Although my Quar infantry + All Quiet on the Martian Front steam tanks + Memoir 44 rules idea didn't exactly end up as promising as I initial thought, I kept toying with it...
After having a look at the other Command and Color system like the original Battlecry (ACW) or C&C Napoleonics and browsing through the Memoir 44 cards database I came up with the following solution...
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| This cute little Panzer III is about to be eaten by a huge All Quiet on the Martian Tank Baldwin MkIII! Picture by Steven MacLauchlan at Outpost Zero. |
Use cavalry instead of armour as the third basic unit of my games and demote steam tanks to special units. After all, this is not-WW1 so tanks are much less prevalent and cavalry much less anachronistic than during WW2.
Some play testing and fine tuning will definitely be needed but I expect to end up with basic unit looking like this:
- Infantry moves 2 hexes without fighting or moves only 1 hex and fights, fights with 3/2/1 dice at ranges 1/2/3, may Take Ground on a successful Close Assault.
- Cavalry moves up to 3 hexes and fights but does so with a slightly shorter range than infantry (3/2 dice at ranges 1/2, or 3/1, or maybe even 4/2 or 4/1?), may Overrun on a successful Close Assault.
- Artillery moves 1 hex or fight with 3/3/2/2/1/1 dice at ranges 1/2/3/4/5/6, ignores LOS and terrain.
The steam tanks would take a leaf of the Memoir 44 Tiger special unit's book:
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| Memoir 44 Tigers special unit cards. Picture from Days of Wonder website. |
- Each unit is a single miniature (thereby solving my initial problem of not being able to credibly fit three tanks in an hex) but each hit needs to be confirmed by a second die roll. That gives them a 1 in 12 chance of being hit but a single "hit point" (thus on the average needing the enemy to throw 12 dice at hit to destroy the unit) making it both tougher than the regular Memoir 44 armour unit (1 in 3 chance of being hit and three "hit points" thus needing an average of 9 rolls to be destroyed) but also making it possible to destroy the unit with a single die roll (albeit a lucky one). I think it gives the steam tanks a nice "monster with an Achilles' Heel" feel that suits early tanks quite well! And I can live with introducing a second die roll in the fight system as it stays confined to a select few special units.
- I'll probably reduce the speed to "Move 0-2 and fight" and drop the Overrun rule (but maybe give them Take Ground instead, although taking ground sounds more like a purely infantry affair?) to make them more the pondering behemoths I want them to be and give the cavalry more of its own tactical niche instead of just making it poor man's armour...
And with this Memoir of All Quiet on the Quar Front is back on the rails!
