Hans-Georg Lueder led an interesting German formation of tanks that consisted of a mix of Tiger and Panzer III tanks. We wanted to reflect this unlikely pairing in TANKS and have introduced loads of cool cards to let players create their own Kampfgruppe Lueder.
The Tanks Let’s first look at the Tiger and Panzer III variants; there are two of each to choose from at the moment. Will you take the more veteran late war Tigers or will you use the more green Tigers from the desert? Do you want to invest points into Panzer III (long) tanks to reach that attack of 4 or do you want to save those points to add more upgrades? Even with only four tanks to choose from your Kampfgruppe Lueder can come in many forms.
Hans-Georg Lueder Now let’s look at the Hero Crew card for Hans-Georg Lueder himself. For six points he gives his tank +3 Initiative in the shooting step, but it is his other ability that really sets him apart. He can give out a single re-roll each turn to any Panzer III or Tiger tank in your force. This can be used for any roll involving one of those two types of tanks as long as it is that tank making the roll.  This ability makes Lueder very flexible. Need some repair work? Need to re-roll an attack die? Lueder can help. The challenge is in knowing when to best use his ability each turn.
Kampfgruppe Lueder The next card to look at when building this platoon is Kampfgruppe Lueder. This card can boost your Tiger tank initiative very easily. For example, bring one Tiger and 5 Panzer III tanks and you that Tiger will be starting the game with a base of Initiative 10 during the movement step.
Tiger Escort Tank For your Panzer III tanks we have the Tiger Escort Tank card. This card is really interesting and it takes practice to effectively determine when it should be used. Being able to give up your shooting to make your Tiger hit even harder is great, and even better when two Panzer III tanks give up their shooting to help your Tiger re-roll four attack dice.
One of the cool new concepts that we are showcasing in these expansions is themed list building. As TANKS grows you can expect to see more cards that give interesting abilities to platoons that are built to a theme.   This week we have a challenge! How would you build a 100 point Kampfgruppe Lueder platoon? We will showcase the most interesting lists with next week’s update.  Click here to post your take on the Kampfgruppe Lueder list in the forum...

This week we are showcasing some of the upcoming German Tanks. The Germans are getting five tanks; the Panzer IV (Long), Panzer IV (Short), Panzer III (Long), Panzer III (Short), and the Tiger.  These tanks add a lot of new and interesting options.
Panzer IV Long and Short With these new Desert releases come two new Panzer IV tanks. The long and short of it, forgive the pun, is that these tanks are earlier renditions of the Panzer IV tank that is already available. As the desert war went on, increasing numbers of Panzer IV were armed with the long-barrelled 7.5cm KwK40, switching from an artillery support role to a heavy anti-tank support one. The Panzer IV (Long) is almost identical to the current tank but has less Damage Capacity making it cheaper. The short-barrelled Panzer IV was designed as an artillery support tank to back up the lighter Panzer III. It's heavy 7.5cm gun made it particularly useful against anti-tank guns. With the Panzer IV (Short), we have the introduction of a new rule, Artillery. This rule allows tanks to shoot “over” other tanks, but it is also a keyword that will be linked to other cards. The Artillery Observer is one such card.  It lets a stationary tank draw its line of sight from another tank, hitting targets it normally couldn't see. Although the tank doing the spotting must give up its shooting to use this ability.
Panzer III (Long) and (Short) These Panzer III tank models give the Germans some options for really cheap tanks. At 11 points you can get a really cheap tank in the Panzer III (Short). You can fit nine of these tanks into one list! For three more points you can up-gun to the Panzer III (Long) to gain +1 Attack on the tank, not bad at all.  The Hero card in the Panzer III pack is the infamous Erwin Rommel. Coming in at 11 points Rommel gives his tank +3 Initiative, he also grants a once per turn re-roll of any one die rolled by anyone in the game.  Because Rommel is such an important character if he is lost you actually give a Victory point to your opponent, this only comes into play in missions that your opponent can score Victory Points, but still it is a consideration when sending such an important leader into the fray.
Tiger The Tiger was an interesting tank to design, as there is little to no difference in stats between the two Tigers but there were some striking differences in the models themselves. Nevertheless, we decided we wanted a desert Tiger and so we continued researching looking for any differences. In the end we decided that since this Tiger represents the earliest version we will make, that we would be content to lower its Initiative and Damage Capacity by one each and bring its points down to 29. This reflects the tankers inexperience with the Tiger and that the design continued to evolve and improve into the later production model already represented in TANKS. It also gave us a new interesting option for players to field.  One of the most obvious differences between the Tiger tank models (other than the Zimerit) are the massive Desert Filters on the back of the tank. We wanted to showcase these in an upgrade that protected the engine of the Tiger tank, which gave us a new engine upgrade card, as there are few of those in the game presently.
	Make sure you check back next week as we look closer at the Panzer III and the Tiger and how you can create platoons using some of the new upgrades.

Merry Christmas everyone, thanks for sharing your enjoyment of TANKS over the past year. 2017 is looking even bigger with more tanks on the schedule and new Organised Play campaigns coming.

Have a safe time and hopefully Santa fills your homes with Tigers, Pumas, Shermans and T-34s.

 

~The TANKS team.

The factory team in KL (Malaysia) are working hard to pack all of the language editions of TANKS to be delivered to distributors all across the world. They are currently packing German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish editions of the TANKS starter set and blister packs. They are also packing English starters sets as well. The first wave consists of the core game and ten tank codes and will be followed by the wave two model releases. Each market will also have its own organised play kits that will mirror the English kits already released. Stay tuned for more news from our partners in each market.

This week Andrew goes over some  Tactics and Tips on using Assault Guns in TANKS. Andrew talks about the importance of terrain placement and utilizing buildings and the table edge. Andrew also addresses one of the most frequently asked questions about Assault guns, it's firing arc. 

 

Check out the full article here...

Doctrine cards are a new category of upgrade cards that focus on national characteristics, rather than equipment or training, and let us elaborate on how different nationalities fought and provide some new play styles within those nationalities.  This week we will look at two of the new Doctrine cards: “Clever Hans” and “No Retreat”.
	Clever Hans  This card keeps the German tanks going. Being able to shrug off lasting critical hit damage cards easier means you can take more risks. Being able to stack this card with some of the re-roll upgrades means if there is any type of Damage cards you hate to get you can almost guarantee its removal, I’m looking at you “Bailed Out”.
No Retreat  This card is interesting, it can give you multiple re-rolls in one round. No Retreat gives you a great defensive boost and a good attack boost, at a cost. This Doctrine cannot be used with the Soviet “Coordinated Fire” rule. No Retreat opens up a new playstyle for the Soviet platoons that will allow soviet players to be more flexible on the field.
Doctrine cards gives players some new and interesting choices. Some cards may focus on particular tanks while others will have a more universal use. But since each tank can only have one Doctrine card at a time, players will have to make some hard decisions when it comes to choosing which Doctrine cards to use. Click here to check out the article about American and British Doctrine Cards...

This month's mission is a Mega battle! In this game, four or more players per side will team up and fight in one big game! 
A side wins this mission either by destroying all of the enemy tanks or by holding the centre objectives of the battlefield against all comers. In this mission, the Germans are the Defenders.