Drako's Tanks House Rule - Tank Classes

First I would like to say hi to everyone and thanks for taking the time to look at my house rule. This is my first house rule and it has not been play tested yet, so be kind in criticism and I am open to suggestions to help balance things. I don’t see this as being that complicated of a house rule, but I may have overlooked something.

So this house rule will take the tanks in G40 and broaden the range a bit. By that I mean instead of just having “Tanks” that represents all classes of tanks, this will have 4 classes of thanks: Heavy, Medium, Light, and Tank Destroyers. You will need to either improvise a way to distinguish tank classes from one another or get new sculpts(I will include a list of sculpts I plan on purchasing). I will be getting my sculpts from HBG. I tried to stick to historical accuracy as best I could for the sculpts but that proved to be quite difficulty due to some nations not really having, for example heavy tanks during WW2, and limited sculpts. I will talk about these situations individually when I get to them.

With that being said you may be asking, “If different classes of tanks are now available, then what about starting setups?” Well, I believe for ease of use and balance reasons, keep the numbers the same and make all starting tanks Medium Tanks.

If you are playing G42 then there is no need to wait till round 3 to buy Heavy Tanks and Tank Destroyers. That is for G40 only.

A quick note on pairing: You cannot pair things that are already paired with something else. For example, if you go into a fight with 5 Infantry, 3 Artillery, 8 Light Tanks, 3 Medium Tanks, and 2 Tactical Bombers, you will need to plan out your pairing. If you pair 2 of your Medium Tanks to boost the attack of your Tactical Bombers, then you only have 1 Medium Tank left to pair with. Alternatively you could use all three Medium Tanks to boost 3 of your Light Tanks, but then could only boost 1 Artillery. If any clarification is needed on this subject, please ask.

Heavy Tanks:
Slow: Cannot blitz
Heavy Armor: Absorbs 1 hit each per battle, kinda like capitol ships but this damage doesn’t persist outside of the battle, in other words you won’t have to worry about repairing them like you do with capitol ships
Research and Development: Heavy Tanks cannot be bought until the 3rd round
Draws Attention: Can be paired with Tank Destroyers, 1 to 1, to increase Tank Destroyers attack from 3 to 4
Cost: 8
Attack: 3
Defense: 4
Move: 1
Sculpts
Germany: Tiger 1
Russia: IS-2
Japan: Shares Germany, Orange Tiger 1. Japan had very few heavy tanks deployed from what I could tell, and I couldn’t find sculpts of the ones they did deploy so they will have to share sculpts with Germany.
US: Pershing
UK: Matilda, which is their standard piece
Italy: M15/42, this is their standard piece, and based on research I did, this tank was far from a heavy tank, but again sculpts and lack of historical heavy armor from Italy forces me to use this as heavy tanks
ANZAC: Grey Churchill
France: I could not find any sculpt to represent French heavy armor. Game play wise, I find it OK to not allow France heavy armor, considering they won’t really be able to use them and historically speaking, France was behind in tank technology

Medium Tanks
Main Armor: Can blitz
Armor Support: Can be paired with Mechs 1 to 1 to allow Mechs to blitz
Ground Focus: Can be paired with Tactical Bombers 1 to 1 to increase Tactical Bombers attack from 3 to 4
Mixed Armor Tactics: Can be paired with Light Tanks 1  to 1 to increase Light Tanks attack from 2 to 3
Armor Support: Can be paired 1 to 1 with Light Tanks to allow Light Tanks to blitz
Cost: 6
Attack: 3
Defense: 3
Move: 2
Sculpts
Germany: Panther, their standard piece
Russia: T34, standard piece
Japan: Type 97
US: Sherman, standard piece
UK: Valentine
Italy: Panzer III
ANZAC: Shares UK, Grey Valentine
France: Shares Russia, Blue T34, standard piece

Light Tanks
Fast Movers: Can move 3 but only during non combat and all territories you plan on moving through must be controlled by you, allied control territories will halt the movement
Light Armament: Cannot blitz alone, must be paired with blitzing Medium Tanks, 1 to 1 pairing
Infantry Support: Can be paired with Infantry or Mechs, 1 to 1, to increase Infantry or Mechs attack from 1 to 2
Mixed Armor Tactics: See above Mixed Armor Tactics in Medium Tanks
Scouts: Can be paired with Artillery, 2 Light Tanks to 1 Artillery to increase Artillery’s attack from 2 to 3
Cost: 5
Attack: 2
Defense: 2
Move: 2 to 3
Sculpts
Germany: Panzer II
Russia: T26
Japan: Type 95, standard piece
US: Stuart
UK: Shares US, Tan Stuart
Italy: Panzer 38t
ANZAC: Sentinel, standard piece
France: 7TP(I know this is a Polish tank but I saw that I could get it in blue and took the opportunity to give France their own piece for once in this game :-D)

