Last weekend was Vapnartak in York and, as much as I enjoy the show, I mainly use it as an excuse to gather my Regular Opponents together so we can disappear off to the nearby scout hut and take part in one of our game days. In the past we’ve used this place to play Chain of Command on a big table, a mix of Too Fat Lardies things and more. This year, the plan was Tanks – specifically lots of tanks and the Too Fat Lardies game “What a Tanker”. My original plan of taking the week to prepare the game, assemble and paint the missing tank in my collection AND gather everything together had to be cut down to a two-day mad sprint due to an unfortunate bout of illness, meaning I was up late the night before getting vehicles ready for the game.
Although my tank selection is smaller than the Creative and Dastardly Opponents, I wanted to get them out of storage and onto the board. With a full platoon of Churchills painted up, I was left with a task list. My AVRE, Crocodile and the first Comet were undercoated, my Stuart was just assembled but a pair of Comets to finish off the platoon were sat waiting to be glued to. So it was time to rush the assembly!
The good news is that my Comets are from Rubicon and Rubicon makes some gloriously easy kits to assemble. They really do hit the mid-point between “model kit” and “wargaming kit”, letting you get them ready for the board in record time (I think the second was assembled in roughly 45 minutes). For these two, I decided to go with the uncovered gun mantle (partially so you can actually move the gun up and down) and did one of them with the hatch open so I could add one of Empress’s tank commanders when I painted them up.
And then it was painting time. By which I mean it was also 10pm and quite frankly I should have been heading to bed as I was on the exit stage of the lurgy that had knocked me for six for the previous few days. Instead, I rushed out to my recently upgraded garage to get to spraying. Due to being an idiot, my painting is always based around a black undercoat, even if I’m about to spray over the top with Army Painter’s Angel Green spray, so there was a frantic moment of running a heater to speed up the drying of the primer ready for layer two. It’s also roughly around this time that one of the exhaust cowling pieces from one of the Comets decided to escape leaving me with some unexpected but not entirely unwanted variation.
Once sprayed up, the next stage was to break out the makeup brush and Vallejo Russian uniform for the actual colour, applying the lighter colour over the surface while leaving the dark colour underneath in the recesses. If I wanted to actually finish them, I’d have painted the small touches and then hit them with white streaks for my winter of 1945 look. However, it was now late and I had to be up early to drive to collect one of the players so having put three colours on them (black, green and different green), it was time for bed.
Having driven south to collect the Former Housemate to then drive north to York, we rolled into Vappa at the sensible time of 11am after the mad rush. The show is still great (the Scarif battle picture especially grabbed my eye) but after collecting my pre-orders (a visit to Empress and Warbases) and wandering around, we nipped back to get playing.
The game of the day was something I’d scrawled down called The Great Swan. Using What a Tanker as the base ruleset, we made a scenario focused on getting your tanks off the enemy board edge, in a mode that at one point had been nicknamed “tank rugby” (we had to talk down the idea of having an actual ball). To add a little depth/chaos, a selection of Points of Interest located around the board pushed teams forward, both to incentivise movement but also to generate Command Points that could be spent on calling in support (we’ll get back to it later).
We’re lucky that the venue available to us thanks to the Dastardly Regular Opponent is both incredibly close to York Racecourse and also has enough space and tables that we can put up some seriously big boards. After bringing all the tables in, it took three full-size gaming mats to cover it in various shades of green, before the pile of buildings, trees and hills were fetched and put into place. We wanted plenty of cover for the advancing tanks, although I did warn them about the issues of what could be lurking in the trees and buildings…
Now if I was to be sensible, we had FAR too many tanks on the day compared to how many got knocked out or even hit the table. However, we were also definitely getting the vehicles out to show off. Which if we’re honest is what wargaming can be all about – getting your newly painted collection on the tabletop and showing off the cool things to the delight of your friends. As you can see, we’ve managed to assemble several platoons of the usual suspects (Shermans and Panzer 4s) while mixing in a few of the classic fun toys such as the Dastardly Regular Opponent’s latest additions with his big cats. There was also a smattering of lighter vehicles, ideal for shooting across the board or appearing in a player’s hand when they least expected it.
So let’s talk about the game. First up, the slightly tongue-in-cheek introduction:
“Gentlemen! Fellow Cavalry Officers! Terrible news!
