Achtung Panzer! Blood & Steel starter set

War is Hell! Said US Civil War General, William Tecumseh Sherman, quite rightly so, but with Achtung Panzer! war-gaming can be much more palatable. As the tanks named after him take on German Panthers in Warlord Games skirmish level starter-set alternative to its hugely popular Bolt Action World War II combat rules.

Wait! Now I know what you’re going to say, Bolt Action being in 1/56 scale with large figures and vehicles you only play skirmish level action on a standard 6×4 table anyway! (if you want massed tank battles you need 1/100 Flames of War or even 1/300 stuff) Achtung Panzer! is different, however, the fighting is at a much more detailed level, your tanks and crew have individual characteristics, you micro manage your ammunition and firing and there is card play bringing random events with supporting Infantry, Anti-Tank, Artillery and Aircraft and the like all consigned to “Asset” cards.

So how does it all pan (zer) out?

Blood and Steel

The Blood and Steel Starter set is a biggish and very deep box that sets you up to fight in Northern France shortly after the D-Day landings. You get sturdy plastic kits to make 2 Panther tanks of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment and 3 Sherman tanks of the British Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, a fighting unit from Nottingham (nearby Warlord Games HQ). One of the Shermans is the upgraded “Firefly” model with a larger 17pdr gun. Also included are 2 Ruined Farmhouse kits, 2 packs of ancillary bits and pieces and decals. You get a 116 page book of rules and historical background plus another 12 page booklet with further background of the specific vehicles and how to build them and suggested paint schemes. A quick reference guide with cut out rulers on the side, 5 dice and 3 bags of flames and smoke!

Construction

With any miniature model based set like Achtung Panzer! there are two things to consider: the Models and the Game System.

First the models. They’re well made with a high level of detail in a slightly flexible polystyrene that go together well and have no flash. The build instructions are of the “flat-pack furniture” school with exploded diagrams and a little text with both the two tanks being handled differently. The Panther has numbered pieces linked to the same numbers on the sprue, which is helpful, but no leader lines showing exactly where the smaller pieces are to be fitted to the main body, which is not!

The Shermans have the opposite approach with leader lines but no numbering. The two Sherman variants could be better served by having a small section highlighting the differences of Gun and Turret on the Firefly without duplicating all the sections that are the same.

The illustrations could be sharper to aid identification of the smaller parts: Lights, Lugs, Hooks etc. and the exact orientation of some other parts.

On the positive side the level of detail and accuracy is great. I particularly liked the way the upper levels of the tank tracks had a realistic level of “sag” as they pass over the return rollers. These can be painted and detailed to make impressive models.

The 2 farmhouse kits, both the same set of parts, leave you free to combine and construct them how you wish to provide alternative sets of ruins. I found a very useful photo by Googling Old Normandy Farmhouse, which looked like it could have ben the inspiration for Warlord’s model, to help in painting and detailing.

Gameplay

How does the system perform? Well first let’s say this is a tabletop game bringing in elements of boardgaming and RPGs rather than an accurate simulation. This has to be the case because at a nominal scale of 1/56 even a 6ft table only represents a distance of 112 yards and the 75mm gun of the Sherman had a max range of over 2,300 yards and could penetrate 81mm of steel at 500 yards! The concept, therefore, of short and long range in this game has little meaning and the “to hit” rolls and penetration figures are often the same.

This is why Achtung Panzer! is set in the “Bocage” area of Northern France with its high, impenetrable hedgerows where anti-tank guns and bazooka squads could lie in wait for their armoured prey. These squads are represented by the game’s Asset cards and Events that can be played from Ambush Terrain. It’s a shame that we don’t get any hedgerows in the box but I’m sure experienced battle gamers can knock up something from lichen or garden materials.

Your platoon of tanks is set up by spending points from a given total on your tanks and crew. Each tank type has a base value with a Low Calibre crew and this is increased if you have either a Medium or High Calibre crew. Then rolling a D6 against this crew Calibre gives you from 3 to 9 “Stars” to allocate to your 3 man crew: Commander, Gunner and Driver. More stars can give them unique abilities and will increase their chance of being able to pass a Crew Test to perform Actions specific to their roles.

