemy team in the same proximity.

I had the opportunity to learn the game on the fly in a tournament at Green Tower Games in Santa Clarita, California. Green Tower hosts Bolt Action tournaments every other month for a small but growing community of BA players. This month, the BA tourney featured Tank Wars.

Only three players made it to the tourney, due to a last moment drop by one of the regular players. So, store manager Kevin stepped in as ringer. My own armoured forces are limited for my American army (so far). Fortunately, another player, Paul, volunteered to loan me a force. That morning he showed me a force of American armor, and one of Soviet armor. My choice. Even though the Soviet KVs and T34s looked enticing, I decided to stick with the USA, since it matched my own force. No sense in trying to learn a new force on top of new rules.

Please note that we had to use a proxy model or two (including what should have been my Pershing)

First Game

My first round, I faced off against Chris and his German Panthers. His force had a Command Tiger 1, two Panthers, a Marder, and infantry in a half-track.

The US force I was running included three Sherman 75mm tanks in the command section, a Pershing Heavy Tank, an M18 Hellcat, and a Zook team in a jeep. Unfortunately, the jeep Paul had available was the one with a dude firing the HMG from the rear. I kept forgetting that the jeep was only a transport and started to move it up on Chris’ infantry. Fortunately, I looked at the stat sheet and realized my mistake before I made a mistake and got it shot to pieces by the Tiger pressing on my right flank.

The table for this was a European town with high hedges along a T-shaped road that came in at an angle across the table. Lines of sight were limited. Chris set one of his Panthers at one end of the road, and the Tiger on the crossroad near the center of the table. I had already placed a Sherman on the road in hopes of drawing his larger tanks there, so I could work the flanks. I did manage to get one Sherman to the cross of the two roads.

Unfortunately, I lost that Shermans to a single round from the Panther on the left. Its burning hulk did give cover to another Sherman that moved up to engage the Marder and the Tiger. But the burning wreckage basically shut down movement through the intersection. The Pershing and second Sherman worked on the Marder, eventually destroying it. The Tiger moved in on one objective.

Over on my left flank, the Hellcat took out one Panther. But the Sherman that moved up to contest the objectives a round too early, was met with the might of his infantry squad’s panzerfausts. Ouch. Another burning Sherman. His Tiger, played cat and mouse with my Hellcat, eventually disabling it too far away from the objective I wanted it to contest.

Chris scored a narrow victory on objectives but destroyed more points on my side than I had of his.

Second Game

My zook team earns their pay taking out an immobilized “proxied Pershing” that already had a turret jam.

I squared off against Kevin and his US force in a blue on blue training game. Our forces were near identical, although he had to proxy a Hanomag for a Pershing. This time we were on the desert table. The dice gods favoured my rolls in this game. Kevin’s dice went cold. That alone gave me a victory based on destroying his force.

My Pershing and Hellcat ganged up on his heavy tank, and only managed to immobilize it, with a jammed turret. Fortunately, the Zook team in their jeep earned their points by driving up to the tank and point blanking it. They didn’t last long though, as Kevin’s own zook came in from reserve in an M3 halftrack. My team couldn’t withstand the withering hail of lead.

Third Game

Round one and I had drawn first smoke: one T34 and one KV-1 in flames! But it wasn’t to last…

Here I faced off against Paul’s other list, the one I decided against taking. The Soviet force had a command squad of three T34 medium tanks, with two IS-2 Heavy Tanks, a Lend-Lease M5 Halftrack to tow a 45mm AT gun. He also had a flamethrower team in a Jeep.

We played on the desert table this time. Paul selected the table side I had just defended from, and I learned how disadvantageous the side Kevin had used was. The cover was not in as convenient of locations as I had on the previous game.

I took to turns to move my zook team into the building in the middle of my side. Paul countered by trying to get his flamethrower close to the building. That battle actually lasted another two turns (thanks to rolling several ones on both sides of the fight) before his flamethrower was more than my zook could handle.

Shermans on the prowl for T-34s

My Pershing and Hellcat took on the centre of the line but had to be careful due to how the terrain was set up. I scored first wreckage by taking out one KV-1 and a T-34, but his AT gun nailed a Sherman. We spent several turns trading shots (this was while the flamethrower moved up on my Zook). He tried to sneak a T34 around to my side and managed a turret jam on a Sherman.

I manoeuvred the Pershing to get a shot into the sneaky T-34, and completely forgot about his AT gun. The burning wreck of the Pershing will remind me to keep an eye on those dastardly AT assets.

Hellcat trying to take out the last KV-1. Unfortunately, I could only pin it.

My Hellcat had the recce ability, so I tried to save its order die til last. I positioned it at a corner of a building (where Kevin’s Pershing had succumbed to my Zook team). I wanted to be able to recce-flee the Hellcat if the remaining KV fired on it. I was lucky, and kept getting hits on the KV, but couldn’t penetrate. The pins I scored, managed to keep the KV from firing most of the game. Had Paul not failed those order tests, I might have lost my other Sherman as I moved it to try to take out the AT gun.

But, the game wasn’t mine to win. Paul had said he build two tough lists. My rookie mistakes and the will of some dice rolls shifted the tide to my opponent.

Chris had to leave the tourney early, which made the final standings in a four-person tourney: Paul in first, me in second, Chris in third, and Kevin the ringer not claiming a place. My totally unexpected place in the top half allowed me to gain the second place prize of General George S. Patton figure. I’ve got him situated next to my Col. Hogan, Sgt. Schultz and Commandant Klink figures from. I’ll get around to painting them up. Eventually.

But, I know that every time I look at Gen. Patton, I’ll remember Paul’s pesky AT gun that took out my Pershing. I won’t forget that AT gun.