Churchil Bridge-layer for GF9 Tanks!

This time I will go out of the ordinary, and to be frank, I am expecting that it may not be of the tastes of the many wargamers out there who love tanks, but, whatever, I'll give it a shot. How many of us know of the "glory boys", with the big guns and shiny toys - "boom" they go, and the bigger the gun, the more awe-inspiring sights we get from it. We however sometimes seem to forget about the other unsung heroes of the war - combat engineers, those carrying the main brunt of the war. Those who put out or deactivate mine-fields, but most of all who build and maintain infrastructure, the life blood of any armoured corps - without which any attack is stalled and foiled. For example, a simple and humble bridge, sometimes tankers or soldiers would be ready to give half a kingdom each, or even more, for a simple bridge over a river or gap. This is where these non-glorified boys come in - the bridge laying tanks. I have decided to devote some time into designing these chaps, and this will go in parallel to other design work, so there will be some stuff that goes "boom-boom" coming out as well. I will start with my favorite tank of the war for this project - a Churchill tank:



So here it is, love it or hate it, I will be very interested in hearing of your comments with regards to the game play, what do you think, and if it is better to change something, what are your suggestions?

Watch this space, within the couple of next days some more new combat tanks will come up. I will also post an alternate version of the Maus tank soon - the one I found from the GF9 forum (sadly RIP now), I can not agree with some little things, so that one will come out shortly as well.

I love it for sure!
I just got some of the new fow Churchills in the mail yesterday and was just thinking of all the Hobart's Funnies it would be fun to modify them into, not even thinking of how to adapt them into simple gameplay but now those wheels are turning. You may want to consider cutting down laying time into 2-terms, I could see it taking up to 2 movements to get it into position and then by the time you can use the bridge half or more of the game has been played out. But then of course, that might be ideal.

Game play wise I'm thinking inside a small box: a custom table with either an impossible terrain that has to be crossed or take 3-4 turns to maneuver around to capture an objective. British playing as mandatory attacker, other player defender. Keeping the bridge alive to make use of it being the real challenge for the British player. I'd be curious if you have something more creative in mind for a game use, this isn't very imaginative yet This scenario is why I was thinking the 2-turn deployment, in a standard 8 round attack/defend match it really saps a lot of time from the endgame. (the devil's advocate in me points out that a 20 point tank that serves its sole purpose 4 turns in the match isn't all that exciting)

So typing as a train of thought now, new idea! High ground in the enemy's corner that can only be breached with a bridge. Enemy can not deploy there and attacker wins if a single tank can sit on the objective. Thus if the defender can take out the Churchill its an automatic win for them. The challenge being able to escort it to the end goal taking out enemies along the way.



Hopefully that picture works with what I had in mind for the two ideas. The second one has fording areas (or even bridges already) that the attackers could snake their way through if the engineers are out for lunch that day.

Hopefully this added something to all your ideas, I'm looking forward to what else you come up with!

Cheers. I will need some time for thought on it. As to the game-wise use, the problem is that we almost exclusively play on a flat-world table, with maybe a hill or two, some trees, maybe a swamp and a little river which can easily be crossed. No usage of the real borken terrain types which require a lot of 3-D variation on our generic play-table, which frankly speaking is hard to achieve unless you have show-game quality stuff.

When I thought of this chap, I had in mind the urban battle-fields in Europe - rivers that have been constricted to canals that can not be crossed without a bridge within the cities. But this is highly scenario specific, not a generic thing that goes around and "shoots-'em-up" sort of thing. No matter what I do with it hence, it won't always be worth the points. However, when you do need it, the points can be more than its worth of doing.

This goes to the idea of points, a discussion that I have had with various wargamers over and over. The idea is essentially flawed in a way. Lets say in terms of Tanks!, I take a Soviet group of T34/85's. I either disperse them and have them attacking various opponents - first of all, I have no concentration, and I am easy to counter since any gap breached in my battle-line I will not be able to patch up. Even more, I won't be able to use the "coordinated fire" rules. However, if I bunch up, then I have a good concentration on one point of attack, I can use the "coordinated fire". Both ways, depending on the scenario can yield either disaster (think of bombardment upon bunched-up troops) or can yield me glory. Even more, I can just be blankly lucky with the dice on that day and ruin any perfect mathematical model. In all of these cases though, the points I pay remain the same. However, from game perspective, if I use my troops well, then their "actual points" value increases considerably.

This is even more evident for things that specialize in specific fields. If I put out the previously mentioned BT-42 with a howitzer against a tank, it will be crap - as it should be, it ain't a good anti-tank weapon. However, if I use it against infantry - it is gold. So, this is even more acute for specialized equipment, and one thing that even performing play-tests will yield various results that may be hard to boil down to a specific points value.

However, speaking of which, if you play a campaign, or, if you want to use the mechanic of the "big-map" game version, as I started working upon in the GuP supplement section, it may do you good if there are map squares in which terrain is broken and where bridges are necessary for completion of the match. Then this boy will be needed and may become the target of being taken out first and foremost.

So, really points values will heavily depend on where and how you use it. As to the creativity, it may be hard to think of something besides what I created, but I will give it a shot - it is only a bridge layer after all, nothing more spectacular. Thanks for the comments.