You’re dealt a hand of Event cards that can be played and replenished during a Game Turn and you get from 2 – 7 Asset stars to spend on country specific Assets representing support units.

Game turns consist of determining Initiative and whether your commander should be Buttoned or unbuttoned i.e. poking out of his hatch, followed by 3 Action phases of moving and firing and a final bit of admin.

Its All In The Detail

3 Action Phases? Wow!

Yes, but you’ve got a lot to do. At the start of the turn you select a Command Token to say if your Tank will move and if so in which direction. This will hold for the 3 Action Phases. In each Action Phase you move and can rotate your turret to one of its four possible quadrants (so don’t glue it in place in the build!) and you take a Tactical Action, either before or after this movement.

There are 10 Tactical Actions :-

2 are further movement options Pivot in place and Scoot up to 6″ dependent on dice throw.

You can Pop Smoke throwing smoke grenades out of your hatches to hide yourself

The other 7 relate to firing your main or secondary armament. You need to Spot a target before you can shoot at it. You can spend another action to Aim at it to increase your chance of a hit. You need to Load ammunition of your required type into the Load area on your tank data card then make it Ready before you can Fire. If it’s the wrong type you’ll have to Unload it and Load the right type before you can Fire. See! Not so much action now, eh?

During all these Actions your 3 crew members: the Commander, the Gunner and the Driver will influence your chance of success. They each have an individual Star rating of from 1 to 4 Stars representing Green, Trained, Veteran or Ace. These are either determined by paying points at the start or by going with pre-selected crews. If you play a campaign crew members gain stars through experience unless they become casualties.

Steady Build-up, Sudden Action

Early moves will see the combatants jockeying for position where they can get a line of Sight (LOS) on to an enemy through various pieces of blocking terrain. You can decide whether to take a snap shot, with a lower chance to hit, or spend another Tactical Action to Aim and greatly increase your chance of success. Then Load the appropriate shell and Fire!

All the guns in this set take 2 Tactical Actions to get from the Ammunition Rack to the Ready area unless you use Forced Load where the Gunner can Load straight into the Ready state on a successful die roll. For more skilled Gunners this is easiliy achievable and as it increses your rate of fire (ROF) by 50% is well worth the risk of the occasional failure.

Once targets are acquired and the guns start firing the action is pretty quick and brutal as tanks start “brewing up”. The 17pdr gun of the Firefly and the two Panthers main armament can penetrate even the frontal armour of any of the other tanks anywhere on the battlefield whereas the 2 Sherman Vs will have to try and manoeuvre to hit a Panther on the side or rear.

There is a timer for the Scenarios where at the end of a turn, i.e. 3 Phases, you roll a D6 to see how many minutes have elapsed and this can be used for the arrival of reinforcements and the overall end of the scenario. Despite using the suggested 2xD6 for a quicker game we found that we’d run out of tanks long before we’d run out of time!

General Debriefing

You may think Achtung Panzer! Is a simpler game than Warlord’s Bolt Action! It is not, it is different. Here the focus is on tanks. Just tanks with no Infantry or other elements to distract you. With the micro-manging of how you crew and operate said tanks. This can be Heaven or this can be Hell.

Games are relatively short so you can build a campaign and advance your crew members. If they survive! It is galling to slowly advance your star man through several batlles to get him picked off by some lucky shot. But that’s war I guess.

On a design note I felt you did not get enough Asset cards in relation to the number of Event cards you churn through. Typically you only can “afford” 2 or 3 and if your opponent sees you’ve used them then they can approach Ambush terrain with no fear that there might be a Bazooka or Panzerfaust team waiting for them there.

One thing is exemplary, however, the rule book is a beaut with lots of interesting historical details throughout. Plus it has full colour copies of all the Asset, Event cards and all the tokens you need in the game so you could make copies in case of mishaps or if you wanted to change the balance of the game. Its also got data on all the major British, German, US and Soviet tanks and their Guns so with the supplied blank Data Cards you could bring in vehicles you already have from Bolt Action! into the Achtung Panzer! system. Finally there is a blank roster sheet to record your campaign progress.

All in all, Achtung Panzer! is an excellently researched and produced product as you would expect from Warlord games providing a different approach to WWII tank combat.

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