Tank Destroyers
Research and Development: Cannot be bought until 3rd round
Opportunists: See above Draws Attention in Heavy Tanks
Targeted Fire Ability: First let me say that in my personal opinion, a special ability, especially in strategy games, needs to have three base things to be balanced. A pro, a con, and a way to negate it. Think of this ability kinda like the Submerge or Surprise Strike of subs.
So first, the presence of 1 or more enemy Tactical Bombers negates this ability. If they have 1 Tactical Bomber and you have 20 Tank Destroyers, this ability is negated and cannot be used.
The pro is that you get to choose what you hit.
The con is that its limited in when you can use it, can only be used once per battle, doesn’t boost stats, the Tank Destroyers that use this ability cannot be paired with Heavy Tanks, and cannot hit aircraft.
Both attacker and defender can use this as long as they are not negated. This must be used during the first round of combat, with one exception. If Tactical Bombers were present during the first round of combat but were later all destroyed, you can then use this ability at the beginning of the next combat round. Otherwise, you must use this at the start of the first combat round.
Before any dice are rolled, attacker announces first, call out if you will be using this ability and how many Tank Destroyers will participate. The attacker then rolls one die for each participating Tank Destroyer, hitting on a 3 or less. The attacker then assigns hits instead of the defender. Heavy tanks still absorb one hit. Aircraft cannot be hit. These units are placed behind the casualty zone(if you use it) and will get to return fire in normal combat. The defender then does the same. From then on continue combat as normal; you cannot use this ability more than once per battle. If you are able to use it at the beginning but don’t use it then, you cannot use it later.
Cost: 7
Attack: 3
Defense: 3
Move: 2
Sculpts
Germany: StuG III
Russia: SU-76
Japan: Type 3
US: Hellcat
UK: Shares US, Tan Hellcat
Italy: Shares Germany, Brown StuG III
ANZAC: Shares US, Grey Hellcat
France: Shares US, Blue Hellcat

That’s it. If you have any questions then I will try to answer them the best I can. If you have suggestions to make this better or more balanced then I would love to hear them, as long as there suggested politely. I am also open to suggestions on alternate places to get sculpts, but I haven’t yet found a place much better than HBG. Again, thanks for taking the time to read about my first house rule for this game, or ever for that matter. Is this house rule necessary? No, but loving history the way I do, I just would like having the different classes of tanks represented, like the different classes of air units that are already in the game. Besides I think it would be neat to see all of these sculpts on the board. Of course, if you have a game coming up, you can use it, just please let us know how it goes and your thoughts about how it works in game, as play testing would be the best way to find problems. I thank you in advance.

EDIT: I took out the Tank Hunter Ability and replaced it with Targeted Fire. I feel like this will be a lot less complicated but still make Tank Destroyers a special unit. I also believe that it is balanced as best as I could without trying it in a few games first. As a result Light Tanks lost the Search trait because it is no longer relevant. Also, after much thought, I feel like the Light Tank stats are fine the way they are, but there could be a better way, so I’m still open.

EDIT #2: I changed the pairing ratio of Light tanks to Medium tanks for 2 to 1 to an easier to remember 1 to 1. I feel as if when someone buys Light tanks they will buy them in bulk. With that being said I kept the pairing of Light tanks and Artillery at 2 to 1. In efforts to reduce the number of pairing options, I removed the ability the pair Light tanks and Mechs so Mechs cannot move 3. I removed the ability allowing Tank Destroyers to blitz in efforts to help balance them. I also added the note to make sure people know that Heavy tanks still absorb one hit from the Targeted Fire ability.

