Gaming in Pearland

I have to admit, I am a huge sucker when it comes to the collectible miniatures games. I seem to buy a box or a pack of pretty much every game that comes out. I am usually disappointed in the miniatures, but that was not true with the new Axis & Allies Miniatures game. I really like the mini’s, especially the tanks. The game itself is ok fun, but its not great. The rules are pretty basic, and I have never been a big fan of playing miniatures games on a 2-D map.

I decided the other day that what I really wanted to do was use my 15mm terrain, use my 15mm A&A tanks, grab a 3×3 piece of felt and play a tank battle game. I looked for rule sets, and not finding exactly what I wanted I decided I would just give a go at designing a game myself. I thought that it might be fun to detail my thought process, and design and development of the game here. I sat down last night and decided what my goals were for this project, and I think I have a good place to start.

I am not a military history, WWII, or even war game aficionado. I have played Axis & Allies, Memoir 44, seen Band of Brothers about 5 times, and have a few other bits of exposure to the period. I was never in the military, don’t know much about tanks and how they fight. Still, I think this project will be fun, and I am sure I will learn a bunch along the way. With this is mind I set out the following goals for this game design project:

• Goal 1: Base the game on real data. I want the game to at least have a basis in the real facts about the tanks from WWII. I have started to compile some statistics on a few Axis and a few Allied tanks (Shermans, Panzers, and Tigers). My goal is to extract from this data a simple mechanic for combat resolution.
• Goal 2: Make use of miniatures available for the A&A miniatures game. I have quite a few minis for the game. I want to make use of them, it as after all the inspiration for the project. The rules will be based around the tanks currently available for the A&A miniatures game.
• Goal 3: Keep the playing surface small. The reason I love DBA and HOTT is that I can play on pretty much any table at 15mm. I think this game needs to be played on a 3′x3′ surface max. I will design with that size playing surface in mind.
• Goal 4: Provide a dice based and diceless system. I have been leaning towards a d10 based system in my initial writings. But the more I think about it the more I would like to see a CRT used for the game as well. I would like to design a system that uses similar rules for everything but combat resolution. Allowing you to pick a game with dice or a game with a CRT.
• Goal 5: Start simple and expand. I would like to write a core set of rules and mechanics that allow for easy play, but also leave room to add other game elements in the future. I have decided a few things in this regard:
1. Multiple hit locations are possible.
2. The game will use each tanks primary weapon as a basis for determining effectiveness. Other weapons will not be used initially.
3. The game will have a limited number of tanks available at first. Less than what is available currently from the A&A game. I will focus on US and German tanks to start.

So there you have it, the 5 goals I have out for my game. As I work on the game I will post updates here, and provide some details of the game mechanics.