Global War 2 1936 and 1939 - Tank Destroyer

I use them - or at least try to have them available.  I don’t rely on them heavily though.  Tank is still the better choice, but they are still fun and add variety.

@Erocco:

Does this seem a bit OP given medium tanks are A-D-M-C 6-5-2-6 w/ blitz ability.

Forgive my ignorance, but what does OP mean?

It is an arguable point.  Historically speaking, is a tank destroyer more powerful than Self Propelled (SP) Artillery?  Or are they about the same with different focus?  Keep in mind that regular artillery cost 4 - so 5IPCs is that middle ground between Art. and Tank.

I didn’t mean to end the conversation.  I too would like to hear from the community on what they think about the Tank Destroyer unit.  I any of ya’ll agree that the TD is too much power for the cost and scale - what would ya’ll do different?

Possibilities:
Lower attack and/or defense
Raise Target Selection to 75%-100% of attack/defense value (if the A/D is lowered)
Change target selection to be against tanks only…

Thoughts?  If there is a lot of agreement in the matter with logical reasoning behind it, it is possible to change the official stats.  But only if the idea is a community wide thing.

Erocco:  Have you thought about posting this topic and its questions on the Global War website?  There are fans there who are not necessarily part of this forum that might also agree with this.

Recomend you ask this in house rules or customization threads. You will have more traffic. Mostly just global players here, this question is applicable to any game. Although its easier to fit into a d12 system than d6.

HBG sounds like they are making a master unit sheet. I had asked them if they were adding their new units to national reference sheets. They said its in the works. I cant get our group to add new units unless its in the game. Adding railway expansion was complicated by new pages for unit values.

True, it is applicable to A&A, but I would like to hear specifically from Global Players first.  HBG actually has rule sets for all of their supplemental/expansion piece sets.  Most of them are simply waiting on graphics to be completed.  What does that mean for the TD?  If the community as a whole feels strongly about this unit (or others) it is not too late to possibly change the official stats.  Just an idea.

It would be awesome if HBG combined the piece rule sets into the reference sheets.  You mentioned railway expansion.  Are you talking about Fighting Railways or the gauge changes?

Rail gun and armoured train from the expansion, Fighting railways. Had to give everyone a write up on new units. We were constantly looking for stats n costs.

We don’t have any tank destroyers yet. After the annoyances of multiple stat sheets for units. We will not incorporate any new units till the new sheets are out. However I believe I would perchase a few of these. For a dollar more than mech. Its not able to blitz but has the target select and increased attack. Mixed stacks always work better for me. They are harder to counter unit wise. It will not replace any perchases I make unless I’m looking to countering a mainly tank army. The unit stats from your first post seem reasonable, but I’ve never used it.

Similar to countering a mainly carrier navy with subs. Subs only target the carrier not the planes, and at a cheaper cost. I’ve thrown a stack of cheap German/Japanese  subs away, just to kill the american carrier fleet. Planes may all survive but not their carriers. Changes what you need to defend later. I can see this increasing the purchases of cheaper armored units to counter TD stacks. Just as we now never use carriers without a large naval destroyer/sub stack for defense.

Definitely a worthwhile expense for Russia if a German tank stack is knocking, to buy a bunch of tank destroyers. Better on defense than tanks but not ideal for an attack. I’d probably be purchasing these instead of just infantry for defense. May help reduce the rediculous amount of infantry in Russia.

Costs more than self propelled artillery on attack, minus the first strike. But better for multiple rounds and has target selection. I’ve found the target selection in tac aircraft to be surprisingly helpful if you have 5 or more units. Probably the same with the TD against tanks.

Yeah since you brought it up im definitely motivated to use these units. Guess I’ll be buying a stack of white units and painting to match the missing HBG colours. Funny how fast my piece addiction kicks in. Its the jet fighter and heavy tanks all over again lol. Probably the light tanks too so I dont lose expensive armour against these TD.  Ahh guess im working overtime again, for this obsession of a game.

Hey,

iam also using TD and  AT-Guns in my A&A version.
The TD got the ability to blitz the AT-Gun only if it pulled by Mech.Inf. for example.

Both units in my game only got a defensive ability to “Ambush”.
Before the first round of combat starts. The defender got the possible to shot with these “ambushed” Units on the attackers armored units first.(Tanks,Heavy Tanks, TD and all types of Mech.Inf)
Each involved TD or AT-Gun got only 1 shot but in “ambsuh” mode both units gain +2 against armored units but no target selection. The attacker have to decide wich unit is hit and immediately removed from the board.

@Erocco:

Looks like you’ve made custom/house rules for the TD. Did you do that because you think the official rules from HBG make the TD too powerful?

Yes i made this custom/house rule because i use the HGB global 39 version and as we put in this units/rule into my game global 36 was not released.

I found what works for our games is a modified Tank Destroyer that has:

Air Attack 2.
Attack 4.
Defense 4.
Move 2.
Cost 6.

Abilities: Blitz, Target at 1-3, and First Strike (at +1) vs Armor (barring H-Armor) and Vehicle Class.

@Erocco:

Based on the German Minor Set 1 tank destroyers stats are A-D-M-C 5-5-2-5 with target selection: 1-2 (armor class units). Does this seem a bit OP given medium tanks are A-D-M-C 6-5-2-6 w/ blitz ability.

Btw how many of you use the tank destroyer unit for all nations in your games?

This target selection is based on an over-amplified bias toward tactical combat scale.
At strategic level, a given division has to fight other units which are in a given TTy and cannot pick according to its taste.

And compared to a Tank, a 5 IPCs targeting unit with one small offense pip (on a 12-sides dice) less is clearly better.
Fortunately, blitz is for Tank.

You may think about lowering some combat values but add a combined factor with Tank, Mech Inf or even Self-Propelled Artillery.