Churchill Crocodile Flamethrower

@General:

I would like to disagree with all of you.

I have no problem with the three 6’s immediately destroying a tank.  There are easy ways to protect a tank from getting into a vulnerable position to begin with.

The game has also been well researched.  I don’t think the designers are way off on this.  And… if you roll 18 dice, you have just a 16% chance of rolling three 6’s.  So, you do the math when you are dealing with fewer dice.

And I’m sure most of you are capable of preventing a flamethrowing unit from getting that close to a tank anway.

Okay, in friendly games people are not going to abuse this piece. However it’s a whole other story in tournament mode.

(1) The first red flag is that all of the GenCon winning tournament armies had this unit. For 100pt constructed, the top 3-4 armies had this unit. The most broken units have a tendency to show up in these situations.

(2) It’s not about protecting a tank from being flamed, it’s about winning the objective and then it’s about points. The Croc circles around the objective until you have to come after it on turn 7. You have to bring in your most expensive tank the Croc has 7/6 armor. Then I pin your tank with my Croc, Shermans, and M5 Stuart. The Croc autokill your beast, I maybe loose a Sherman or M5. I win on points.

(3) Don’t assume this game has been well researched. They are putting the game out so fast and they are so far ahead that the feedback from the community will not be incorporated right away. Also, my impression is that avalon hill doesn’t have as much experiece in the collectible miniatures as the boardgames. Finally, it appears that they do not beta test the new sets so they only have internal experience and feedback with the peices.

(4) I’m not sure how you got your numbers. We did the math and you are WAY OFF! With 13 dice it is a 37% chance of auto-killing any vehicle.

Your last statement, in the quote, just shows me that you are considering the basic mechanics of the standard scenario. To win you need to be on the objective, 2 movement is plenty movement to hide from you until round 7.

@General:

Maybe you could reduce the flamethrower’s special ability to attacks in the same hex, meaning range 0.  I can see a flamethrower frying a tank in close combat, but maybe not from a range of 50 to 100 meters (the rule book states that each hex is 100 meters from side to opposite side).

Either way, the odds of throwing three sixes on seven dice are low.

Re: a house rule to account for a flame-thrower blowing up when hit by opposing fire, probably not necessary considering only 4 successes disrupts, 5 destroys it.

I think most house rules are stupid and unecessary anyway.

Sorry about the edit on your post. The problem with being the moderator/administrator is sometimes I click the wrong button.

Anyway, I like house rules. You don’t. It’s all good either way.

Please excuse my Math error.  It is a 37% chance of rolling three 6’s on 18 dice.  So for 13 dice (The Croc’s short range attack) you would be talking in the 25% range of probablity for roasting an enemy tank.  Which is still very low.  I haven’t played a huge number of games either with or against the Crocodile.  If I do and see the same problem I would be open minded enough to change my mind.

I just think there are ways around any units strength.  How about the Panzerfaust?  A couple of them in the same hex as a Croc could do a lot of damage.

There are always weaknesses to exploit.

No, you are wrong. There is a 37% chance to roll 3 6s on 13 dice. I think it’s 25% on 10 dice.

I’ll dig up the math we did and post it.

The killer team:

Croc
2x Shermans
M5 Stuart
Red Devil Commander

The Shermans and the M5 deal with infantry. Panzerfaust 1 gets toasted (or just killed normally) by the Croc. The other one is dealt with by either the Shemans or more likely the M5. Indeed the Panzerfausts will probably disrupt the Croc but less likely to damage it.

An army of Panzerfausts and a beefy tank to keep the Shermans busy might do the trick. But now instead of the M5 I might take a BAR Gunner and US half-track instead of the M5.

PAK-40s would wreck that army.

This is pretty good research for a board game.  Read the part about the flame thrower.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/article/ah20050715b

@General:

PAK-40s would wreck that army.

If PAK-40s could move in the movement phase, then yes I would agree. Their limitation is it is very hard to move them unless you win initiative. It is very hard to get them to protect the objective (on most maps). If you roll the PAK-40 onto the objective the Croc flames it. As for the other tanks. As long as I line up a 2 on 1 or 3 on 1 shot, then you disrupt one of my tanks and I destroy your PAK-40. If you had 4 PAK-40s, that might cause some problems.

But this is what I think I do instead against the PAK-40s.

Croc.
Sherman
Sherman
US Half  track
BAR Gunner
5 pt commander (Commisar or Nationalist Chinese commander)

Go first, either by winning or losing iniative. Roll up with the BAR Gunner on the half track with a 1 on 1 shot. The PAK 40 now cannot attack. Go around and dispose of the threatening PAK-40s that way. With the BAR Gunner you can really eliminate a lot of choices.

On the other hand I’m hoping there is an effective way to use the PAK-40s, I just haven’t figured it out yet. Need more play testing time.

Basically, the Croc is broken and I don’t like it. So I’m looking for a killer Axis or Allied team that can beat it. It seems like it should be there now with Set II out, just need to find it.

I happen to sleep with both my Crocodiles under my pillow.