Changing the balance between Armour and Everything Else

My gaming group has been puzzling over ways to increase the threat to armour and armoured vehicles, so that it's not quite so lopsided, without deviating too much from history. Some alternate house rules we're considering, although we haven't playtested these yet:

a) SUPPRESSION: Allow machine guns and mortars, which can normally only attack a tank in Assault, to make a Suppression Fire attack against a tank or armoured vehicle at their normal range. Use the Firepower that the shooting unit would use in assault against its target. Such attacks can never inflict damage (or reduce the tank's defense in any way); but if they roll at least one successful hit, the target must make a Fortitude test or become Suppressed. (Might say this only works vs. light tanks.)

b) DESPERATE ASSAULTS: Allow infantry ton assault tanks and armoured vehicles in any kind of terrain, even open ground. However when assaulting an armoured unit in any terrain that doesn't currently allow it, the assaulting unit must first pass a Fortitude test. If the test fails, the infantry unit does not move and the assault does not take place. This test must be repeated each turn of an ongoing assault in the open; failing the test in an ongoing assault means becoming suppressed.

If any tank or armoured vehicle is Suppressed, allow infantry to assault it in open ground without having to pass a Fortitude test first.

c) SHORT-RANGE A.T.WEAPONS: Allow regular infantry units to make an attack against vehicles in adjacent hexes using the infantry unit's assault firepower against that target type. This attack can be the result of a Fire, Defend, or Ambush order, but not Suppressive Fire. We assume they're using some kind of limited, short-range AT weapons (not historical, but...). A squad can do this once; put a mark the unit's 'tank panic' box on the front of the unit card to indicate they have made their AT attack. If the unit re-arms from a truck or supply depot, remove the mark; the unit has regained this ability. So it’s essentially one-shot, and only for adjacent targets… but it’s better than nothing.

d) IMMOBILIZING VEHICLES: I would really, really like to see rules to immobilize vehicles, but I can't think of a good way to implement them just yet. One wrinkle is that each tank on the board represents a squadron and not a single vehicle. Still, it would add new possibilities. Might just be an additional roll any time a tank is attacked: if you take any hits from AP weapons (another tank, an AT gun, maybe MG vs. light tanks), roll one die and become immobilized on a 1; for HE (mortars, artillery, dive bomber) or Assaults, become immobilized on a 1 or 2.

I'll update this topic if we have a chance to try these in the game; we might adopt some and discard others.

Nice proposals. We use one of them as homerules.

JonDee пишет: a) SUPPRESSION: Allow machine guns and mortars, which can normally only attack a tank in Assault, to make a Suppression Fire attack against a tank or armoured vehicle at their normal range. Use the Firepower that the shooting unit would use in assault against its target. Such attacks can never inflict damage (or reduce the tank's defense in any way); but if they roll at least one successful hit, the target must make a Fortitude test or become Suppressed. (Might say this only works vs. light tanks.)

This sounds good.

JonDee пишет: b) DESPERATE ASSAULTS: Allow infantry ton assault tanks and armoured vehicles in any kind of terrain, even open ground. However when assaulting an armoured unit in any terrain that doesn't currently allow it, the assaulting unit must first pass a Fortitude test. If the test fails, the infantry unit does not move and the assault does not take place. This test must be repeated each turn of an ongoing assault in the open; failing the test in an ongoing assault means becoming suppressed.

May be with moral lowered to 2. There is a huge probability that unit's commander will refuse to execute this order.

JonDee пишет: If any tank or armoured vehicle is Suppressed, allow infantry to assault it in open ground without having to pass a Fortitude test first.

Good idea. May be with standard Fortitude test.

JonDee пишет: c) SHORT-RANGE A.T.WEAPONS: Allow regular infantry units to make an attack against vehicles in adjacent hexes using the infantry unit's assault firepower against that target type. This attack can be the result of a Fire, Defend, or Ambush order, but not Suppressive Fire. We assume they're using some kind of limited, short-range AT weapons (not historical, but...). A squad can do this once; put a mark the unit's 'tank panic' box on the front of the unit card to indicate they have made their AT attack. If the unit re-arms from a truck or supply depot, remove the mark; the unit has regained this ability. So it’s essentially one-shot, and only for adjacent targets… but it’s better than nothing.

Very bad idea. Wait for late war infantry which will have AT weapons.

JonDee пишет: d) IMMOBILIZING VEHICLES: I would really, really like to see rules to immobilize vehicles, but I can't think of a good way to implement them just yet. One wrinkle is that each tank on the board represents a squadron and not a single vehicle. Still, it would add new possibilities. Might just be an additional roll any time a tank is attacked: if you take any hits from AP weapons (another tank, an AT gun, maybe MG vs. light tanks), roll one die and become immobilized on a 1; for HE (mortars, artillery, dive bomber) or Assaults, become immobilized on a 1 or 2.

I think that it is not possible to make "immobilized" rule ballanced in this game scale.