I finally got in a game of TANKS, which I wrote an unboxing article about earlier. I would like to start by thanking Forbes Hobbies in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada for providing me with the Terrain and Gaming Space for this article. The Tanks within are from my own collection and today’s opponent was Craig.
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| TANKS finally hits the table for a 65 point battle. |
To give Craig a small advantage, I allowed him to choose whether to field the British or German force. The mission decided upon was “Panzer Ace.” Whomever eliminates all of the enemy tanks first or kills the most points worth of tanks by a pre-determined time limit wins (roughly 45 minutes for our first game).
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| 3 Sherman Vs and a Firefly totaling 65 points. |
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| Two StuGs and a Jagdpanther to totaling 65 points. |
Craig passed on choosing the force and allowed me to pick which squad to use. I took the British.
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| The Board was set up as follows. The wooded areas (trees on top of area terrain pieces) counted as “woods” and the three trees without an area base under them were counted as “buildings.” By substituting these models in for the cardboard 2D buildings from the Starter Box, we were able to make a nice looking 3D table. We used the roads to represent the gaming boarders. Special thanks goes out to Forbes Hobbies for providing us with a space to game and the terrain. |
For deployment, the British set a pincer maneuver while the Germans focused their power to a single edge of the table.
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| Germans at the far end of the table and Brits on the side closest. The Brits split their forces to set up a pincer move while the Germans focused their power to a single side of the board. |
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| First shot of the game. The Jagdpanther lands 3 hits on a Sherman V. |
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| The Sherman V makes 3 saves and bounces all of the hits by the Jagdpanther. |
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| The Brits take the first casualty of the game as a StuG manages to pop a Sherman. Tommy Roasters anyone? |
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| The Position of the Germans after the first round of the game. |
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| These two Shermans are repositioning to get into a flanking position. The Sherman V is able to fire off ineffective shots at the Jagdpanther while the Firefly’s shots are blocked by Terrain. |
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| A picture of all 7 tanks maneuvering for position. The Firefly is still unable to fire at a target due to terrain. One ballsy Sherman V commander decides to go toe-to-toe versus the Jagdpanther. Not a suggested strategy, but it worked out okay. |
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| The second casualty of the game. A Sherman V takes out a StuG using semi-indirect fire. |
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| At this point, this is how the field looked. Two Sherman Vs have taken some damage but are still in the fight. One Sherman V is out of play and a StuG has also been taken out. The two German tanks cower in a forest while one Sherman V fires Semi-indirect shots with the other two tanks moving in to flank the enemy. |
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| The Ballsy Sherman V tank continues its direct action against the Jagdpanther. |
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| The Sherman pushes forward while the Jagdpanther slowly withdraws. The Jagdpanther fires. 6 Dice. 2 Hits. The Sherman rolls two saves on 4 dice (1 for armour, 3 for movement actions, 1 for cover minus one for distance). The luck of this tank commander is holding up very well. |
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| The Firefly finally makes it to its flanking position and both German tanks hightail it out of the woods. |
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| The two Sherman Vs stay put and use semi-indirect fire on the Jagdpanther. The Firefly wanted to fire on the Jagdpanther, but the Sherman V and woods were in the way so it had to fire on the StuG instead. The StuG lives. The Jagdpanther destroyed the Sherman V in front of it giving the Germans the lead . |
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| The StuG continues to flee while the Firefly fires upon it. The Jagdpanther tries to use cover to survive but the Sherman V gets off a luck shot and destroys the large Tank Destroyer. The lead falls over to British hands. |
At this time, the game reached the agreed upon time limit. The Allies lost two Sherman Vs while the Germans lost one StuG and a Jagdpanther – which gives the win to the British player.
This was the first time that either Craig or I played TANKS and we both had fun. It is a quick and simple game that has some strategy. I really liked that it is an affordable game that allowed two guys that had never played the rules before to get it on the tabletop and play a satisfactory and game in 45-minutes. It wouldn’t be a far stretch for people who know the rules to get in a game in a half-hour.
I was really hoping that this game would be an X-Wing killer, but it is not. While the games are similar in rules and scope, they are different enough to make it worth owning both. Where I think TANKS would shine is either as a filler game for guys into Flames of War or as a Gate Way game into Flames for anyone that likes making small models or World War 2.
I hope everyone enjoyed this battle report. Until next time, Happy Gaming!!!
