New guy needs Tank tactics help.

[BrianS]

FelderMaus,

I feel your pain. I just played my second FTF game this past weekend - the first I'd played with Armor. We played Eye of the Tiger, which turned out to be a very fun combined arms scenario.

As I was a new guy, my opponent was giving me lots of help with the armor rules and standard tactics (thanks!), etc., but I still felt like a fish out of water. There is definitely a delicate balance between fire and maneuver and self-preservation, and I never felt comfortable that I was making good choices. I don't think I played the armor blatantly horrible, but it wasn't effective either. I ended up losing my entire armored force over the course of the game (3 T34s and 1 Su85) and in exchange only took down 1 PzIVH and a Puma. I didn't exactly manage my infantry that well either, and was soundly defeated overall.

The good news is that I learned a lot and had a very good time. I may get thrashed again the next time I play, but I'll be a little bit smarter and I'm sure I'll have a good time then too.

Great game!

BrianS

 

[Gunner Scott]

Hi-

I think james sharked you Brian, that Eye of the tiger is a real piece of crap scenario, you guys should have played hill 621, now thats a manly scenario.

BTW, I popped the back of my ford explorer window open, crawled inside and found my keys! What a miserable afternoon.


Scott

 

[BrianS]

Scott,

The more I think about it, the more I realize that you're right. That scenario must be an unbalanced pig, or else I would have done much better.

I'm glad you finally passed your 'Critical Hardware Search TC'. That Locksmith SMC you were waiting on must have been a 6+1 - he couldn't even seem to find the place. At least you won a couple of games earlier in the day...

Brian

 

[Paul S]

Awesome 'Eye' and general CE/Sniper advice

Tabby's (Hi Scott!) just being coy, Eye of the Tiger is his design and it's one of the best scenarios in the system. Lots of cool toys, good combined arms, well-balanced and still fast-moving and fairly small (the scenario that is, not Tabby).

As in most of ASL there are no hard/fast rules about BU vs CE. CE/BU decision DOTS (depends on the situation). If you have one PzV vs. a several T34s, you have to balance chance of sniper vs odds of being stunned CE vs. less effective BU fire vs how important is that one tank to achieving victory conditions.

Generally I'll go CE as the +1 makes a difference surprisingly often. Exceptions are; moving/stopping adjacent to infantry, tank is critical to VC, Tank vs tank battle is very uneven (either direction). Of course I end up eating STUNs sometimes too.

Note also that the extra road movement of a CE vehicle is often vital, smoke dischargers/grenades abilities are affected and that you can switch CE/BU once in Movement and once in Advance phase.

Also don't forget that there are a number of ways to manage the sniper. In a recent game (J29 Capture of Balta) where I had two setup areas, one very important and one not, I set up the important area in only 5 stacks and the other in 6, forcing the sniper to setup near the unimportant area. There are a couple good journal articles on placing sniper bait, etc... to look through as well.

Have fun,
-Paul