tank ridding

[Walrus]

Hi Guys
I guess I started to change my opinion of using tank riders all the time, to save on transport, provide smoke cover and spring ambushes, when i was playing Air Master a few years back.
He made some good points about how "gamey" it was to do this.
Just because it works in the game does not make it historical, and that was his main contention.

Once I got over my initial wanting to move up the ladder and that feeling was replaced by wanting the battles to have some historical aspect, or at least some real life aspect, mass tank riding into the heart of the battle was one of the things that I started to do without.

I look at it the same way I do for Weasel's FOO rule.
Up to the point i started using the FOO rule when playing against Chris I had always happily targeted many targets with one FOO...a tube per target, following the enemy around the map with the adjust fire feature.
In the end Chris made a good argument for improving the "real life" aspect of the battles and I am now quite happy to limit my arty strikes using the FOO rule when playing him, or others of a like mind.

I feel that it has improved the battles I play.

The same mentality applies to using many different types of troops in my force, you know, some paras, some commandos, some engineers, some conscripts etc.
It makes sense to do this to get maximum use of your points etc...but eventually you are lead to the way of playing that Hawks perfected so well....small multi arms groups made by buying companies and deleting all but the commander...giving you a tank, an APC, a scout vehicle, an engineer, a sniper, an infantry squad...you get the picture.
These little forces were / are devastating...but in the end they are also truly "gamey".

So, I suggested to Alien that, amongst other tactics, tank riding (unless it was the Russians in WW2 and even then you'd need to use the Tank Desant troops provided in the OOB) was a bit "gamey" and that most players would not be too keen to see it being used.

I fear I may have lead him astray as the initial poll seems to show that it is a tactic everyone still uses.

My apologies to Cesar.

I guess this is yet another good argument for having good communications with your opponents before the battle commences so that both players agree what is "fair" in the context of the coming battle.

I will alway put my hand up for any rule that gives more historical accuracy, and gets us closer to playing a RL battle...considering that is is a game after all, with all it's limitations.

On the other hand, I find it very easy to play "anything goes" battle too...though I feel that they are far less of a challenge to me.

Anyway...that's my 2 cents worth.

Cheers all
Walrus