Great article. We need more of these. I just found Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson (https://tacticalnotebook.substack.com/), who is doing something similar on his substack. Not to mention his great series translating a German WW1 diary into english.
One of the things I like about What a Tanker is that spotting enemies is not automatic. Most wargames assume that you can see everything - which is especially ridiculous when you're talking about seeing from inside a tank.
Have you experimented with adding infantry to WaT?
Not yet! I've played a couple of test games of WaT, but haven't introduced it to my whole group yet.
For infantry, I'd give them Low Profile and Small, Armour 1 and Strike 2 or 3. Only 1d6 of movement per Drive dice to keep them slower than tanks - but remove the requirement to spend Drive dice to make turns or rotate the turret, so they'd be more maneuverable. Maybe distinguish between AT rifles and PIATs/panzerfausts/bazookas by giving the latter a maximum range.
And then maybe bonus Strike dice if they're actually in contact with a tank, to simulate a close assault.
Intriguing. Infantry would also be open topped so they'd always be able to acquire without the dice, and reload maybe doesn't work well for them unless they are manning an anti-tank gun or a panzerschreck or something, so you could potentially free up the 2 and 5 as wild cards or maybe make one of them an 'assault' option to handle the close assault with AT grenades.
Great article. We need more of these. I just found Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson (https://tacticalnotebook.substack.com/), who is doing something similar on his substack. Not to mention his great series translating a German WW1 diary into english.
One of the things I like about What a Tanker is that spotting enemies is not automatic. Most wargames assume that you can see everything - which is especially ridiculous when you're talking about seeing from inside a tank.
Have you experimented with adding infantry to WaT?
I have thought a bit about it, but more along the lines of tacking WAT rules onto vehicles in a Bolt Action or Chain of Command game. Have you?
Not yet! I've played a couple of test games of WaT, but haven't introduced it to my whole group yet.
For infantry, I'd give them Low Profile and Small, Armour 1 and Strike 2 or 3. Only 1d6 of movement per Drive dice to keep them slower than tanks - but remove the requirement to spend Drive dice to make turns or rotate the turret, so they'd be more maneuverable. Maybe distinguish between AT rifles and PIATs/panzerfausts/bazookas by giving the latter a maximum range.
And then maybe bonus Strike dice if they're actually in contact with a tank, to simulate a close assault.
Intriguing. Infantry would also be open topped so they'd always be able to acquire without the dice, and reload maybe doesn't work well for them unless they are manning an anti-tank gun or a panzerschreck or something, so you could potentially free up the 2 and 5 as wild cards or maybe make one of them an 'assault' option to handle the close assault with AT grenades.
Yep, infantry would always be "unbuttoned" - but they'd still need to spend 2's for acquiring targets in cover.