I recently played in my first Flames of War tournament, and we played 4 games. It was great fun, don't get me wrong...but:
I didn't once see anyone turn their turret. I faced one Soviet Battalion (Bryan) that had something like 30+ tanks. He never once turned his turret. It made zero difference if the vehicles were hull mounted or Turret Mounted.
I really don't have a problem with the 180 degree thing for simplicity. The problem lies in the fact that there is very little difference between hull mounted and turret mounted weapons. Nor do you ever use any of the rules that pertain to turrets.
Guess how many times the soviet player had to use limited vision? None
Guess how many times I had to use slow traverse in all 4 games? Once.
There has been a lot of talk of a Version 3 lately. So Phil if you ever happen to make it to my blog, these are the 2 things I would change for Version 3.
- 90 degree arc for Front armor and shooting weapons. I have it all worked out. :)
- Concealment to be uniform across the rules. As it stands right now, if you are in forest or smoke, you only need to be slightly in to get concealment, yet for an other piece of terrain you have to be 50% behind it. Even viewing "through" direct fire smoke you don't need to be 50% . Although the wording would entail that you do.
I had hoped that I was wrong, and going to this tournament with 16 other players, I would see turrets turning all over the place. Or at least a few anyway. Unfortunately I was proven correct.
If FoW really wanted things kept simple then they might as well have not had turrets in the game at all. And seeing how the MALFTF is as big as the rule book now, I hardly think keeping things simple is a viable excuse.
Turrets Are Useless
Right there with you!! I am really going crazy with the discussion on smoke, destroyed tanks and area terrain. Those are two areas that need some cleaning up and consistency. Immediately after your first post about your hourse rules, I actually had an example during a regular Wednesday game. I pointed out what the rules say vs the eye. The example was the just my butt was showing, but it was still a front armor shot. The only rationale that anyone could bring is that the game is trying to simulate real time movement. So in reality, you shot at the tank when the front was showing. My response was something like "then you would be an idiot! Anyone would wait and take the side shot. Duh!"
ReplyDeleteMy third, and the bane of my existence, would be assaults. If you think MALFTF is too big, count the pages dealing with assaults. There must be a better way.
BTW - congrats on your tournament results!
ya I've heard this idea of simulating real time movement.
ReplyDeleteand I don't really have a problem with that.
The problem I have is that they have all these rules just for tanks with turrets, but you never use them.
you could take them out and hardly anything would change with the game.
the 90 arc rule I've made gives you some choices and makes differences between hull mounted and turret mounted. you would definitely see some turrets turn.
And just based on physics, if you shot at the front armor when it was moving...it takes time for a shell to get there...and lets say by the time the shot got there the tank moved into position behind the building...if you lead the tank it would probably hit the building...and you wouldn't have shot it anyway...or it would miss the side of the building and hit the SIDE armor of the tank.
So even the constant motion excuse I don't by.
I like your well thought out system. However a simpler way than even 90 degrees for armor, is to draw an imaginary "X" over the top of the tank, Right rear fender edge to left front fender edge. and right rear fender edge to left front fender edge. Then extend the front "X" out to form the front armor arch. This would then take into account the various sizes of the tanks. Short fat tanks large front arch, comparative. Skinny long tanks, smaller front arch. Simple, but effective.
ReplyDeleteI thought of that...but the difference was totally minimal.
ReplyDeleteThought it would have made a huge difference. It doesn't.
Plus its far easier to make a 90 degree arc with 2 laser pointers then it is trying to line up lines fender to fender.
either way is better than it is. the "x" works that is what we do and it is simple and easy to do. the 90 degree works, it is simple and easy to do as well, we use that in games as well.
ReplyDeleteBut you are correct in your assumptions - no one has tanks in FoW they all have tank destroyers
lol yup...apparently they used to have a 90 arc in version 1.
ReplyDeletewith version 3 looming...do you think they will change it again? probably not.
but at least they fixed limited vision and slow traverse.