Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello everyone!

I'm not necessarily looking to get into a new game, but I am curious about some statistics - what games let the player play a tank company (or even a tank platoon)?

I play Warhammer 40k, using the Armored Battlegroup list, as my main game. I also play Flames of War, where I play a Soviet Guards heavy tank company. Field of Glory is my ancients game and I play a 490 BC / Persian Wars hoplite phalanx army.

I also have seen many Cold War - era games, which at least appeared to have a player controlling a tank company (among other troops of course).

Lately, I've been encouraged to get into games such as Warmachine/Hordes, Infinity, and Malifaux, but I dislike the aesthetic and rules for 'tanks' (Jacks) in Warmachine, one cannot play a tank unit in Infinity, and there are also no tanks in Malifaux.

What other games are there?

In Battletech you can have all armored (non-Battlemech) forces that consist of tanks, hovercraft, VTOLs, and or WiGE craft. Add in Battletech's easy unit creation rules and salvage rules, and you can have a well organized Armored company that you can track the progress of and upgrade through your kills and victories.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
In Battletech you can have all armored (non-Battlemech) forces that consist of tanks, hovercraft, VTOLs, and or WiGE craft. Add in Battletech's easy unit creation rules and salvage rules, and you can have a well organized Armored company that you can track the progress of and upgrade through your kills and victories.

I tried that in high school. Do they still have rules that inexplicably make tanks objectively worse than 'Mechs? I think I heard that it's been relaunched, so maybe I'll give it another go.

Can't believe I forgot to mention it! D'oh! Thanks.

In the world of 6mm through 1/72 gaming - armor is very heavily played. Games like Reaper's CAV, Dirtside, Stargrunt, Wardogs, Quantum Legions, Heavy Gear, Gruntz, Strike Legion, Victory Decision, Defiance...and many, many others all allow you to play heavily with tanks (some can be entirely tanks if you like).

Personally, I build my armies and get the rules sorted out later. There are so many options available that you can generally find something that fits your style, scope and scale of play without too much work. The bigger problem is finding time to play them all.

steve jacksons OGRE maybe?

One GINORMOUS tank vs an army...

-P

Flames of war will let you run tank companies and platoons. It has rules for ww2 tanks and for vietnam/arab war tanks and is fairly popular

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
In Battletech you can have all armored (non-Battlemech) forces that consist of tanks, hovercraft, VTOLs, and or WiGE craft. Add in Battletech's easy unit creation rules and salvage rules, and you can have a well organized Armored company that you can track the progress of and upgrade through your kills and victories.

I tried that in high school. Do they still have rules that inexplicably make tanks objectively worse than 'Mechs? I think I heard that it's been relaunched, so maybe I'll give it another go.

Can't believe I forgot to mention it! D'oh! Thanks.

Tanks still suffer from the lack of damage locations compared to `Mechs (4 or 5 locations for vees versus 11 for `Mechs) so they die faster due to the damage all landing in roughly the same area but generally speaking vehicles are better in game terms than `Mechs and it is really just writer fiat that keeps `Mechs as the "Lords of the battlefield" in the fluff. The vehicle critical hits table was revised which has made vehicles much, much more survivable than they were even 10 years ago with previous rules editions.

I love Battletech and specifically love Battletech's vehicles, so if you have an opportunity give Total Warfare (Battletech's updated but mostly original rule set) or Alpha Strike (abstracted, faster play rules) a shot!

There are quite a few historical games that would let you do this kind of thing. Off the top of my head

- Cold War commander
- Battlegroup series
- Rapid Fire

For Sci-Fi you could try Tomorrow's War, Star Grunt etc. (think there are a couple more small scale ones out there too)

Sean_OBrien wrote:In the world of 6mm through 1/72 gaming - armor is very heavily played. Games like Reaper's CAV, Dirtside, Stargrunt, Wardogs, Quantum Legions, Heavy Gear, Gruntz, Strike Legion, Victory Decision, Defiance...and many, many others all allow you to play heavily with tanks (some can be entirely tanks if you like).

Personally, I build my armies and get the rules sorted out later. There are so many options available that you can generally find something that fits your style, scope and scale of play without too much work. The bigger problem is finding time to play them all.

That's awesome - I haven't even heard of these games. Heavy Gear Blitz, I think, I may have seen some people playing once - I don't remember being super drawn in, but who knows!

porkuslime wrote:steve jacksons OGRE maybe?

One GINORMOUS tank vs an army...

-P

OGRE sounds fun - having googled it, it's incredibly appealing; I'm a Bolo fan too!

DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
In Battletech you can have all armored (non-Battlemech) forces that consist of tanks, hovercraft, VTOLs, and or WiGE craft. Add in Battletech's easy unit creation rules and salvage rules, and you can have a well organized Armored company that you can track the progress of and upgrade through your kills and victories.

