Another interesting game tonight with Karl & Graham. We were using heavily house ruled What a Tanker. The Germans with two Panthers, three Panzer IV’s and one Stug face off against 6 Sherman 75’s, one Sherman 76 and three Hellcats.

A Sherman gets spotted on the road at the beginning of the game and becomes the focus of the German force. Several acquire the Sherman 75 as a target but only one manages to get a shot off but roll a double ‘1’ to hit. Luckily in the next bound the Americans get the first activation and the Sherman manages to clear the road, moving out of line of sight of the Germans.

In this bound the Germans get a change of luck, the Americans on the right move a blind forward which on the next activation gets spotted by a Panther, revealing the Sherman 76mm at which the Panther then aims, fires and KO’s in one activation.

The next bound sees the Panzer IV at the end of the road move into the cover behind a hedge but is out of luck when a Hellcat appears and KO’s it. On the German left flank a three blinds (but only one Panzer IV) are deployed in an attempt to delay the American tanks on the right while the their friends concentrate on the Americans on the left.

But the German luck fails them in the remainder of the game. Their shooting is poor and although managing to repeatedly hit two Shermans they did not manage to kill them. While on their left the blinds get spotted and the lone Panzer IV gets caught by a Sherman as it attempts to escape and is immobilised. The stricken tank is then targeted by two hellcats and the crew are forced to bail.

The Hellcats continue to move round the German flank while the Shermans keep the German's attention.

The hero on the American side was one of the Hellcats which KO’d one Panzer IV, forced a second to bail and managed to cause a mobility hit on the third. It also got a hit on one of the Panthers causing a turret jam.

The blinds and the alternative activation system (as per Bolt Action) worked well. The next stage will be to add the infantry to see how this changes the game.