Earlier this month, I was able to actually meet up with Stew
(His fab blog should be a must follow) whilst my wife was away in Oregon with her sister, visiting family. It's been a few years (And Stew had added two new children to his family) since he and I had managed to hang out and play a face-to-face game so I was eager to travel up to his home and see what he had set up. Stew's old gaming pal, Paul was also invited and upon arrival I was pleased to see a typically well laid out table to represent "somewhere" in the French countryside, circa 1944.
"What a Tanker" by Too Fat Lardies was chosen as game of the day (15mm scale), where Paul and I would take control of the Americans against Stew and his dastardly German Panther tanks.
We played for a goodly time, with many hilarious moments of crappy dice for us American players and consistently good dice rolled by Stew controlling his heavy German tanks.
In the end, the day ended as a German victory with the Allies well and truly stumped, even though they had greater numbers. The pictures that follow illustrate how the game fared:
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| The table set up, using Stew's lovely 15mm terrain on his home made gaming mat. The multi-coloured slides at the back I'm sure were where the Big Kats played when not destroying Allied armour. |
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| Initial American set up. Paul and I each took identical teams of 2x Sherman and 1x M10 Tank Hunter |
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| Stew had command of 4x Panthers. Somehow in the rules this was a force equal to our own, but as the game progressed Paul and I did not agree! |
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| Early game Panther shot took out Paul's M10. |
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| Hiding in the town, this is the Big Kat responsible. |
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| Stew sent two Panthers down the lane, I moved my M10 to the West in an effort to support Paul's solo Sherman mid-left in the field. |
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| Not much has changed about us since the last time we hung out. Well, aside from Stew getting greyer and I got better looking - of course! |
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| Paul's Sherman sits, waiting at the hedgeline for a good shot at those panthers in the lane. He and I wasted a lot of our shots trying and failing to penetrate the Panther's thick front armour in lieu of using our mobility to try and get side shots. Hindsight... |
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| A Sherman (Mine? I forget) pays for crappy dice rolls and an inability to move away |
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| Darn it, there goes another! |
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| That Panther Commander is going to get a medal for this. |
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| Panthers in the middle and right menacingly moving on the American positions while Paul moves his Left most tank using the woods to shield him from that 4th Panther in the wheat field. It was at this point that Stew felt sorry for us and brought on some reinforcements for us to add to the mix. I couldn't count how many times Paul and I would manage to hit our targets and fail to do any damage up until that point and with 3 allied tanks brewed up the game was in effect over without these reinforcements. and so we carried on! |
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| M10 & Sherman trundle up the lane, whilst a 2nd M10 comes in from the east |
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| Newly arrived M10 and sherman both sight their targets and.... again fail to damage. Yikes. |
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| But somehow the German tanks also begin to suffer poor luck and Stew's dicerolls get everso suddenly cold! |
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| My M10 has outflanked the Panther in the wheatfield. The Panther at this point is pretty much a bunker with a turret after a couple lucky shots during the game have affected it's mobility. Can the Allies manage to get their first kill of the game!? |
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| Paul's Sherman offers support on this shot from a safe distance. This Sherman was Paul's mvp - it didn't kill anything as his shooting rolls were awful, but the poor crew managed to see Panther shot after Panther shot "ding" off it's hull due to Paul's wonder defensive rolling. I believe they survived to game to it's end. |
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| Still more missed shots |
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| Panther at the bottom goes to hunt Paul's mvp sherman. And misses. Lots. |
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| My M10 in the trees missed it's killshot and Stew only needed to roll a 4 to be able to shoot back BUT, he rolled 4x 2's instead. The M10 is given another chance to try and brew up that Big Kat |
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| Completely against the grain, Paul's Easternmost M10 finally manages to pop a Panther! |
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| With Paul destroying a Panther (See last pic) and my M10 finally managing to kill the Panther in teh Wheatfield we called it a day. In the end, Stew won really. |
This was my first time playing What a Tanker and I really liked the simplicity of the rules set. We had a good discussion on how the game might play in 28mm and ended up agreeing that really, there'd be so little room to manuever at that scale so 15mm was the right choice. The convo then moved on to the new Too Fat Lardies Western rules, What a Cowboy and how both Paul and Stew had Western projects outstanding so maybe in the near future, there might be another meet up where we can see dusty streets, tumbleweeds and hear the sounds of six-shooters?
Lastly, there actually has been a little hobby done recently! No pics as yet, but images of very small, very light pieces of armour might be gracing the blog in a post in the near future.... Watch this space!
Stay well all,
- Dai
