Tabletop Tank Simulator...?

[Ramshackle_Curtis]

THere are alot more tanks out there than the FOW ones in the same scale.THey are 1:100 scale and you can get alot of them in plastic, cheap. If you wanted more detail, then having tanks you can customise to show damage  would be cool...

[Elbows]

I was thinking about going Plastic Soldier Company if I can find them - how are those kits?  Flames of War stuff used to be an amazing deal about...10 years ago.  Now their prices are almost beyond GW and I think I'll be avoiding them.

[Vonkluge]

Fellow LA'ers...

My buddies and I frequently play simulator online (Rise of Flight, Project C.A.R.S. etc.).  The other night we found ourselves bemoaning the lack of a quality tank simulator for the computer.  Myself, being a rather veracious table-top gamer then began to wonder...

Does a quality table-top tank sim game exist in miniature?  (WW2 or early Cold War would be preferred).  I'd be fine in any scale - just wondering if something like this exists.  An armor-based game where you would perhaps play small armor engagements of 2-8 tanks per side etc . I'm not very familiar with the wealth of WW2 games.  Any suggestions?

Two questions, two answers,

Many here might suggest "World of Tanks" WOT for online and I have over a years experience with it and many hundreds of hours (and dollars) invested. The good things about it were that the graphics, animation, and simulation of tank battle is FANTASTIC. However my friends and I have dropped it because of several things,

First it has no bloody basis in reality as far a Historical battles are concerned, and is simply a MONEY pit, a computer designed version of the Games Workshop type business plan where you spend a bunch of time and money to get something capable of winning only to find the next morning that the new releases are going to require more money and time to level up.

We spent a lot of time asking them to gives us Battlefields (arenas) where it would possible for us to do historical battles and they ignored us completely. You end up in battles were you are forced to fight with completely outclassed AFVs and use them in roles they were never intended for. Many of the tanks you have to fight were not even produced but only drawn on paper!

Now for the second question. I have been playing WWII era Wargames for 30 years or so and there are lots of tabletop rules out there that are good. It really depends on many things, mostly what do you and your group want out of the game and what are you and your group willing to put into the game? We currently play CROSSFIRE but I have played Tank charts, Normandy, Panzer War (excellent) Overlord, many others and even written my own that were fairly popular in my area. WWII is a very complex period to game and I like rule that focus on combined arms. There are rules that try and break it into infantry, armor, or air only but invariably you reach a point were some of you want a few tanks, artillery, or even a strafing run by a Tempest!
Take a look at my battle report for CROSSFIRE from yesterday.

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=54575.msg645829#msg645829

[Vonkluge]

Thanks guys, I'll start digging.  I've played WoT and it's...quite awful.     It's just an arcadey tank game, and has no remote reality involved.  I think it's cool that they have garnered so much enjoyment/interest from the ADD spaced-out game crowd though. 

(I figure drawing any attention to historical warfare is good, regardless of how pale it is).

What are some popular scales for armor games?  I'd be fine with FOW scale stuff, but that's even a little big for some armor games. Is there an industry standard for small tank gaming?  I know when I used to play ASL that they had adverts for Micro-armor or something.

I would not call WOT "arcadey" its graphically wonderful and the combat modeling and physicality of the battles outstanding (I think Ive played every PC tank game ever done  ) it's the suspension of reality in the battles force composition and style that destroys the game for all but World of Warcraft players!

The "standard" for WWII battles in miniature was always 1/285 Micro Armor for large battles, large battlefields, and 20mm for Squad/platoon. 15mm is a recent invention (10 years) so that FOW could sell a new line with little competition and make money with FOW a rule system based more on "competition style" games than Historical style game. still a good "game"

[Admiral Alder]

At a show, (I think it was Newcastle) I saw a tank simulator done with two identical tables and a bed sheet hung vertically, it was quite fun, the players sat on either side of the screen and the umpires moved 1/100 tanks on the table, the twist was the players took the roles of the crew, and had to do things like load and steer, (done with empty beans cans and a laminated paper breech) the commander had to out-fox the opposition, it was good fun and quite close to being a simulator.
 

[Elbows]

Yeah, I've started compiling standard data.  I think I'll take a crack at designing a fun game for me and my friends.  I think I'll be using infantry and aircraft in an abstract fashion.

I will be taking a lot of things into account...but using all of that info to modify a reasonable number of rules.  Should be a fun project.  I've already been using an angled armor formula to start converting armor thicknesses etc.  Lots of interesting math and research will go into it.

It will benefit from a game master when available for sure (hidden units, ambushes etc.).

[Elbows]

Anyone have a good site showing when and where various models of tanks were employed?  I have a nice list of perhaps 100 tanks I think I'll be eventually doing...just would like a way to organize them.  I have production dates, but I'm more interested in which models served in which theaters which how much frequency.  I can research this vehicle per vehicle, but I was hoping one of your fellas had a convenient link.

(Sadly I know my old copy of ASL had this...but I sold it!)

[Vonkluge]

There are no great links I know of or would trust....but this IS THE BIBLE of German AFVs most websites copy their info FROM here.


http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-German-Tanks-World-Self-Propelled/dp/1854095188