Tuesday 14 December 2021

"dog-sniffing", WaT, Early WW2 winter tank action

As mentioned in the previous post, my Early War 1941 winter Eastern Front “What a Tanker” game that evening had four players (including myself) with a very simple “us v them” shootout.

My t-26 in the foreground running from the German looking to shoot 'up my butt'

A PZIII and PZII against a T-34 and T-26. The night’s dice were fickle indeed as the one necessary die to complete the desired activity - usually shooting of course - failed to occur.  Everyone was affected. But for me, the rather exasperating failure to do anything useful from a full set of dice only happened once, so that was good.  And I got a kill, taking out the PZII with one shot. Rare indeed.  It was early in the night, so I had the defeated player bring on a PZ35 (a rather better tank and game equivalent to a PZIII.  I spend the rest of the game trying to avoid it!  All the while looking to see if the other German had a shot at me!

"dog-sniffing" In the background the German is chasing my t-26, while in the foreground, the partially-whitewashed t-34 is ready to shoot at the rear of the heavily camouflaged PzIII.  ED NOTE: This was only part-way through the battle; this would continue for quite some time.  Weird game indeed.

The game tended to resemble a “tail sniffing at a dog park” as one wit suggested, during which we circled around the snow-covered burnt-out buildings looking to shoot each other up the tail pipe (the weakest armour point) However throughout the night each of us would fail dramatically to get the relatively easily achievable 3+ on the dice, and roll lots of 1s and 2s instead. Ce la guerre!