This feature is the first of a few I
expect to write examining some of the “gaming artifacts” from my
earliest days in the adventure gaming hobby, the idyllic “Golden
Age of Roleplaying Games,” the mid- to late 1980s. Oddly enough, my
first “artifact” isn’t for roleplaying games at all, though my
involvement in them led me to dabble in other hobbies, including
wargames and miniatures.
When I first discovered Dungeons &
Dragons in the spring of 1982 I suddenly found myself exposed to
all kinds of related adventure gaming materials at the local hobby
shop, in advertisements in the venerable Dragon Magazine,
and at the one local
convention I attended. Besides buying nearly every D&D
rulebook and module I could
afford I acquired several
Avalon Hill games (both wargames and lighter fare) and
a handful of fantasy
miniatures. I also created my
own adventures for D&D
and a host of small board and card games to play with our
neighborhood gaming group. So it shouldn’t come as any
surprise that I found myself – soon after diving into roleplaying
games – exposed to and designing miniature wargames.
The tank game
coalesced from a few components we acquired, some basic rules
concepts about armored warfare, and a general interest in World War
II tank combat. It didn’t have a catchy title beyond “Tank
Battles” despite seeing several play sessions with both my brother
and our neighborhood group.
The
game was most likely inspired by two packs of 6mm “micro-scale”
tanks I bought, each
containing five tanks. I’m
not sure where we found the minis; possibly PointCon, one of the first game conventions I attended, or maybe a forgotten corner of
the late, lamented Branchville Hobby Shop which fueled my youthful
exploration of adventure gaming. One pack was a set of GHQ Micro Armour “Centurion MK3 20pdr,” the other a pack of German Pkw IVs
from another, less prominent manufacturer (whose name remains
forgotten along with the location of the lost packaging). I gave them
a very basic green paint job, with one side sporting red dots on the
turrets, the other white dots (I wasn’t going for any degree of
authenticity...we just wanted a simple tank game, not specifically a
World War II game). The other components included a folding board
consisting of two letter-sized pieces of corrugated cardboard with
green construction paper glued to them; some
cardboard-and-green-construction-paper contoured hill pieces, a few
squares with “trees” (snipped toothpicks topped with crumbling
modeling foliage moss, now hopelessly deteriorated); some rolled
copper wire representing barbed wire; and a host of small card-stock
European buildings from a cut-and-build book of my brother’s. I
included a few small counters (and simple rules) representing
infantry units and mortar squads, but those didn’t see much action
on a board covered with hills, buildings, and cool tank miniatures.
The rules consisted of a few pages of
handwritten notes, my standard format for game materials in an age
well before personal computers, scanners, and laser printers. The
very basic system included a random set-up system on each player’s
side (with a small chance of placing some units in forward
positions), a shoot-then-move action sequence, variable movement,
rolls to hit and saving rolls, and graduated damage going from
“disabled” (no movement, with a chance to “repair” each turn)
to destroyed. Some oddities included increased chances to hit at
closer ranges, a range bonus for shooting from higher ground, rules
that offered a bonus to save if in cover (though no penalty to hit),
a lack of terrain modifiers for wooded areas yet slower movement over
barbed wire (assumed to also include tank obstacles), and sketchy
rules for using air support to go with two airplane models we found
later. I didn’t include line-of-sight rules, but I recall we played
under the assumption you couldn’t shoot a target you couldn’t see
from the attacking unit.
I’d date these “artifacts” around
1984-86 when I was in my final high school years. I have faint and
pleasant memories of playing it with my brother and other
neighborhood kids when we weren’t indulging our interest in D&D
or other roleplaying diversions of the time. Much of the actual game
play centered on moving around buildings or trying to gain the high
ground before blasting away at enemy tanks. Few games lasted more
than half an hour from set-up to finish, but “Tank Battles”
remained on of our favorites among the quick games we could play in
an afternoon.
The game has since sat in its box on a
shelf for years, though I recently raided it to mount and re-paint
the Pkw IVs for use in other games (notably GHQ’s Beer & Pretzels Game – WWII Micro Armour, an introduction to the
company’s own tank rules offered as a free PDF download; and my own development of Panzer Kids). The rules were simple enough I
might try running it with my four year-old Little Guy – who’s
expressed an interest in playing some of Daddy’s games – but I
think we’ll put our efforts to more practical purposes and see how
much of Panzer Kids he can comprehend. “Tank Battles”
served its purpose back in my gaming youth, not simply as a break
from roleplaying games but as a vehicle for my growing enthusiasm for
and interest in designing my own games.
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