Guys,

With the tank cards and some needed bits printed off the website here, we ran two scenarios today to try out the TANKS game system (but without using the special crew & damage cards of the future, full-Monty product version). First game was a Bulge meeting engagement of 5 Pz IVs vs. 5 Sherman 75s. This with 1/144th scale minis. I am happy to say we had a blast, and like many others here who have already reported on the forum about their play tests, the game is a lot of fun!







My buddy Bob above signals his pleasure.

The second scenario was to test some mod rules Bob crafted to include infantry squads and AT guns into TANKS, and they worked quite well. This action was played with Axis & Allies minis, and was an attack vs. defense scenario pitting a platoon of German infantry, 2 PaK40 AT Guns w/prime movers, & 2 Panthers, vs. a platoon of Shermans, 2 which were 76mm-armed, and a US armored infantry platoon in halftracks. The game flowed really well despite being a variation of the basic rules (again, we're using only the basic rules now, w/o damage removal, critical hits, or special crew cards).





Now our game boards have a lot more terrain than one would expect when playing with the TANKS starter kit pieces, but we'll be playing designed scenarios rather than points matches, and so feel comfortable to be testing "outside of the box" in this regards.

All in all, we were very pleased with the game mechanics, and the fun we had matching our wits over TANKS!

I'll bet my Buddy Bob will do so in the future.

One thing that's requisite for it, is the use of a half-segment measurement for infantry movement. We estimated this half point on our rulers while playing, but I'll be making up delineated versions for the next round of testing. The half-movement increment also helps in allowing for reduced rearwards movement, and slower movement rates in dense terrain or when crossing terrain obstacles.

Dave makes great terrain mats and terrain. We had a really good time playing this game! To integrate Infantry and AT guns we had to create cards for those units. Then house rule their limitations. It didn't complicate the game in the least. The hardest thing, was maintaining the initiative order during turns.

Looking forward to getting the full rule set/starter.

Bob