Heavy tanks, historically, didn’t always exactly have better guns than medium tanks. This can be debated depending on which tanks, specifically, you actually talked about. Like if you compared a T34-76 with a 76mm gun to an IS-2 with a 120mm gun, then yes the gun would be more powerful. However, if you take a standard M4 and compare it to a Jumbo M4, the guns were very identical.  Their main focus was thicker armor. With that being said I made their attack the same as medium tanks, but higher defense values due to thicker armor. Also I wanted them to be a more defensive unit. With them being defensive, you would have a special unit(the tank destroyers), a quick unit(light tanks), a balanced unit(medium tanks) and a defensive unit(heavy tanks). I’m trying to find balance so people don’t spam buying one thing.
Let me try to explain the Scouts and Search traits of the Light Tanks. Scouts was just a name I gave to the ability to pair with artillery. To put it in to realistic words, think of it this way: The pair of Light Tanks are zooming across the battlefield, locating enemy positions, radioing back to artillery, and adjusting their aim accordingly. More accurate artillery means more deadly artillery. So if you pair two light tanks with one artillery, the artillery should get an increase to its effectiveness. What was it about the Scout rule you didn’t like?
Search, again, was just the name I gave to the ability to the light tanks in an attempt to make them more useful and to try to balance the Tank Hunter ability. However, if we do away with the Tank Hunter ability of Tank Destroyers, then this trait will also be done away with. 
I was thinking of making Tank Destroyers kinda like land subs, but wasn’t real sure how to approach it without changing core game rules, help balance it, and really make people think about risk vs reward in assigning Tank Hunters, but I may have gotten carried away with it. Yes the ability is complicated, but I would like to keep it at all possible. Do you think there may be a way to keep it but make it less complicated? Maybe, only allowing defenders to use this, or getting rid of the roll to see if they successfully hid or not?
I’m not dismissing your suggestion, its a good alternative if it comes down to eliminating the ability. But instead of a 1, what about the roller declaring a targeted attack on whatever he or she wants with their tank destroyers, but instead hit on a 2 or less. The guns on tank destroyers were quite good and accurate, so I feel a 1 would be quite misrepresented of their firepower.

I reread the rules again and have thought of this:
What if the Tank Hunter ability didn’t rely on having more than the other side? This would be like the ability destroyers give to planes to hit subs. So it would be something like this: Having just one Light Tank or Fighter or Tactical Bomber would allow you to hit enemy Tank Hunters. I feel like that makes it easier to understand, along with getting rid of the “Situation” roll before battle. As for the removing of Tank Hunters after firing, and only rolling one die at a time as apposed to one die for each Tank Hunter you have all at once every round, I’m not sure what to do with that…
Its quite difficult to judge this as I have no idea what it’s like in game and I won’t be able to play test it until I can get a group together to play and that will be some time unfortunately.
Also, I forget to put it in my other post, as Light Tanks sits, I feel as if people will buy them way more than Artillery because why would they buy Artillery when they cost, attack, and defend the same? Not to mention Light Tanks are faster and are more versatile. The only reason to buy artillery then would be to pair with Infantry, Mechs, or Light Tanks. Which could actually be reason enough possibly…now that I think about it. I was thinking about decreasing the defense value of light tanks to 1 but now I’m not so sure lol

Yes that’s how the absorb one hit works. I didn’t mean for it to regain that absorb ability every single round, just once per battle, per tank. As I previously stated, making heavy tanks attack at 4 or less not only misrepresents heavy tanks, plus coupled with absorbing a hit, makes them too powerful in attack. @drako9374:

Heavy tanks, historically, didn’t always exactly have better guns than medium tanks. This can be debated depending on which tanks, specifically, you actually talked about. Like if you compared a T34-76 with a 76mm gun to an IS-2 with a 120mm gun, then yes the gun would be more powerful. However, if you take a standard M4 and compare it to a Jumbo M4, the guns were very identical.  Their main focus was thicker armor.

This reasoning is why their attack is 3 and defense is 4. However, thinking about it, I may lower defense to 3, considering the absorption of hits. Heavy tanks shouldn’t exactly be used in attack, they slow down your other tanks too much. If anything they were practically tank destroyers their selves, but really just provided support for medium tanks whom did the actual attacking because of their versatility.

