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| Artwork that I did for a boardgame version |
The last time they were updated, it was simply to reduce the front armour of the StuG III by 1 point, so amendments have been minor and in keeping with that, I have just given them a further tweak to add in a few nuances, such as special traits for Hetzers and some minor changes to the Line of Sight rules.
A brief discussion follows concerning the tweaks.
Please press the 'read more' button for the rest of this post.
I am presently working on ACW and Napoleonic rules for hexes and thought I would look for some common features across the rules and perhaps standardise them between the rulesets, particularly between the ACW and Napoleonic sets as even though they are being worked on at the same time, their lineage is quite different from each other and an integration of systems might be more sensible ... Even if it only stops me getting confused!
As with any change, all the rules have to be looked at to make sure that the new changes do not impact in any unintended way elsewhere. This vetting of course led to some other changes, nothing drastic, mostly just minor updates. I prefer to design games that have broad brush strokes that give a feel without creating a lot of 'exception' type rules or rules that create a lot of 'case law'. In that regard, the changes presented here can be adopted seamlessly into the system without hurting previously written scenarios to any notable degree.
The main change comes in the line of sight rules. Now a unit on a hill can see over everything except another hill hex (even on the same hill), while fences and walls no longer block line of sight.
Walls and hedges still give protection and still count as obstacles to movement, but in the real world, where ground often undulates to varying degrees, I noticed that in field systems, one can very often see beyond field boundaries and roadside hedgerow or at least a goodly proportion of them.
Under the new rule, the hill becomes more significant, as ranged weapons (and observers) can typically dominate a more substantial area of ground. Slopes and plateau effects are not taken into account, hills allow units to see into the next hill hex, but not beyond it.
This can add some interesting nuances to the game board, increase the tactical value of high ground, reinforce the concept of ridge lines (without introducing new rules) and simplify the potential complications of dead ground, both on and off the hill.
A fairly significant addition is an optional rule that allows a turreted vehicle to fire outside their frontal arc without having to also physically change facing at the same time to do so. The turreted tank will always pay the fire penalty for firing outside the fire arc, even if repeatedly firing at the same target, but now has more choice as to which direction the heavier frontal armour should face.
In the original rules, vehicles always had to face a hex vertex (corner), but this caused a certain awkwardness for vehicles travelling along a stretch of road, as roads cross hex sides. So if a vehicle is truly following a road, then it's facing should reflect that it is crossing hexsides and therefore cannot be facing a vertex.
Now a vehicle using road movement follows the road itself and so this has created a new facing rule for that situation. On road vehicles only have one frontal hex and as a consequence have four flank hexes.
A discussion on Jay's blog (see Resources below) has led me to re-think the rule about armour passing a test before entering woods. I am happy with the test, but the prospect of repeat fails over several turns is probably not good for the game. Consequently, now if armour fails that test, it will automatically be allowed to enter the woods on the following turn.
The original rules allowed small mortars to lay smoke instead of HE, but for whatever reason, I had them still needing a 'hit' to place the smoke. This has now changed, smoke will automatically be placed in the target hex, but the mortar must still roll to see whether it goes 'ammo depleted', which it will on a score of '1' on a D6.
Elsewhere the rules have had a tidy up, with the odd word added here and there to give a fuller emphasis on some rules.
Finally, to celebrate my acquisition of a new 10mm German Hetzer SPG from Pendraken, I have added some optional rules for the vehicle in the same way as the German Tiger I and the Soviet ISU 152 vehicles have been covered, to help represent their small size and ambush capability.
The optional rules are;
2) If the tank is in cover the first time it fires at an armoured vehicle, it gets a +1 modifier to its attack to represent ambush.
3) If the German rolls 'Ambush' on the Random Event Table, they can fire with the Hetzer, but the shot is not limited to the 2 hex range mentioned for the event.
Once The Hetzer fires, none of these optional rules will apply to that vehicle for the rest of the game.
The optional rules that now cover three vehicles add a bit of interest, but more importantly are intended that the gamer will do similar rules for other vehicles that they feel could highlight their particular aspects.
Overall I am pleased to be still happy with the rules and that I did not feel that they needed a major overhaul. The changes are relatively minor considering the scope of the rules and I hope anyone using them continues to enjoy them. At the back of my mind is the thought of trying to create greater differences between infantry types based around their experience, training and leadership - but there are ways of doing that now 'in game' and so this can all wait for another time .... If at all.
Resources:
A copy of the rules can be downloaded from my Dropbox (thank you Dropbox) HERE.
An earlier blog post giving an AAR using these rules can be found HERE
My web pages that look at hex based games are HERE
Jay's blog HERE
Read about the campaign module designed for these rules HERE
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