Tank on Tank: Westfront - Design Your Own

There's a very simple but effective Design Your Own scenario system for Tank on Tank: Westfront, so I thought I'd give it a try. There are two possible types of scenario, one being a basic Meeting Engagement and the other a Meeting Engagement with Objectives, so I decided to go for the vanilla option, aiming for around 200 points a side. The guidelines suggest between 250 and 350 points for a decent sized battle but I find that this causes a bit of congestion, so I went for a slightly lower total.

I haven't used a range of the units available in the boxed counter set, so I also decided to incorporate as many of these as possible, most of which are the late war AFV's that only feature in the last five core scenarios. With a 200 point top limit I wasn't going to have all the whistles and bells but I could include some Panthers, a Tiger, a few M26 Pershings and a P47D airstrike or two. I used the airstrike option in my last game and it was fun but a bit useless, so I thought I'd have another go!

The mechanism for a DIY Meeting Engagement scenario is really straightforward:

1. Decide the number of points both sides will play.
2. Purchase units according to the points decided upon.
3. Roll 1D6. The winner (Player A) decides which map to use, whether snow is used or not, and what long-edge side of the map they will set up on.
4. Player B sets up second but moves first.
5. Both players set up on any hex row bordering the map edge.
6. If using the Snow Map, check the rules for fighting in the snow.
7. The game lasts 10 turns.
8. To win the game, a player must destroy 50% of his opponents units (using points values) by the end of Turn 10. If neither side achieves 50%, it's a draw.

I worked out two roughly equal forces using the instructions and aiming for a scenario in February - March 1945, when the Pershing would have actually been in action. The option to use a King Tiger had to be scrapped and a Tiger I used instead as, by this point in the war the remaining King Tigers had been redeployed to what was left of the Eastern Front. This was not a problem as there was only a single point in difference between the two and I could boost the Tiger up to Ace status anyway.

German Kampfgruppe (Player A)

1 x Tiger @ 24 / Ace @ +10

1 x Panther HQ @ 31

3 x Panther @ 23

2 x Infantry @ 26

1 x Pak40 AT gun @ 29

Total = 215 points

American Task Force (Player B)

1 x Pershing HQ @ 31

2 x Pershing @ 23

2 x Armoured Infantry @ 26

2 x Priest SPG @ 27

2 x P47D Airstrikes @ 18

Total = 219 points

I thought about using a Wespe unit to support the German Kampfgruppe and the 105mm Howitzer battery for the Americans but this would have thrown the balance out and made it harder to fit in everything to the 200 point target. I think the two forces are fairly well balanced and should produce an interesting, fast moving game. The German armour is powerful and they have a useful AT gun but the Americans have plenty of fire support to soften things up before they go in for the assault.

I'm hoping to play this scenario out later today, so will post an after action report when it's done.