What a Tanker! game day Recap

 A quick recap of our What a Tanker game day yesterday at the Spartanburg (SC) county public library.  If you are a gamer in the South Carolina, North Carolina, or Georgia area please consider joining our IO Group.  There are wargamers everywhere eager for a game!

The facilities were great, we used the conference room on the 2nd floor, lots of windows and natural light and plenty of space.  Here is the table set up and ready to go.  A Cigar Box battle mat, Kallistra (non-Hex) hills underneath, and a mix of resin and 3D printed buildings.  We used my 10mm / 1:150 scale 3d printed tanks.

 A close up of the village, somewhere in Ukraine, 1943-44.

We played 2 games, the first was two T-34/76's against two Panzer IVH's.  Here we see my wife's T-34 burst in to flames after trading point blank shots with a German for 2 turns.

The players seemed to get comfortable with the rules pretty quickly, so for game 2 I mixed it up a little bit.  We shifted the teams and ran a STuG III and a Panther versus a T-34/85 and SU-152.  In retrospect it may not have been fair, the SU-152 having a ridiculous armor and strike value. 

The first game saw the players charge in for a close in knife fight, the second saw both sides being much more cautious and camping out on high ground and shooting it out from afar.  Here are the Soviets parked on their hill.

It ended with the catastrophic explosion of the StuG and eventually the Panther as well, after much backing up behind hills, running up and shooting.

We wrapped after than, each game taking right at 1 hour, with 4 players new to the rules and a referee not much better off.  

Here are the players, thanks to Charlie, Jason, and his daughter Lilly.  But most of all thanks to my lovely and talented wife, Jozi (of whose tin man I am) , who encouraged me to do this, helped set it all up, and pushed some tanks around too.

I am looking to make this a regular thing, maybe monthly or quarterly, so stay tuned. 

What a Tanker! Game coming up Saturday!

 

Quick picture from a small WaT game I played with my wife's nephew this weekend. I finally nailed his Tiger I with my T-35/85.  Russian orthodox church was recently 3d printed. 

We are playing this Saturday, June 18th.  Please RSVP using this form, I'll bring coffee and Donuts from Krispy Kreme:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfRVFgw6tWvLDDju6NN2O22AfgLsPgb9OLfsUfbTrxTE3cI3g/viewform 

Spartanburg County Public Library HQ Branch

151 S. Church Street

Spartanburg, SC 29306

Harley Conference Room (2nd floor)

 

• 10:30AM  Arrive
• 11:00AM Start Play
• ~2PM End Play, adjourn to Blue Moon (https://bluemoonsc.com/) across the street for lunch

Parking is FREE at library

 

We will play 'What A Tanker" From Too Fat Lardies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWE_ShqU5L8) and should be able to get in a training game and 1 or 2 additional games. We will play with my 12mm tanks on a 6 x 4 table, late war Eastern Front.

 

I will have everything set up and ready to go, just bring yourself, your favorite dice if you like, and lunch money. 

FOR MORE INFO, see the SCHGS IO Group: groups.io/g/schgs

My (mostly) 3D Printed "What a Tanker!" layout

I am preparing for the upcoming holiday and decided that What a Tanker! will be my game of choice.  To prepare, I have set up my table and wanted to show off a bit.  This project is entirely 3d printed for the tanks and dashboards and cost me almost nothing, just plastic for the 3D printer I already owned!

I got the tanks from m_bergman's famous set posted for free at Thingiverse HERE.  I wanted ~10mm tanks, as I have limited space, so I printed them at 133% for a scale of 1/150.

I also created a fairly simple to print dashboard that I have posted to Thingiverse along with the Unit cards, it is available HERE along with links to 3 or so other dashboards if you fancy a different design. 

Here is my table set up, not only are the tanks 3d printed, but the trees as well.  Buildings are from Pendraken.  The play area is 56" x 40" so a little smaller than the 6' x 4' recommended, but i decided to leave the ranges alone in the rules, just use the smaller tanks in the slightly smaller area. 

It works well with the smaller scale, the tanks are not to small to handle and the turrets are easy to shift without being too fiddley for me.

Here are examples of my dashboard with unit cards.  I printed the markers in different colored plastic and I am rather happy with the way they turned out.   I set everything up for the Eastern Front 1944

Here is my German motor pool, from left to right:

• Marder III
• STuG III G
• Panzer IVH
• Panther
• Tiger I

The Russians have:

• T-70
• SU-76
• T-34/76
• T-34/85
• SU-85
• SU-152

And here is yet another reason I went with 10mm 3d printed, teh storage is so flipping easy!  Plus I can leverage my existing 10mm buildings and terrain I have for WW1 and the Korean War.

I am rather pleased with this project and it is a great set of rules.  I have roped my wife in a few times and it is a LOT of fun.  With the 3d printing option, I can knock out (thanks to m_berman's hard work) any tanks I want.  If I get the hankering I can easily add Early war, Desert, Western Front, all for minimal cost.

I'll get a battle report or two up over the next few weeks.  Good gaming!