"Iron Cross ruleset - a look at the armour system" Topic
6 Posts
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normsmith | 07 May 2016 5:51 a.m. PST |
Iron Cross is a fast play set of miniatures rules that has an interesting activation system that gamers may want to use with other sets of rules, including tactical boardgames. I have done a blog post that looks at the anti-tank system and included a look at the activation mechanics. Link. link |
Rich Bliss | 07 May 2016 6:16 a.m. PST |
Interesting. The activation system may be nice for two player games but would not work well for multiplayer ones. Also, I think you may be overstating the morale of Tiger crews. Shouldn't the morale of any specific tank be dependent on the level of experience of the formation, not just the model of tank. |
normsmith | 07 May 2016 7:17 a.m. PST |
The rule notes suggest the system is good for multi-play and the ethos of the design appears to be to get large multi player games done in one evening. My comment on Tigers relates to the crew only , not the tank itself. Tiger I crews were very good with every confidence in themselves and their tank., a situation that was diminished by time Tiger II's were getting crewed. My comment was to reflect that the Tiger I tankers might not be best served by such a generalisation of 'heavies'. In my own rules, I allows Tiger I's a second chance to test for command if they fail on the first occasion, simply to represent the same thing. Thanks for the shout though, I have amended the text lest Ipoor wording gave the wrong impression. Cheers norm. |
KnightTemplarr | 07 May 2016 11:14 a.m. PST |
I'd be more concerned with a PzIV having armor of 14 as compared to a T34s 13. |
normsmith | 07 May 2016 11:56 a.m. PST |
Here are a few frontal armour ratings T34/76 13 T34/85 14 KV1 16 M24 Chafee 12 M26 Pershing 16 PzIV G to J. 14 Panther. 17 251 half track 10 I included the half track to make you draw breath! :-) What is going on here is a relationship between gun and armour AND a D10, that primarily is providing the 'to Hit' system, but with a 'hit' that is significant enough to roll on the penetration table – so there is a level abstraction going on rather than armour and gun levels being directly comparable to ballistic performance alone. It seems to work. So when a T34/76 (gun 7) fires at the half track (armour 10) and only rolls a 2 on a D10, then we have a miss (because 7+2 cannot defeat 10), it is not saying that the difference between the 7 and the 10 is purely a ballistic performance. How the base numbers were arrived at is impossible to tell, especially when a half track has armour 10, but since the D10 is essential to the process, one can only guess that the entire shooting mechanic only has 10 slots that it can allocate armour to and interestingly, no gun exceeds a level 10, except the 88/71 which is set at 11. So there is a design relationship of (generally) below 11 for guns, above 9 for armour and the inter-play comes from a D10. It would be really intering to speak to the design team, but since first getting the book, it has reminded me of the old classic John Hill Basic Squad leader, because of the abstraction leading to good narrative. |
KnightTemplarr | 07 May 2016 7:39 p.m. PST |
I get the to hit factor including the D10 is what they were looking for here. But the armor factor is the armor factor not a to hit factor. So, it looks like the German armor is biased across the board. Which is probably why there is no discernible formula. That being said Norm, I do appreciate your blog on the game. Good Gaming to you and your buddies. |
normsmith | 07 May 2016 10:18 p.m. PST |
Thanks. The only to hit factor that I would envisage being used would a be a size of target adjustment. outside of that, there may be some adjustments for special ammo, ammo loads, efficiency of firers (i.e. Dedicated crew to task, rather than sharing tasks, such as trying to command and fire the gun at the same time), armour metal quality, slope, trainings, communications (radio) and turret traverse speed. But one can only guess at how much of that goes in. There is a boardgame that suggests it takes those things into account, but the available range of values than can be used with 2D6 is so tight that it looks difficult to have enough latitude to consider all those points. I suppose the designer just put the gun or armour where is would normally live and then adjust it up or down by 1 level if enough of those considerations existed to justify a swing either way. Good job it's only a game :-) The Iron Cross system is something similar that I did for by own hex based rules, though I did use a method for establishing gun and armour values and the included 'to hit' bit used a fixed base of 6+ 'To hit', with all modifications including gun and armour going on around that. Unsurprisingy perhaps my half track has an armour rating of 1 / 1 and a Tiger I a rating of 10 / 7, so while those ratings are more traditional, they still cover that 10 point range (though the elephant is exceptional at value 20 and the T-34/76d a more modest 7 / 5. The German 75/48 has a value of 6. The topic has made me dive back into my own rules and others to get some comparisons of how designers rate their gun / armour stats and the variables are interesting, I love this sort of thing, takes me back to those days of those fun bud essentially solid WRG stats and the old Leicester rules with their hard to read (even for young eyes then) gun charts that had gun ballistic performance on a graph and you would strain your eyes looking for the intersection between gun range and armour vale. This link has a wonderful collection of penetration table. LINK PDF link |
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