We have heard rumours from the most reliable of sources (the wives and valets of the General Staff) that our Dastardly Enemies to our East/West are planning to invade our verdant land. As we are all cavalry officers it makes sense that, rather than wait for our enemy to advance and win the initiative, we shall instead take the bull by the horns and prepare a counter-attack BEFORE they can advance! Gather your forces and we shall swan through the green lands of the border regions and into the sweet civilisation beyond! I’ll see you in the enemy’s Capital in time for Afternoon tea!”
After the teams were set up (three vs three, roughly splitting into a York-based team and one assembled from those who travelled to be there), the players rolled off to gain an advantage. The Away team won the roll and decided to gain the initiative in the first turn. This meant that the Home team were able to pick their tanks first. This meant that the game began with the Home Team comprising of a Stuart, Churchill and King Tiger facing off against the Away Team with Comet, Tiger and a Universal Carrier.
The smaller vehicles were listed as Recce tanks in my scenario, meaning they got an extra turn before the battle kicked off. This meant I got to use the Universal Carrier to help demo the game, whereupon it rolled very poor movement while the test firing of the onboard Panzerfaust (the crew needed something to deal with the big boys) only managed to reduce one of the cows to immobile. As the actual first turn began, the Big Boys surged forward, powering down the slope and heading off to battle.
On the other side of the board, the Churchill struggled off the starting line, the King Tiger rolled forward but the star was the Stuart tank SPEEDING off to capture the Point of Interest by ending the turn within 6″ of it. POIs generated 1 CP each at the start of the turn, a generation we had to adjust midway through as the sheer amount of special abilities being thrown around became an issue. You’ll see what I mean in a second.
In the centre, the two vehicles that had already captured one Point of Interest each found themselves rushing to capture the central POI, even as the Tiger on the hilltop tried to range in the Stuart. The Universal Carrier eventually was able to speed into position, forcing the Stuart to push past them to get a flank.
A push that took it into the line of sight of the Comet. The two vehicles were able to bring the other into firing solutions, only for the rounds to go whizzing over their opponent’s head.
This led to the only logical solution. High-speed close-quarters combat around the Point of Interest. Both tanks came roaring around the woods, fired and only caused temporary damage.
At this point, both teams decided to delve into the big box of tricks and call in support. This was done with a deck of cards, with different suits doing different things. The Clubs meant both teams were able to bring in artillery on their positions, the large blast template meaning 2D6 wasn’t enough to stop each tank’s radio operator directing fire onto their rival. First kills of the game and it was down to the artillery behind the lines! Artillery spotted by the King Tiger then managed to shred the Tiger tank before it got too close, adding another point to the Gunners (who then gained a line on the tally board that was tracking points).
However, this skirmish allowed the Universal Carrier to slip through, capturing one of the Points of Interest before streaming towards the board edge. Not even the return of the Stuart’s player in his Matilda (chosen by his opponents after an unlucky dice roll) could stop the carrier from scoring the first point of the day.
Using a pile of Command Points, the Tiger commander decided to deploy his IS-2 far forward, rolling off the newly captured point before planning to advance forward. However, the promise of a gun duel with the King Tiger was too tempting. That said, it was hard to do anything when dealing with the King Tiger’s massive armour value, rolling 12 dice to attempt to save any hits which the player managed to do pretty much every time.
Unfortunately at this point, I was too busy running the game to snap more photos but there were a few more moments of glorious silliness. The Matlida ramming the IS-2, a rogue pilot deciding to strafe the unfortunate Churchill still stuck in its deployment area, said Churchill being pinned down and pummelled so hard that the player decided to abandon it rather than attempting to repair the temporary damage. The game eventually ended when we ran out of time, although pretty much everyone was buzzing with excitement as we packed the game away.
Overall, the game was a great success. Everyone had fun, we slapped some tanks on the table and ridiculous things happened. The rules for What A Tanker were taught in a single session and did nothing to slow the game down, the dice gods showed their full range of blessings and in the end we left the venue planning to get several more large games in this year. Maybe even some of my Ultramoderns will end up on the biggest board?
At the same time, before I do anything with The Great Swan, I’ll need to go back and rebalance the game. Bringing in the support pieces from the cards was fun, but they ended up being a little bit overpowered due to the sheer amount of Command Points being generated each turn. I’m going to have a little play with this scenario and rebalance a few things but if you want to take a look it is linked here.
Next though, I should probably finish painting those tanks…