"Magic BB in Flames of War" Topic

There are many situations where you need to roll 7 or more on a D6 to do something.
And others where you don't even bother to roll because it is automatic.
What if each player had a "Desperate Times call for desperate measures" chit that he could use ONCE in a game.
Your Stuarts can hit the Panthers, but with no possible chance of penetrating the armor. What would have happened in the Battle of the Bulge? They would have shot!So, toll to Hit. Cash in your DTCfDM chit. The Panthers must then roll for Armor Save. A 1 comes up, but so what? Normally, this would not penetrate anyway. But Desperate Times… Re-roll the 1 and if another comes up, then go to Firepower as usual. You just might get a lucky shot in.

Or, if you need a 7 to do something, go ahead and roll. Re roll any 6s to need another 6.
Give engineers a chance to re roll a failed try to blow up a bridge!
A moving RoF 1 tank needs to hit that Tiger!

You can run this any way you want. God forbid it should spoil the purity of a tournament game, but try it in scenarios. Give each player 1 chit. If the scenario organizer thinks one side was particularly lucky in Real Life™, give him 2.

In Tunisia, a French Char 2D got in a lucky shot at a Tiger and jammed the turret. For all intents and purposes, in game terms, this is a Destroy, since the tank is out of action.
And why would those Stuarts keep shooting at those Tigers when all their shots bounce off? Hey wait, one got in!

That would work fine for me…but…for your pointed tournaments you've just increased the value of all those "light assets" who now have a boost in AT capability. So do the light AFV points go up or do the uber heavy AFV points come down?

Cheers, VB

Like I said above, keep it away from tournaments. I would not to cause any heart attacks.
I am looking at a fun way to upset the cherished D6.
I might draw the line at Renault FT with a black powder muzzle loader taking on a Jumbo, but… Hey, the tank commander might have his head poking out the hatch and drop a grenade when hit.

Yes, for casual or social games, that sounds like a good idea. I might try that rule out.

Nice idea.

I use that without the chit for a couple of my rules but never tried it with FOW.

Double six is a 7 and triple 6 makes 8 etc. Same logic for double 1 is 0 and triple 1 is -1.

Adds a little more range of results to the humble D6. Doesn't really have a huge impact as it is a 1/36 chance … unless of course it is a "bucket of dice" game.

Actually its quite a good idea for tournaments because one of the problems with such games is that we all know that the Stuarts will never take down the Tiger,whereas in real life there is always a chance that a. shot goes into an engine grating or distorts a track or whatever, but its a tiny chance. Because rules do not allow for that tiny chance the Tiger knows that the Stuarts cannot harm it and acts accordingly.

But historically, didn't Stuarts have some advantages over the Tiger in terms of speed an agility? I have been told in the past that Stuarts could force a Tiger to fall back if the tank commander believed that the Stuart was trying to get past it. The Tiger could not traverse the turret fast enough if the Stuart was moving to get around it. Also, I was told of a clip of Tiger commander talking about hearing a noise outside of tank. When he popped the commanders hatch, there was a Stuart along side his which had blown out his tracks. The Stuart commander saluted the German commander and then took off.

It seems to me a chit could very easy fulfill one of those rolls.

Just get a ghost tank Stuart, they took down Tigers regularly, so I'm sure a Panther is no problem for them.

On a serious note, isn't there always a chance you'll get a bail out hit in FOW? If the enemy blows their remount roll, you still effectively take that tank out (at least for those turns…)

I don't play FOW much, but isn't that the case, even with guns that can't penetrate?

On a serious note, isn't there always a chance you'll get a bail out hit in FOW? If the enemy blows their remount roll, you still effectively take that tank out (at least for those turns…)

I don't play FOW much, but isn't that the case, even with guns that can't penetrate?

You'd need to tie their armor value. A Stuart can't hurt a Tiger even from the side (Strength 7 gun versus Tiger's side armor 8+1d6), but Stuarts can put actually put down Panthers from the side.

I'd be willing to allow the Golden BB shots, even in a tournament.

Might even allow more than one DTCfDM chit per game, or a total for the tournament. With a total for the tournament, you'd have one for each round. Sure, you could spend all of them in one place, but if you do that in round 1, you won't have any to spend in following rounds!

This is why I like games where the outlier events are outliers, but not impossible. There are just too many examples from history of the really improbable happening.

Doug

In Sicily a lone Tiger encountered a full company of 17 M3 Stuarts. The Tiger crew bailed out and abandoned their tank! (Perhaps the Tiger crew just saw 17 dust clouds rapidly approaching and didn't wait to see what they were.)

See, there should be a chance for a Stuart (or other light tank) to get a bail out on a big tank in FOW. Even if the odds are really, really small.

One of the major causes of any big tank failing against light armour was mobility
Once you shot a track off and the beast stopped the crew usually got out an legged it before something bigger came along to finish them off (like a bloke with a satchel charge)

After trying my Soviets for the first time, and seeing that I didn't even get to roll a die to hit if I moved And being forced to be the attacker, I think FoW needs the 7= a 6 followed by a 4 rule, and an 8 a 6 followed by a 5 etc. I can't believe a Soviet TD had NO chance to hit a German tank because of command and control. It was borderline ridiculous.

From now on I only use guard formations. Hen and chicks is about the dumbest rule I've seen.

It is an attempt to replicate the wooden tactics of the Soviets who did not have radios in most tanks and so had to follow the leader.
It fails in two ways:
because the Russians have big platoons of say ten tanks with a 4 inch separation tank 10 can be up to 36 inches from tank 1. That means it can be engaged on a separate task whereas true hen and chicks would be better reoresented by a ll tanks having to be within say 12 inches of the leader. Certainly they should always have the leader in sight.

because the tanks can coose to shoot at just the right target. So if you have a row of ten houses with a german platoon in one of them all the Russian tanks can magically concentrate their shooting on one house, just where the Germans are concealed.
It is this ability to roar up and then let loose with ten tubes (20 shots) at. one target that makes the Russian tank horde so devastating. In a game where , to a large extent, the average result holds then the more shots you get the more likely the average result will occur.

Hen and chicks makes it a bit harder for Russian tanks to acquire a target on the move ( an extra pip on the dice) however, it fails because the Russian problem is communication and the rules allow the Reds to be as telepathic as everyone else.

In a certain game system by a certain Miniatures Company isn't:

6+4=7
6+5=8
6+6=9

Like DW II said……

Oh, I agree 100%.