I tried that in high school. Do they still have rules that inexplicably make tanks objectively worse than 'Mechs? I think I heard that it's been relaunched, so maybe I'll give it another go.

Can't believe I forgot to mention it! D'oh! Thanks.

Tanks still suffer from the lack of damage locations compared to `Mechs (4 or 5 locations for vees versus 11 for `Mechs) so they die faster due to the damage all landing in roughly the same area but generally speaking vehicles are better in game terms than `Mechs and it is really just writer fiat that keeps `Mechs as the "Lords of the battlefield" in the fluff. The vehicle critical hits table was revised which has made vehicles much, much more survivable than they were even 10 years ago with previous rules editions.

I love Battletech and specifically love Battletech's vehicles, so if you have an opportunity give Total Warfare (Battletech's updated but mostly original rule set) or Alpha Strike (abstracted, faster play rules) a shot!

Awesome! I'll have to give this a shot next week at the game store.

Most of my comments are regarding which rules let you put alot of tanks on the table at once.

DarkTraveler777 wrote:In Battletech you can have all armored (non-Battlemech) forces that consist of tanks, hovercraft, VTOLs, and or WiGE craft. Add in Battletech's easy unit creation rules and salvage rules, and you can have a well organized Armored company that you can track the progress of and upgrade through your kills and victories.

The Battletech universe is great, but if you want to play an entire armored company, you're in for an EXTREMELY long game. For games of more than 5 units or so per side, I highly recommend Alpha Strike. It's a game in the Battletech universe aimed at faster playing games with many more miniatures, and on 3d terrain. Also, all the stats for every BT vehicle are available for Alpha Strike. for free at the "Master Unit List" page.

Sean_OBrien wrote:In the world of 6mm through 1/72 gaming - armor is very heavily played. Games like Reaper's CAV, Dirtside, Stargrunt, Wardogs, Quantum Legions, Heavy Gear, Gruntz, Strike Legion, Victory Decision, Defiance...and many, many others all allow you to play heavily with tanks (some can be entirely tanks if you like).

The above are good sugestions, though I'd suggest that Stargrunt is more for smaller engagments. Dirtside is much better.

Pacific wrote:There are quite a few historical games that would let you do this kind of thing. Off the top of my head

- Cold War commander
- Battlegroup series
- Rapid Fire

For Sci-Fi you could try Tomorrow's War, Star Grunt etc. (think there are a couple more small scale ones out there too)

Tomorrow's War could work for larger engagements as long as you only use vehicles. Vehicles plus infantry is going to vastly limit the number of armored units the game can handle.
The Sci-Fi version of Cold War Commander is called Future War Commander and is a great game, like it's 20th century variant, it's a nice ruleset based on the Warmaster activation mechanic

Whatever ruleset you decide, the "Panzer 8" rules give you a 2 page ruleset for almost every era in which armor has fought. Our club liked the Panzer 8 sci-fi rules, and it's easy to put a tank company plus infantry and other assets on the table and still fight a battle in a reasonable amount of time. Also, it's free.
http://panzer8.weebly.com/
Here's some of our games with the rules.
http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2012/09/trying-out-panzer-8-for-quick-play-sci.html
http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2013/02/more-mech-attack-and-panzer-8-gaming.html
http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2013/01/mech-attack-and-panzer8-for-10mm-sci-fi.html
In the last two links above, you'll also see some info about Mech Attack. A nice ruleset, but it can only handle about 10 units on a side.

Dust Tactics lets you field WALKER TANKS. TANKS THAT WALK. ROBOT TANKS, BASICALLY.

Eilif wrote:The Battletech universe is great, but if you want to play an entire armored company, you're in for an EXTREMELY long game. For games of more than 5 units or so per side, I highly recommend Alpha Strike. It's a game in the Battletech universe aimed at faster playing games with many more miniatures, and on 3d terrain. Also, all the stats for every BT vehicle are available for Alpha Strike. for free at the "Master Unit List" page.

Yeah, I've played company sized games of BT and it's just too much time to get through a game.

Tanks are awesome in Alpha Strike. I have a platoon of Tiger 12s that I take some times. For the points of two well armed medium mechs, i can take five of them. And if I want to go with a heavier tank, things like the Alacorn MK IV or the Ontos are great beasts.

http://www.masterunitlist.info/Unit/Details/5244/tiger-medium-tank-t-12
http://www.masterunitlist.info/Unit/Details/24/alacorn-heavy-tank-mk-iv
http://www.masterunitlist.info/Unit/Details/2326/ontos-heavy-tank-fusion

Like the 40K lore?
Like games that let you run massive tank armies?
Like tracking down OOP miniatures?

