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So last Friday my buddy wanted to try out some new toys he had picked up in our normal game.

We've been going back and forth for a couple turns when my Luchs platoon sees open ground straight into his new katyusha park. I charge in, machine guns blazing, only to realize that while this looks like an old Dodge with 500 lbs of crap iron and explosives strapped to it, it is actually a finely tuned Soviet "tank".

As such, my Luchs can't charge the damn thing. Did I miss something or play it right? There are now conspiracies afoot of buying 180 point units and using them to race up and fill holes to protect an armor push toward an objective.

You played it right. There are only 2 broad categories of teams (infantry and vehicles) in FoW, and pg. 144 of the rulebook states that "tanks can not charge into contact with tank or transport teams", this was correct. Additionally, even if your Luchs somehow managed to be in an assault with them they're not allowed to swing at them. Pg. 156 of the rulebook "A hit from a tank team or its tank escorts cannot be allocated to a vehicle". Katyushas are unarmored, shooting at them with a strong breeze should be enough to take them out!

You could have assaulted the infantry teams in the platoon though. IIRC they have a rifle command team.

Yeah, we thought about that Palindrome. Unfortunately for me in this situation that particular base was on the other side of the squad with no clear line to reach initially.

And while the first turn of machine gun fire was completed by untrained monkeys, the second was much more accurate. It was just the absurdity of a few Dodge pickups ability to completely stop a tank assault like that.

From a game mechanics standpoint, it made sense..vehicles in close combat with each other doesn't make sense in this system, but the visualization just fell short.

They didn't die to the MG fire? They're unarmoured tank teams that cannot dig in or use gun pits. At worst they'll be 5+ to hit (trained, concealed & gone to ground) with a 5+ save. A luch platoon will decimate them. It's often worth a suicide run with armored cars and the like just to reduce their template size.

 George Spiggott wrote:
They didn't die to the MG fire? They're unarmoured tank teams that cannot dig in or use gun pits. At worst they'll be 5+ to hit (trained, concealed & gone to ground) with a 5+ save. A luch platoon will decimate them. It's often worth a suicide run with armored cars and the like just to reduce their template size.

Based on his last comment, it sounds as if the first round of machine gun fire was horribly inaccurate.

It happens sometimes. Sometimes the dice just don't love you for that round of fire.

Yes, on re-reading that does sound like the case.

Shotgun wrote:

From a game mechanics standpoint, it made sense..vehicles in close combat with each other doesn't make sense in this system, but the visualization just fell short.

I don't really agree with this, tanks can crush soft skins just as easily as they can crush infantry. Its just another one of those abstractions.

Yeah, it was a spectacular display of 1's on that first round of shooting.

6 of the dice were one's. The rest were two's.

 Palindrome wrote:

Shotgun wrote:

From a game mechanics standpoint, it made sense..vehicles in close combat with each other doesn't make sense in this system, but the visualization just fell short.

I don't really agree with this, tanks can crush soft skins just as easily as they can crush infantry. Its just another one of those abstractions.

That said, I wouldn't like to be rolling over what is essentially a truck carrying a rack of missiles. All it takes is one guy to take one off, throw it on the truck, and light it for your tank to suddenly find itself driving over a fireworks display.

 Avatar 720 wrote:
That said, I wouldn't like to be rolling over what is essentially a truck carrying a rack of missiles. All it takes is one guy to take one off, throw it on the truck, and light it for your tank to suddenly find itself driving over a fireworks display.

Or for a random spark to set off the rocket fuel. Having an entire artillery barrage go off literally right next to your tank would probably be a Bad Thing (tm)...