Tank Duel: Enemy in the Crosshairs is a card-based game for 2 to 8 players that depicts tank-to-tank warfare on the Eastern Front of World War II in the early to mid 1940s. It attempts to convey the claustrophobia and urgency that tank crews experienced in this bitter conflict, utilizing a simple Action system to keep the action moving at a rapid pace. Players will issue commands with the use of Battle Cards and attempt to score Victory Points by claiming Objectives and eliminating their opponent's tanks and crew.
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The two designers were present for the play testing. We spent about 20 minutes going over the game and materials. It plays very much like the "Up Front" card game which I never wrapped my head around.
The designer seemed to be pretty knowledgeable on tank details and tactics. I was impressed.
Overall the game is a somewhat abstracted 1:1 tank engagement. When you move you "move" 200 yards closer or further away on your range scale. The gun range is your range scale + the targets range scale (200 to 1600 yards range). I think it has the right balance of abstraction and playability.
The differences on the tanks is their movement and shooting rating of 1-9. When you have a shooting or moving card it is numbered 1-9 and you can only use it if it is =< your tanks rating. That's a fairly good way to show performance differences in a card based game.
Details: insidegmt.com/?p=16214
You can play an "action" card and any number of "tactical cards" using multiple cards to put together a move so there is some tactical planning, no shooting and moving in the same turn.
Example: Play a "move" card and move 200 yards closer. Play a "flank" card so your movement succeeded in flanking him. Then play a "terrain" card like woods to conceal yourself. However, your opponent may have cards that negate yours. Any movement allows a spotting check by the enemy too.
Cards are multi-purpose with values for different things. They are used to generate random numbers so there is no dice. There is a lot of variation.
Initiative is determined by each player putting one of his cards down (numbered 1-100) and low numbers go first. You can attempt to move first or last depending on your plans.
Shooting has quite a few of the normal die roll modifiers so it is never a sure thing to hit. Armor penetration is pretty variable too so no guarantees of penetration and the chance of hitting a weak spot. For a card game it is pretty well done. Gunnery and penetration are pretty detailed and playable.
Since you run 1-2 tanks the game can go into a lot of damage detail and crew WIA or KIA, putting out fires, explosions, bail outs, etc.
You could customize a game scenario by adding or taking out terrain cards.
The game does give the player a good sense of "stalking" his victim, closing the range and remaining concealed, flanking, setting up a shot and attempting to thwart the enemies attempts to do the same. Somewhat like chess as far as a move and counter move.
Overall I enjoyed it more than I though I would and was impressed with the game play and components. If you like card games like Up Front and Combat Patrol this should be of interest to you.
Wolfhag
goes to sea with the Terrain Mat.
