Hello, I'm brand new to this game and I think its terrific. I have only played a few games, but there have been situations where one side had their tank damaged early, imbuing a sense of powerlessness thereafter. Remaining infantry units scurried into cover to run down the turns, leaving the final turn of the game a mad dash to snatch objectives. This felt gamey as they would likely be mown down in quick order immediately after.

I came across the Heroes of Black Reach ruleset and there are 2 existing mechanisms that could provide alternative options in the event of a damaged tank that could be thematic for this system.

The first is the Tank Busta Bomb (I can't see the attributes of the marker unfortunately as I don't own the game) but presumably this is something in the like of a Sticky Bomb? I imagine the placing of one of these would be suitably heroic for the game and re-affirm the strategy of infantry supporting tanks as opposed to letting them roam the battlefield in isolation. Has anyone house ruled the use of these?

The second is ramming which I believe was used as an act of desperation by the Russians frustrated by the quality of German armour? I'm not sure I like the rules as they are written because they take no account of the damage to the ramming tank itself. Also I understand this is not a demolition derby game, I would see it as a last ditch effort to halt the advance of a seemingly impregnable Tiger or Panther. You would attempt the ram in the full knowledge that you're likely to cripple your own tank in the action – more likely if your opponent has superior armour. If you had lost your primary weapon though it may be a chance worth taking. Has anyone house ruled something like this? Many thanks

Welcome to this system! 🙂

I have not seen this a as a problem in my games, but yes, it is possible for you to loose control like that, so keep your tanks safe and support them with infantry to keep other units of it. Remember that units cant shot past units, also anti tank guns, this is thematically displaying how important infantry support was. So a tank should not go aehad alone when the enemy tanks are just waiting.

For attacking, you got bazooka, equipment as rockets and sticky bombs, anti tank guns and your own tanks of coruse. These can work good as deterent to keep the enemy tank threats of your own tanks flanks.

You are mentioning a ramming by the russians, are you confusing it with the staretegy of driving the tanks very close, then being able to hit the strong german tnaks with much higher power? I tried to do some research, since I didn't have any prior knowledge of ramming, but it seems like it was not that well used, and yes it was a sign of desperation.

In short, when meeting an enemy group with tank support and you are playing Free Mode, don't go all in on tanks, get some rocket and anti tank guns that can make the tnak keep it's distance

Thanks for commenting everyone.

Yep, we'll take to look after our tanks in the future.

If I come up with rules for ramming that are fun, I'll be sure to share them.

For what its worth I have to repeat the caution about bazookas etc. Ive lost way too many HoN games because I carelessly ignored infantry support for my armored units. Ive never tried ramming vehicles. Not a bad idea…