"TSR Panzer Warfare" Topic

Okay although i have most of my rules needs now catered for, i was just curious, as i like old rulesets about the TSR Panzer Warfare rule s- unfortunately they do not seem to have any only pdfs and the physcial copies are in the hundreds

can any one tell me what the scale of those rules were? were they like Tractics?

I happen to have one of those "physical copies" in my collection. Published in 1975 and a cover price of $4 USD!

Its whole title is "Panzer Warfare Rules for Mass-Armor Battles of WW II with Small-Scale Miniature Figures"

Scale is listed as:
Figure scale 1 figure equals 1 platoon OR 1 figure equals an infantry squad, 1 vehicle or 1 gun. Ground scale is listed as 1:3000 with 1" equal 250 feet, 1 foot equal to 1,000 yards.
Time scale is 1 turn equals 2 minutes

No where even close to tractics. Page 1-6 is basic rules, 7-8 optional rules and 9-21 "Organizations & Charts" It is a small booklet measuring 5 1/4 inches by 8 1/2 inches

Hope that helps

Very little about it on BGG, or anywhere.

I am always curious about these old rules, and they can be tough to find. I wonder if it's valid to say that if they weren't reprinted, if no one has bothered to scan it, if there are not thorough reviews, that maybe it isn't worth digging up?

well one could say that about alot of curios that humans get interested in and i also have something of an attraction to less workable even broken games oddly

but who knows the history -tsr put out alot of historical rules back then before DnD was its main claim to fame (if i am getting the history right)

I got hold of some obscure naval rules recently Victory at Sea from 1971 and seem perfect also for what i am looking for in naval games – and likewise with napoleonics i think Legacy of Glory has alot of appeal and also Grand Battery and Napoleon from Foundry games, but they all panned by the community it seems.
In any case, obscure doesnt necessarily mean bad,

@Marc if you have any interest in selling them i would be interested (if they are at price i can afford lol)

Andrew, I'm always a little suspicious of that line of reasoning. Mind you, it's probably true nine times in ten, but there is that tenth time. There can be a lot of reasons something wasn't reprinted, for instance, that have nothing to do with quality. People die, rights are disputed. There are 60 year old paperbacks never reprinted but trading for serious money.

I'd say as a rule shorter, simpler rules tend to age better than longer more complex ones. I'm often happy to find a two-page set in a magazine, but seldom see the need to track down ones long enough to be printed separately. (On to Richmond is the notable exception.)

The scales on this one make me suspicious. There's always a wargamer out there who wants to command a division--but also wants to tell Panzer IV 523 to load an armor-piercing round and not high explosive. 1:3000 and figure=squad sounds like one of those rules.

I like streamlined rules, too, but there's a difference between streamlined but still evocative and just plain simple.

Some old rules are brilliant and compete for pure fun with modern rules. Some have insights into how we thought about games fifty years ago. And sometimes the text just embodies a love of the hobby that jokes the old fires.

And some old rules are just I-Go-U-Go, Movement Phase, Combat Phase, Morale Phase, roll on a chart, and stats for 10% as many unit types as you'd get in modern rules.

I am always happy to pay for something in the first category, but I have no time, much less money, for the second category.

The technology, as it were, of rules has progressed quite a bit, but there are still terrible rules today and wonderful rules from the '70s. I'm just guessing that the gems from back then are the ones that are remembered, talked about, reprinted, and and available. If no one bothered to reprint it, if no one has told me how great they are, if no has bothered to write a review, maybe there was a reason.

This is the argument I use to prevent myself from paying hundreds of dollars for twenty pages of badly printed Courier font and some clumsy line drawings. I will definitely buy it for a dollar at a flea market. I will definitely download a free PDF. But I don't want to pay more than a couple dollars without knowing I'm going to get something out of it.

I used to run a campaign with them. I still own the rules. They were pretty simple. I think I tinkered with some things but this was back in the 80's so I dn't remember anything about them.

Thanks

John

@Robert – lol i must admit i do like the sound of those best of both worlds kind of rules – thats what Empire was attempting for Napoleonics wasnt it? Is there a ww2 equivalent or have i reached the limit here of whats possible?
there is either the general or the particular and no synthesis in between – the same old dialectical philosophical quandary of human existence

Georg;

You are first on the list should I decide to sell them. I too have a fondness for old rule sets though they werent old when I purchased them!

thanks Marc!

Property rights can become a long hang-up; one example is the 35-year hiatus of The Fantasy Trip between publisher Howard Johnson closing down Metagaming and designer Steve Jackson recovering rights. TFT remains to my mind excellent, but the new edition's deluxe production and concomitant (if not indeed overblown) high price is just the opposite of the budget-conscious approach that helped make it originally popular.

Another common factor is people moving on, to new designs or out of the field altogether; in the case of Brian Blume, he left this mortal coil in 2020.

Tractics is now available by print on demand at Lulu (along with Fast Rules and Brew Up). Column, Line and Square eventually got at least rough — perhaps intentionally "old school" — digital editions (including the slightly updated CLS III).

A lot of other things might never make the cut for the History of Wargaming Project, and so become widely available only if someone with access today cares enough to put in the work to produce a "retro-clone" work.

Partly because it's much more recent, and partly because it was in its day graphically spectacular among historical (as opposed to fantasy) rules books, Arty Conliffe's Tactica continues to get occasional mention. It was less in tune with popular trends than his later, more modestly produced, Armati.

However, there may continue to be a few people whose taste Tactica especially suits. A design can be outstanding in achieving its priorities, the question being whether one shares those priorities.