What a (Christmas) Tanker !

Marcus takes us through this year’s Christmas shenanigans, as we all turned into complete tankers…

I think I first suggested having a game of “What A Tanker” (WAT) as a club Christmas game in early 2020. We all know what happened next. This year we finally got a Christmas outing for this Lardy game at the club, with ten participants. Thanks to Phil and Tony, we were able to choose from a wide variety of tanks, from recently painted Pz 35’s and FCM-36’s to Phil’s scratch-built Maus. (“No Phil, there are no stats for a Maus!”) No-one even noticed that I didn’t complete my ESCI Jagd. Pz. IV, or finish re-conditioning my Jagd. Panther, as Phil had managed to recondition his with a generous helping of agrax earthshade, nuln oil or some such alchemy

Between Alan and Tony, we were provided with a couple of great tables (perhaps too great…) with plenty of cover representing western European towns with villages, woods and crossroads etc. Plenty of cover…

The idea was that we would have two tables; late war and early war. If you got knocked out you would simply join the other table, not necessarily on the same side. However, while you were on a table, you would be either German or Allied; no “own goals” to boost your scoring as it were.

We also generated a simple system of scoring. If you got a kill you divided the points value of the target as listed in the WAT rulebook by the firer (TV/FV * 10 = score). Tony produced a nice table to cross reference the values easily.

Late War Table

I started on the late war table driving a Stuart, with Steve and “Baggins” (my youngest) driving Shermans. Our initial nasty Nazi opponents were Andy and Alan, both with Pz.IV’s.
While Steve and Baggins drove up the flanks, I ventured through the outskirts of a village to find Alan’s Pz.IV on the road more or less blocking my advance. Both Steve and I struggled to manoeuvre with our dice, which can be a frustration with the rules. Many modifications were suggested, and I took notes with a view to my own Grav Tanker variant. As I tried to extricate myself from the built-up area and with Steve attempt to outflank him on our left, Baggins moved up on the right all guns blazing at Andy. These two ended up in a protracted fire fight with Baggins in position behind a wall and Andy, IIRC, initially behind some hedges and the traversing between the woods and hedges as a result of a series of non-damaging hits. Eventually Andy paid a heavy penalty and brewed up and Boaz picked up the “Impressive Bush” camouflage card. Meanwhile, first Steve and then I joined in pumping rounds into Alan, with Steve finishing him off and earning a “Hell Driver” card.

Jeremy joined us having suffered brutally on the early war table, and boosted the axis forces with Andy’s departure. Baggins traded shots with a returning Alan as Jeremy moved up. Baggins then got his come-uppance and while attempting to get up close and personal with Jeremy (talk of ramming was heard) suffered a kill at Jeremy’s hands and promptly left for the early war table. Steve and I again poured fire into the luckless Alan, whose dice rolls deserted him. Somewhere amongst the melee (as it was very much close quarters stuff) my Stuart went BOOM and it was Steve again who got the kill, then promptly had to leave the game early. Meanwhile Baggins had got a kill on the early war table where Andy had suffered more ill-fortune!

Between us, we took a grand total of two photos of the late war table – a bit of an oversight when it came to writing up the game here ! Here’s Andy’s view of the table(Ed)

Early War Table
Marcus didn’t make it onto the 1940 table, so Tony F outlines what happened over there

The early war table was slightly larger with less cover than the late war one, which probably made for a more open game. We also ruled early on that the flimsy wooden fences didn’t count as obstacles – we allowed tankers to see and drive through them without penalty. There were plenty of tanks to choose from – 9 French (FCM-36, R-35, H-35, H-39/40, FT-17, AMC-35, Char D2, Char B1 bis and SOMUA S-35), 5 British (Mk.IVc, A-9, A-10, A-13 and Matilda), 10 German (Pz.IIC, Pz.IIE, Pz.IIIF, Pz.IVA. Pz.IVD. Pz.35(t), Pz.38(t), PzJg.I, StuG IIIA and a Neubaufahrzeug!), and even some Belgians (T.13B3, T.15 and ACG-1). Not all of these are in the rulebook, but coming up with stats for them was pretty straightforward – I drew up a chart for easy reference.

All tankers started the game with a Level 1 tank, and we allowed upgrades to better vehicles as the game went on. The Germans, Brian, Jeremey and Pete, started out with a Pz.35(t), Pz.IVA and Pz.Jg I respectively. Dave and Chris both chose British Cruisers (A10 and A9), while I took a French Hotchkiss H-35. All we can say is that if the Allies had performed on the battlefield like they did on our table, WW2 would have been over in June 1940 ! Chris took up a firing position looking straight down the road and proceeded to ping away at anything that moved with his trusty 2pdr, while Dave and I ‘raced’ up the flanks (in our slow tanks). Details are hazy, but we wiped out the first wave of Germans without loss, including Jeremey’s brave Pz.IVA that advanced across the fields to challenge Chris at point blank. The duel at the abandoned farm between Pete’s PzJg.I and my H.35 was a contest between his powerful Czech-made 47mm gun and my thicker-than-average armour, offset by his tin plate defence and my short 37mm popgun. In the end, unlike in 1940, it went the way of the French. As we wore down the Germans various tank commanders switched tables – Andy turned up in a StuG.IIIA and Boaz a late model Pz.38(t), but they were seen off in equally short order, although there were some interesting cat-and-mouse chases around the village. Dave and Chris both eventually lost their original mounts (Dave swapped his for a shiny new Matilda.II) but my Hotchkiss led a charmed life and survived the day with just the permanent loss of one dice (and a lot of dents in the armour).

In the end we didn’t keep an accurate tally of the overall scoring, but Dave seems to have emerged as Top Tanker with four kills set against a single loss, followed by my plucky H-35 with four kills and no losses (Dave’s kills were of higher value targets which offset the loss of his A10). Kills seemed to be harder to come by on the late war table.