|
Welcome to the foremost, most accurate WWII land warfare game simulation system (or it will be when completed.)
You may notice that there is no advertising on this site. This is a paid for commercial site. But, the game system is free to everyone wanting to play it. You may ask "How does he make any money doing this?" Well, its like that old joke - We lose money one each sale, but we make it up with our volume. Actually this has a little bit of truth in it. Usually it takes about $2,000-$3,000 to develop and produce a about 1,000 rules sets. Since I've only made a profit on one of the 5 game systems I've developed I decided to cut my loses up front and pay the $15 each month for this site. I lose less money. Besides I don't like the marketing, selling, delivering and hassling with printers and distributors that goes on in the production. I just like the design and art so this way I get to do the fun part and skip the unpleasant things.
Why Play Panzer War?
Why Panzer War and not some other 1:1 rule set like ASL or 1:many Speamhead or skirmish Battleground? Many other games covering this scale and detail seem to be like Avalon Hill's Advanced Squad Leader board game. With +3 ,+2 , +0 -3 or some factor added to a basic to-hit number for each weapon for 3-5 range bands. While these probably are better for playing miniatures than ASL itself, they are probably not a good as made for miniatures rules. Only a few rules have originality one is WRG's Armor & Infantry Rules 1939 - 1950 or their clone Firefly. Another is Combat Commander Modern rules or its WWII version called Battlefield Commander. These were written before ASL and don't take anything from them. Of course we go into pretty much detail in Panzer War and some may not care or like that much detail. For those that don't care there are plenty of more streamlined less detailed rules too choose from. There are also many large scale games that portend that you are controlling a brigade, division or the entire Eastern Front. It seems though as this great field marshal you also lead each company into hiding behind the shed in Mrs. Higgins garden. Then there are rules systems that are said to be for almost any scale. Just multiply (or divide) something by a number. You know what they say about a system of many scales? It's master of none.
Now the Reasons:
1. Panzer War is rare in that you can calculate what the armor of a vehicle will be if you don't find it in the charts. Armor value isn't given in quatludes or some other made up factors. The armor values are basically the armor basis in centimeters multiplied by 1 over the cosine of the angle. (This will get you in very close agreement to what we would calculate, though we also would include armor quality and curvature.) (Cast or heavily bolted armor may be only worth 95% of plate.)
2. Have you ever read accounts where several tanks were knocked out in a minute or two of fierce combat? Have you ever played a game where a single tank could knock out two or three enemy tanks in a single turn? Probably not. Not unless you play Panzer War. And multiple hits can be determined from a single die roll so you save time. One of the fellows who helped shape our multiple hit rules concept was a M60A3 tank gunner. His concept of fire was three shots - three hits - three kills within 15 seconds. He demanded (and whined) until we got something acceptable to him. That is why in Panzer War a single tank, like a Tiger or Panther or PaK gun can ambush a group of Shermans or T-34s and destroy 2-3 or even 4-5 in a single 75 second game turn. A Michael Wittmann commanded
|
|
