First game of February!
In an effort to get in some mid-week gaming, Tuesday night, I bamboozled my son into playing Panzer Kids again. Honestly, it didn't take any arm twisting once I got the tanks out.
The scenario is based loosely on my own lose interpretation of Berezovka Heights in July 1943. I decided on two victory conditions for the Germans to win - they had to clear and claim at least one hill, and get one vehicle off the board via the road. They had 7 turns to do it and they couldn't leave the table until turn 3 or after (I wanted to prevent a race down the road). Otherwise, the Soviets would win.
Vehicles in three scales on the table together - but that didn't lessen the fun.
Below the young commander (he plays both sides, I adjudicate and provide advice) studies the situation in turn 2 (I think):
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| He's kneeling on the floor. He's 9 and is getting closer to 5' tall every day. |
The Germans managed to clear both hills and claimed one as theirs, but victory celebrations were called off when on the last roll of the last turn, the Soviets destroyed the Panzer heading for the road:
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| An over view of the carnage. |
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| The last shot. |
I really like this game a lot. It scratches the itch to play a game, doesn't take more than a quick skim to refresh my memory, and let's me get out my vehicles that really don't get used that much ordinarily. It's also the perfect level of complexity for my son, who isn't big on games in the physical realm.
It holds his interest which is a minor miracle.
An aside, if you're familiar with the game then you know Panzer Kids treats hills as impassable for tanks (I suspect because it simplifies things for the intended audience) - and yet the Stug is on the hill. For this scenario I decided I would allow them to do so, because I wanted my son to have to consider who he would relegate that duty to and to realize he couldn't sacrifice his entire force just to get someone off the table.
This time we used two advanced rules: ATGs and the flanking fire rules.
I was excited by the former because I just like seeing them on the table. The latter really made things interesting from my point of view, as several times I was able to pull the commander aside and show him how different moves might expose a tank to more or less fire against weaker side and rear armor. And how he could maneuver tanks to use cover and to construct fire groups to gang up on a single target. Trying to give him a little instruction in thinking ahead and such.
Still, I was careful to let him have the final say and merely offered comparisons of possible outcomes that he could choose between.
Despite the fact that he clearly wanted the Soviets to win (he's studying Russian and Russian history), he made good decisions for the Germans and got excited to score a hit regardless of which side it was for.
It was a great time and he was super excited by the whole thing. I'm hoping to get him to play again this weekend, although I know it's probably pressing my luck!
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