Why not try one of the Epic variants?

As mentioned above there are many SF and historical rulesets that provide for significant numbers of vehicles.

You need to look at 6mm (1/285th, 1/300th, 1/200th) scale models due to the cost of models and the ranges on the table top. It looks silly to have armies of tanks fighting each other at pistol ranges.

I'm surprised no one mentioned Dropzone Commander.

I like the tanks that come with the Armored Clash aspect of Dystopian Wars. Here's some of the Dominion of Canada for example:



They have a nice WII-vibe that 40k thrives off, so the switch-over isn't that drastic (if that's something you're into). That being said, I have a hard enough time drawing people into regular Dystopian Wars, let enough their tank expansion.

With the new supplement coming soon for Bolt Action you can have games made mostly of Warlord's excellent 1/56 tanks.

 Ghaz wrote:
I'm surprised no one mentioned Dropzone Commander.

Me too! You do need infantry to seize objectives in games but they're in APCs and the APC are carried on board in dropshps! Aside from that the game is all vehicles: tanks, skimmers, walkers which get flown into battle and dropped into fight. There are a bunch of utube videos on it. Right now 4 factions with slightly diferent styles.

I've been looking at it. Looks good (ruleset) and cheap to get into. The quality of the stuff looks amazing!

I think Pegasus hobbies has made some rulesets to use it's range of 1/72 ww2/cold war miniatures in.

Despite not having models for them, Mantic has tank rules for the Warpath game.


Page 38 of the totally free rules.


http://gallery.mailchimp.com/e62f0c35454fa3ba687404d69/files/Warpath_II_Rules.pdf

 sing your life wrote:
With the new supplement coming soon for Bolt Action you can have games made mostly of Warlord's excellent 1/56 tanks.

The thing is you can fit a platoon of 1/300 scale tanks into the footprint of a single 1/56 scale model and have a proper battle.

Normally I use 1/72 for this sort. It is a nice compromise between model detail and scale of battles. Since we tend to play terrain, and lots of it, your engagement ranges are limited by line of sight long before you get anywhere near maximums.

Vehicles are small enough to manage a bunch of them without the board becoming a parking lot. Figures are large enough to convert and paint up properly. Plus it is an actual scale which is supported outside of just gaming, so there is a large variety of cheap and readily available support items.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 sing your life wrote:
With the new supplement coming soon for Bolt Action you can have games made mostly of Warlord's excellent 1/56 tanks.

The thing is you can fit a platoon of 1/300 scale tanks into the footprint of a single 1/56 scale model and have a proper battle.

I prefer 1/56 scale. Each tank has a nice amount of size and detail, unlike 1/300 scale which is too small for me.

You can't play a battle with hundreds of tanks in 1/72 unless you use a church hall floor or something. Not to mention the expense. It can be done on a large tabletop setup in 1/300.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
You can't play a battle with hundreds of tanks in 1/72 unless you use a church hall floor or something. Not to mention the expense. It can be done on a large tabletop setup in 1/300.

I was more talking about a dozen or so tanks, not hundreds!

Yeah, Dropzone Commander is very heavily tank based. - Tank and dropship based.

This is my painted up 'Scourge' starter army - Half the models you get in the starter set, plus the huge command ship.



And here are some full sized, tournament scale armies - Conveniently, 1500 points, the same points level as 40k.





You can see more of an introduction to the game at my blog. - http://compel-gaming.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/a-brief-intro-to-my-dropzone-commander.html

 sing your life wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
You can't play a battle with hundreds of tanks in 1/72 unless you use a church hall floor or something. Not to mention the expense. It can be done on a large tabletop setup in 1/300.

I was more talking about a dozen or so tanks, not hundreds!

1/72 scale would be fairly cheap, then, though a normal table is not a large space to manoeuvre them. If the typical range of engagement is say 800 yards for WW2, you want a table maybe four times wider than that to allow space for manoeuvring so making one foot == 800 yards. Then you have tank models that are 200 yards long. It is an aesthetic consideration, to be sure.

My GHQ 1/285 modern stuff has visible and paint-able lug nuts on the tires of the wheeled APCs. They're less than an inch long and the detail is so good they have lug nuts.

It's a great scale for all/mostly tank battles:

GHQ make some excellent miniatures, but infantry in that scale leaves a lot to be desired. If you are looking at vehicles only - it is a fine scale to game and model in. Like I said though, I enjoy sculpting and converting figures and models - and there is only so much you can do when sculpting 6mm figures...and even less when converting them.

Some of GHQ's never infantry are great, but there are some seriously bad ones in their range as well.



I think their individual infantry look great considering their size.