Tank Duel: Enemy in the Crosshairs.

I really like GMT Games.... they make interesting games with excellent, really high quality components.  But my god, some of their games are phenomenally dense and complicated!!  When I was younger I loved a rulebook with more sub-paragraphs than a set of local authority planning guidelines and that could be measured in kilograms.  I also used to love games that went on for days where you wore your opponent down by willpower and sheer lack of sleep!  These days however my stamina for lengthy games is very limited and my brain struggles to retain the simplest of rules.

A good example is Pendragon which I posted about HERE  last year.  It was a real thing of beauty but I never got beyond setting it up and playing one turn before I'd lost the will to live.  Luckily I managed to sell it on eBay for a profit so all was good.  But yet again I've been tempted back into the GMT snare and bought a copy of Tank Duel: Enemy in the Crosshairs.

This is a tank v tank game which they describe as a 'Beer and Pretzels' game... I wasn't sure what this meant in GMT terms but I was very pleasantly surprised when we finally managed a game at the weekend.  In TD each player commands one or 2 tanks but interestingly there is no board as such.  Each tank is represented by a dashboard which records crew status, damage etc and has all the data you need about your gunnery.  The tanks are fighting on an imaginary battlefield  with the dashboard recording the relative distance from the centre of the battlefield... in the pic below the tanks are both 600m from the centre

All the maneuvers and firing are determined by a deck of cards:  these determine initiative and  give the player a choice of actions such as move or fire but also allow you to determine terrain effects.  So for example I might announce that I am moving forward 200m and then finishing my move in a wood or a gully.  I can then use other cards to try and spot enemy tanks, flank hem, improve my firing, load special ammo etc.

The same deck is also used to determine whether shots hit, hit location etc although there is a separate deck of cards for damage.  Despite the lack of a board it is a surprisingly visual game... but you have to provide the visuals in your head.  Describing your actions each turn does make it very narrative driven which I liked.

My son and I very quickly found we were flying through the turns after a hesitant few opening rounds.  The designers say they were fans of World of Tanks and it does have that kind of feel.  In the opening few rounds my first T34 advanced cautiously and took up position in a wood where it fired of a couple of long range shots which missed.  My 2nd tank moved more rapidly forward towards the battlefield centre but became bogged down in the mud (you can play nasty cards like that on your opponent which my son took great delight in doing!).  Before I could get out of the deep mud a shot from a PzIV hit my tank...BOOM!  The damage deck only contains 1 card that is an instant explosion and my son managed to pull it straight away!  He did the same thing later in the game... remind me never to play poker with him!!

If your tank is destroyed a new one enters the edge of the battlefield so the action doesn't stop.  The time limit is determined by an 'end game' card which is added to the deck after an agreed number of passes through the whole deck.  As you are drawing cards for just about everything this happens pretty quickly so a game is easily playable in a couple of hours but could be longer or shorter if you agree.

There is a single QRS which isn't overly complicated and we were able to largely work off this by the end, only referring to the rules  for more complicated things.  The Play Book which comes with the rules contains an excellent and detailed description of the first few turns of a game which demonstrates the rules in action very clearly.  This also contains various scenarios etc as well as mechanics for playing solo

Great fun and a nice manageable game in a couple of hours.  Surprisingly the game only features German and Soviet tanks although a North Africa expansion is in the pipeline