Panzer II B und C

In our AoT community, we took on the revision of Zvezda cards, because the official characteristics of many units we consider to be inadequate, and the price system even more so.

My favorite AoT unit, Panzer II, also got caught in the crossfire. My community colleagues unambiguously recognized the Zvezda model as a modification "B" with worthless armor and in no way agreed to leave it with the “2” defense value (as well as BT-5, by the way).
So we agreed to make two versions of the card — for Pz II B with defense 1 (cost 26 points) and for Pz II C which had additional armor plates with defense value 2 (29 points).

I immediately set on finding the C model. The option was found: my friend Alex made me a conversion from a Zvezda model. In fact, the only noticeable difference is the round hatch on the turret instead of the square one.

Start of AoT community in Ukraine?

We have built up an AoT community here in Ukraine: two players from Kyiv, one from Lviv, one from Dnipro, and one from Gomel, Belarus. We got used to playing remotely via Telegram: make 1-2 turns per day, no hassle, plenty of time to think over one's actions.

One of the last games was an encounter battle on a map with two villages. Me and my son played against Kyrylo from Dnipro. The game lasted 10 turns, and Wehrmacht achieved a decisive victory because the Red Army commander didn't inspect the map that closely and made a couple of crucial deployment mistakes.

It was fun, and we gonna use this map (slightly changed) for our next games.

Our first battle in North Africa

I've got desert maps from Hot War from my friend Alex recently, and on the 8th of January played our first battle Art-of-Tactic battle in the North African Theater of WWII.

This time, we played 2x2: me and my nephew Vitya (11 y.o.) played for the Germans while my son Nick (15 y.o.) and my other nephew Max (9 y.o.) were the Brits.

Our armies were more than 20 land units plus 3 aircraft for each side. The British side had more tanks (Lee platoon, Matilda II platoon, 2 Stuart platoons) while the Germans had only three armored platoons one of which was Sd.Kfz222 armored car. As compensation, the Germans had more artillery, and even the diminished to 2 guns German howitzer battery was very effective.

It was a meeting engagement scenario. Here are the starting positions:

Two win the game, one should score more victory points. Each player had an oil depot in the rear, capturing it gave 15 VPs. Also, each opponent's village hex costs 5 VPS.

The map and the order of battle dictated the flow of the game: evry side strived to capture the high ground in the center as it would allow directing aircraft and howitzers to the enemy's rear. 

Also, the road between the hills and the shrubbery became a real Schwerpunkt: Matilda and Pz IV clashed with one another there and had to fight 4 (!) rounds of close combat with no results, even though Germans helped its tanks with PaK-36 fire.

Another important factor was the use of aircraft. Both sides used it efficiently, and the German players made a mistake while anticipating air bombardment... The thing is, the British had Fairey Battle bomber that bombs two hexes at once. And the German player placed two armored units in line with a light anti-aircraft unit behind them hoping to shoot down the aircraft, BUT he forgot that the light AA gun can't shoot down heavy aircraft!.. As a result, Pz 38(t) and SdKfz222 were destroyed from the air in one turn. In its turn, Ju-87 destroyed the Lee platoon.

We played about 2.5 hours and managed to accomplish only 5 turns as much fighting and dice rolling accompanied each turn. The game was in a precarious balance. Each side had only one armored unit left after both Stuart platoons were destroyed—one by an anti-tank team+howitzers, second in close combat by German pioneers and Fallshirmjager (to much surprise of the British ;)

Having so few mobile units left with half of ammunition, it wasn't clear how the players could advance their attacks and gain victory points... But it was fun to play!

PS: I posted a short video from the start of this game on my YouTube channel.

Art of Napoleonics?

As my second war history hobbyhorse after WWII is Napoleonic Wars, right now I'm trying to develop my own rules for Napoleonic era based on AoT system to play on AoT maps.

The hex length in this case should be 100m, I think. And the maps become so small...

And here are my first Napoleonic units, 4 squadrons of Prussian cuirassiers, exploring the new battlefield:

Loss markers

One of the things I don’t like about the official AoT system is the absence of any loss markers. Crossing out the figures on unit cards doesn’t add clarity to the game: both a full-fledged company with 100% of personnel and a battered unit with only 1/5 unit look the same on the gaming table :(    I would also like to be able to see which units are pinned down. One commander’s glance at the battlefield — and the whole picture is clear!

I know that some players put dice next to the units to mark their strength, but this idea did not suit me—there is so little space on hexes, and the dice are too conspicuous.

To indicate losses and suppression, I'm using very simple markers—colored elastic hair ties (ponios):

They are easy to attach to unit flags and easy-to-see.

My colour system is the following:

– blue — 4 items are left in a unit

– yellow — 3 are left

– pink — 2 are left

– red — 1 is left

– black — the unit is pinned down

Here's how it looks in the game:

And here it is immediately clear that in this armored group each platoon has only one vehicle left:

Tournament unit cards

Intriguing news from the game publisher: many unit cards were revised, and it seems that for the better!
The updated cards are to be used at an official tournament this May.
Here are some of the new cards, more to follow.

Changes in the value of units that we use when levying troops

As I have repeatedly mentioned, I have a lot of complaints about the official costs of many Art-of-Tactic units. Therefore, it has long been itching for me to fix up the costs so it would be easier to find the right balance of forces when recruiting armies
If truth be told, it would do no harm to have the entire value system overhauled, but I am not ready for this yet :) So far, I have limited myself to correcting the most glaring injustices, in my opinion. Namely:
1) Soviet anti-tank rifle team (6135) — 15 >>> 12 points
German anti-tank rifle team (6216) — 16 >>> 13 points
   Reason: Too expensive price for two piece units without suppression fire and assault. While there should be a lot of them in an army to really make a difference on the battlefield. If you take two platoons of German anti-tank riflemen, you spend 32 points ... It’d be better to take two Pak-35s for thirty points, or two elite infantry companies.

2) Soviet 76mm regimental guns (6145) — 23 >>> 20 points
German 75mm infantry gun (6156) — 25 >>> 22 points
    Reason: a light artillery battery should not cost more than a platoon of light tanks, even Pz II or T-26. So we synchronously took 3 points off the Germans and the Soviets.

3) Soviet 76mm ZiS-3 guns — 26 >>> 23 points
German 75mm PaK-40 guns — 28 >>> 25 points
    Reason: I’ve written before about my misunderstanding why ZIS-3 costs only a point less than the SU-76. The same applies to PaK-40: an anti-tank battery at the price of a Pz III platoon? Oh, come on!
I reduced the cost of both guns by three points. Thus, for 81 points you can take either three self-propelled guns, or three ZIS-3 plus a machine-gun platoon. And for 84 points—three platoons of Pz III or three PaK-40 batteries plus Romanian infantry (and two more points will remain "for ice cream").

4) T-26 tank platoon — 19 >>> 21 points
Pz II tank platoon — 22 >>> 23 points
Pz 38(t) tank platoon — 25 >>> 26 points
T-34 tank platoon — 35 >>> 36 points

   I added one point to each of these four tanks. This, of course, will not save the overall situation of the total underestimation of tanks in the game, but better less than nothing...

5) I-16 fighter — 22 >>> 20 points
LaGG-3 fighter — 25 >>> 23 points
   Reason: There is much room for improvement of the airplanes cost system as well. But I limited myself to reducing the cost of these two comrades, that can’t attack ground targets and are not “kings of birds” in air battles. So why “pay” so much for them?