Modern Armor Playtest 1: Tank Wreck!

Note: this post is a lot briefer than my usual ramblings. I was pretty far along but when I opened this post to continue working on it, poof! all but the first picture was gone. My 6 year old was doing some math quiz on my computer yesterday and might have decided to edit my post. Not sure.

For my first game, I tested Tank Wreck! by Martin Bourne.
I quickly threw together some paper roads, a hill, some houses, and a forest onto a 2' x 4" table shown here:

The scenario was a race to take and hold the village. The Green army would be coming from the west, whereas the Tan army is coming from the east. The Green army is considered to be the invaders, so I put the Tan army on the board and gave them the first initiative. In WR you roll for initiative, but then its alternating movement of units for both movement and shooting. This will prove to be a disadvantage for the Tan army. The small washers represents both hits and suppression markers, so I apologize in advance for any confusion. I will need to make more specific markers for future battles.

Village looking from the east. Ignore the star destroyer
on the upper right side.

Tan army in starting position. Their plan was to

race ASAP to the village

Green army deployed at start. M48A5 tanks

flank the mechanized infantry on the road.

The Battle
The first turn was just getting the opposing sides within firing range. The rules use inches for measurement and movement, but due to the size of the board, I used centimeters.

Tan army moving into village. BRDM with Swatter

ATGM race to deploy at farm.

M113 APCs moving down the road. Seems that

an extra M113 snuck into the game.

Tan army deploys into the village. One company of T-55s move

west of the gas station, the other T-55s skirt south of the village.

The infantry dismounts from their IVFs.

Bad things started happening to the Tan army. The tank company opened fired on the M48s and the M113 FSV on the road after they moved past the gas station. T-55s get a -1 to hit and a -1 to do damage. On top of that, you still have to take a -1 for shooting after you move even if you have stabilization (its worst if you don't). The four T-55s scored only a single hit on one of the M48s, but it didn't penetrate. 

*BOINK!* 100mm shell bounces
off the front of the M48

The return fire from the Greens was devastating! The M48s only took a -1 penalty for moving and shooting. 

Two of the four T-55s take hits. The one on

the left took three!

Two T-55s blown up. 

On the south side, things were no better for the Tan army.

M48s open fire....

….resulting in two hits. Fortunately one

resulted only in a suppression.

Where things stood by the end of turn 3:

Things not looking good for the Tans but the

BMP-2s have moved up to try to use their

ATGMs against the M48s. 

Turn 4: the tide seems to turn:

The two BRDMs move up to the farm.
One BRDM fire off a Sagger ATGM and scores a hit!

The other BRDM fires a Sagger missile and....

….scores another kill!

Meanwhile, the north flank M48 tanks climb the hill.

As the M48s climb, the BMP-2s move up to support the

T-55s and take on the Green infantry.

In one turn, the situation was starting to look at least salvageable for the Tan army. However, the Tan army only has a limited supply of ATGMs. The BRDMs only have four each vehicle, and each has expended one. The BMP-2s have only one each. Unfortunately, the optimism on the Red side soon came to an end with the beginning of turn 5.

After seeing two of his comrades get offed by ATGM fire,

one of the M48s wisely or cowardly hides behind the farm

An exchange of fire between T-55s and M48s results in

one M48 suppressed but both a T-55 and a BMP-2 blown up.

Feeling bold, the two Saggers rush onto the field to

attack the partially hidden M48, but both miss!

Their confidence quickly melted. The only saving 

grace was the fact that the M48 had already moved.

Green infantry slowly moving toward the town, fires

LAWs at long range, but miss. Their FSV misses as well.

At the end of turn five, Tan infantry have taken up positions in and

around the town center. The M48 unit on top of the hill now starts

down towards the town.

The end of turn 5 did not see the turnaround for the Tan army as was hoped. Two more AVFs were knocked out. I decided that now was a good time to test the morale part of the rules. The Green army passed its test. The southern M48 company squeaked by, but the others had no issues.

Not so for the Tan army. Spoiler alert: everyone but the infantry units failed miserably on the company morale tests. So, the battalion failed at its level. General order went out to retreat out of the town. The Tan battalion commander ordered the infantry to load up but leave last to cover the retreat. He (i.e. me) figured that the BMP-2s, being armed with the better AT-5 Spandrel ATGM, should be able to hold off the M48s for a little while.

Their BMP-2 transport being blown up in the previous turn, 

this infantry unit heroically volunteers to stay behind and fight 

to the death while their comrades escape.

The Green infantry finally gets close to the remaining T-55

of one of the companies, and blows it up in a hail of 

LAWs rockets and gunfire from the FSV.

A heroic BMP-3 lets loose a Spandrel missile at a M48,

but misses! Return fire from the M48 results in an ugly

hit on the BMP-3. Foolishly, all infantry were aboard. I rolled

a D6 for survivors, there were none. :(

The remaining Tan army flees the town.

The end: after seeing their comrades at the end of turn 6

go up in flames in their BMP-3, the lone infantry stand 

drops the whole hero shit and surrenders to the Green army that

is cautiously entering the town.

Analysis of the Rules
Overall, not a bad set of rules. I think the demise of the Tan army was as much poor tactics on my part as anything else. Here are some of my thoughts in no particular order

Organization, Format & Readability
Pretty well organized. Each parts of the game: movement, shooting, artillery, morale, etc., had an example that consisted of a running commentary of two people playing a game. That was pretty useful. Sometimes, things were sort of buried in the rules. For example, overwatch, or "reserve fire" as the author calls it, doesn't really stand out in the section Unit Activation. I'm sure I probably read it, but totally forgot about it. I kept thinking as the Tan Saggers were moving up that I wish that an overwatch option was included in the rules. If nothing else, it should be mentioned in the ready reference sheet. Even though I didn't use artillery, I had a similar issue when I was reading about artillery and spotting.

Turns & Movement
I liked the alternating activation sequence. It was pretty bloody because of the move and shoot rule. One side had to just sit and take a pounding when an opponent's unit was activated. Maybe it might have been different if I had remembered to use reserve fire. If I have another game, I might try alternate unit movement, but simultaneous shooting after all of the movement is done.

Weapons & Armor Ratings
It is a good, simple armor rating system. I did wonder why M48A5 tanks were rated at heavy armor, whereas an M48A3 is rated medium. Other than having a 105mm gun, which might give it a thicker gun mantel, I can't really see it having heavier armor than the M48A3, which has a 90mm gun.

The weapons system is pretty straight forward. There are some really tough penalties of you move and shoot turn an activation. Two other comments. First, there is no close assault rules. I guess two infantry units just shoot at each other at point blank range if they come into contact. Second, it seemed that the to hit numbers for ATGMs is rather low. Is that a reflection of the means by which to guide the missile to its target? It's either that, or maybe the author wanted to balance the game a little.

Morale
I liked the cascading morale system. You test morale going up the chain of command in these rules. First, you test the companies. Once you determine their results, then you test for the whole battalion, and so on up the chain of command. How well a battalion will do is based in large part on how many companies passed their morale tests. The failure of all but one of the Tan companies led to the battalion to fail morale. 

Conclusion
This rules are definitely armor oriented.  I would definitely use these rules again, but the next time, I would make my own cheat sheet to include the various things in the rules that I missed.