Light tanks weren’t exactly obsolete. In fact, most of the tanks when the war started were light tanks. Germany had tons of Panzer Is and eventually Panzer IIs. Also tank manufacturers continued to produce new light tanks throughout the war. Look at the American line of light tanks, M2A2s, M3 and M5 Stuarts, M22 Locust, M24 Chaffee, and the M42 Walker Bulldog, which was actually produced after WW2.
One idea I had with the setup was to double the number of French tanks in Paris and make them light tanks. I had also rattled around with changing some other tanks to light tanks, but I didn’t want to mess around with the balance of the game too much. Also changing the setup would make the rule even more complicated to learn. So I went with leaving everything alone, and just assigned a balanced tank class to them. As far as changing the standing armies of neutrals, that is also something I didn’t want to touch.
As far as making light tanks attack at 1, I don’t necessarily agree with. If we were talking about only early war light tanks I would be more inclined to agree but, we have to think about all light tanks used in the war. The guns and armor both progressively got better as the war went on. Again for example look at the Locust and the Chaffee. The Locust sported a small infantry supporting 37mm gun, but the Chaffee sported a much larger 75mm gun. Now if you wanted to you could say Germany’s light tanks can do this this and this, but that would require learning something you don’t have to and again making it more complicated. Not to mention balancing issues and having to do that for every single nation. Something else you could do is add a research and technology thing stating that light tanks have gotten better and now attack at 2, but I personally don’t play with those. So the stats of light tanks in my opinion are fine.
I like the idea of tank destroyers being represented in the game,as they had an important role. As far as I know, one A&A game actually does support targeted fire. Yes it is only D Day, and its not nearly as fun as G40 but its still an A&A game. I also don’t believe targeting would be OP as long as there were limitations such as only enemy tanks can be targeted and or only once per battle, maybe a cap on how many can do it at one time, and allow both sides to do it. I will probably remove the large and complicated Tank Hunter ability, but first I’ll have to decide on what to replace it with and I’m waiting on more feedback.
I don’t remember where but I believe somebody else has already done self propelled artillery, either via an actual piece or allowing mechs to pair with artillery to allow artillery to move 2. So I didn’t include them, and that the focus is on tanks, not all armored combat vehicles.
I do appreciate the feedback. Just keep in mind that no play testing has taken place.

I believe that to be a draw back of this. There will be more crowding issues with the extra units. If that is a problem that really bothers someone then I really wouldn’t most board games to them lol

Militairy planners made mistakes too. It becomes more and more clear that the US made horable and deadly choices when planning their armor. And yes light armor was obsolete at the outbrake of the war. Germany was the first to acknowledge that, but it is a second thing to stop production immediatly. You need to change your production lines, make new designs etc. That cost years! The US choose not to do that, but in stead keep production output high of obsolete models. At a deadly cost. The models you mention are revisions of the standard design. The USSR was lucky to make some good design chooses before the war. They could modify them and became the best tank builders of the war.

All I was saying is that light tanks still had some sort of purpose in war, some sort of strategically worth. That probably turned less and less away from combat as the war went on but still.

I wasn’t aware of the USSR having appreciable heavy tank forces at the start of WWII.  Could you indicate what tank model you’re referring to?

Perhaps he may be referring to the KV-1 series? Maybe even the monstrosity that was the KV-2 lol.

So if I understand you correctly, you believe that there are too many pairing modifiers? Maybe even more so that, because of how WW2 was and how the game is, there shouldn’t be a separation of classes?

Perhaps it would be a good idea to go back, as a starting point, to the OOB concept of single tank type with OOB values for cost, movement, attack and defense, and with certain set abilities that relate to things like blitzing and unit pairing.  Then, from that starting point, see what kind of plausible type differentiations you can make simply by adjusting the values, but without changing the abilities or the rules for combat.  Those adjustments will make it easy for players to make the kind of simple purchasing judgments that reflect the way tank design choices actually worked in WWII…choices like “if I choose type X, I can build more tanks because they’re cheaper but I get tanks that (for example) have less attack power.”  In other words, focus first on the basic tank design trade-offs of firepower, armour protection, mobility and affordability (in A&A terms: attack, defense, movement and cost), without changing the basic way in which tanks operate or fight or interact with other units.  That way, players won’t have to un-learn how tanks function OOB and re-learn how they work under the house rule.

So you are suggesting I should start with some sort of pre-alpha stage where all the tanks cost, attack, defend, and move the same(example: 6, 3, 3, 2)? And give each type one, maybe two, MAYBE, defining characteristic? After some time, start changing stats and then maybe add an ability and such? Play testing the rule would give some much needed insight…

watch out for the “What’s the point of this unit?” problem which, on the naval side of A&A, can be found with the cruiser unit.

I’ve actually found cruisers quite useful. A poor man’s battleship, if you will. The last game I played, I was Japan and US amassed tons of cruisers while I was fighting over the Money Islands, bombing Calcutta, and pushing inland against China. Mistakenly I didn’t give my own navy much attention and found myself being on the defensive as I tried to regroup and catch up to the US navy. My first time as Japan so I was bound to make mistakes.