Most micro armor oriented rulebooks and games these days tend to be replicas of some encyclopedia of tanks that was somehow crossbred with a wanton textbook on matrix analysis and data processing, resulting in a booklet that must be studied for a month or so before the subtleties of the system can be appreciated. In the case of the more complex systems like Squad Leader/Cross of Iron, the magnitude of effort (not to mention the brain cell capacity devoted to remembering the infinity of detail) needed to master the whole thing may eventually become a "way of life" complete with Squad Leaders Anonymous Societies and revered "Greats" who can actually play all 18 gamettes with all the optional rules.

It came as quite a surprise, however, when I received a copy of CinC Miniatures' Stalk I boardgame and not only found that the playing pieces were 1/285-scale tanks, but that the corresponding set of micro armor rules were only 6 pages long with very large and readable print (a rare thing in wargame rules) and lots of wide margins (this raised some suspicions regarding another ripoff game).

After feeling like one of the original scientists working on deciphering the Rosetta Stone every time I had to learn a new set of rules, the relatively simple game mechanics were almost too easy and required a change from the usual highly tuned efforts needed for other games.

Basically, the system works in one of two ways. One variation has simultaneous movement (which often takes six pages itself to explain) where the Russians (Stalk is Eastern Front oriented) plot their move on a reduced scale replica of the playing boards, and after the Germans make their move on the board the Soviets move their pieces. After all movement ends tanks that moved two hexes or less can fire at whatever is either visible at the conclusion of movement or moved from cover to cover but was visible for half the movement hexes (more on this one later).

Whereas the simove (to use SPI speak) system had the Germans moving first every turn out of necessity, there is also an alternate turn variation for those disinclined towards paperwork where the panzers do their thing first on odd numbered turns and the Ivans on the even ones (shades of Tractics, and just as argumentative if you lose track of which player's turn it is to go first).

While combat is considered simultaneous and tanks can blast away even after the dice have caused the cremation of the crew, the alternate move first format has some peculiar characteristics. Since the guy who goes second on one turn gets to dash about first on the next turn, every player will get to string two turns of movement back-to-back (but separated by the combat phase), which can be very advantageous on flanking maneuvers and races to take vital terrain. The interest is held by the need to not only try to figure where you'll be going on your mini-blitzkrieg or where the enemy might be, but to position covering units to provide a fire base if the unexpected occurs

The funny part of the game that prevents mad dashes by your units and into cover (remember that you only shoot at what's visible at the end of movement or went cover-to-cover) before they can be peppered is the unusual cost of movement in the system. Clear terrain costs two movement factors, and if there's a hill contour, stream, marsh or trees in the hex they add an extra 3-4 factors to the two that the open ground costs. While there are roads, they cost one factor per hex, and since tanks not only get movement factors for hex advancement but mobility factors that simulate maneuverability (and are used to rotate in a hex to change orientation), the roads have lots of kinks that prevent too much speedway cruising down the board.

Activity

With 8-11 movement factors and mobility of 4-6, an awful lot of activity can be accomplished playing on the four 8" x 10 1/2" boards before one runs out of space (each hex represents 100 meters, and is almost 9/10 of an inch wide). In addition, since there's no reverse speed, one must turn completely around which uses up three mobility factors and limits the options after a retreat is started).

While the movement mechanics are interesting for a miniature type game, and allow it to be played on a coffee table or other fairly small area with no problems, the combat between tanks (there's no infantry, artillery, transport or other niceties provided for in the rules) is the meat of the game and will now be reviewed.

The AFV data lists front/flank/rear armor values, movement and mobility, turns of fire and weaponry for each tank. Armor is given by a number that represents how many 15mm intervals are involved (12mm is "1", 35mm is "3", 88mm is "6" etc.). The armor for a T34/76A is 5/4/4, and the Mark IVf2 gets a 3/3/1 under this system.

The guns for the tanks are then rated for their penetration capabilities at point blank range and then in intervals of 500 meters (every five hexes) but instead of using a 15mm quantum level for the penetration, a 20mm system has been chosen. Rate-of-fire utilizes a very unique method where the allowable "shots" range from 7 (for the 7.5cm PAK 40 at point blank range) to 1 (the 100mm Soviet gun at 3000 meters), and in order to attain a hit an odd number must be rolled with one die in most cases.

After a hit is made, the AP number is compared to the armor rating and if the numbers match, a one or two must be thrown with one die to KO the vehicle. If the AP is greater by one number, a throw of 1-4 totals the target, and APs larger by two or more automatically lead to a burned out hulk on the board (remember to leave a window open or the smoke detector might go off.)

What makes things a little sticky is that shooting at moving targets, hulldown tanks or firing after hopping a hex or two can halve or quarter the rate of fire, and with a ROF of three some enemy tanks may find that they can't shoot at all (fractions are discarded during division).

T-34

The interesting aspect of the system is that the T34/76 tanks, which were marvelously fast, mobile and well armored have a ROF of two out to five hexes, and one after that. What it means is that the T34 can't even shoot at moving targets out past 500 meters, and within 500 meters (5 hexes) units that pop from cover to cover can't be hit. Hulldown AFVs beyond five hexes are also safe, and it's easy to appreciate that the Russian player has to be really creative to get anything out of the T34s.

Although the limitations on the T34 might seem rather severe (especially for the Russian player) historically the T34 had an awfully slow turret traverse and their crews were not famous for their tank gun accuracy, so being able to swarm around the T34s in relative safety may not be that bad a result. Looked at in perspective, the game mechanics catch a subtle disadvantage of a weapon system and promote the higher ROF German tanks in a way that is easy to accomplish during a game and is an interesting innovation in game design theory (hitting moving targets at long range is also simulated in a manner that most rules usually don't attempt to accomplish). The Soviet player in Stalk will have to charge the enemy to get within close range to shoot, and the historically "correct" tactics will have to be used, which doesn't totally limit a player's options but makes them infinitely more realistic.

As noted earlier, the gun capabilities and armor thicknesses are rated in different units (20mm vs. 15mm) and penetrations don't necessarily knock out a tank. A gun with a rating of 7 at 1000 meters, theoretically penetrating 120-140mm of armor (probably at vertical) will penetrate armor of 7(90-105mm) with a 33% kill probability, 6 armor (75-90mm) with a 67% kill chance and 5 armor (60-75mm) with an automatic kill, but will fail to pierce 8 armor (105-120mm) which is less than the rating of the gun in millimeter of armor it can pierce. As the gun ratings go up in Stalk the apparent discrepancies also increase.

From a practical standpoint, the results that seem so contradictory and illogical may in actuality be fairly easy to explain.

While the theoretical values of penetration are based to a degree on training ground tests of brand new guns firing top-notch shells at nicely positioned plates, in reality the tank guns suffered barrel wear as time went on which affected shell velocity, the powder charge of shells might vary, metal quality in the shot might suffer, the tank surface hit might be at both a vertical and horizontal angle (Tigers approached enemy positions at a forty-five degree angle to maximize the armor thickness presented) and ten thousand other little things that could detract from the theoretical values. In addition, a shell hitting 20mm less armor than it could penetrate theoretically might only have enough energy left to go through the driver's leg or a radio after piercing the front armor plate.

Most other miniature rules use a mechanical comparison of armor penetrated to armor plate to arrive at a hit/kill determination, but Stalk and Squad Leader/Cross Of Iron (which Stalk preceded by a year) utilize an intuitive system for damage evaluation, with a corresponding increase in tension and excitement as shells pierce the frontal plate of a Mark III but again and again fail to stop the panzer (until the day comes when a T34/85 gets a hit, and the Mark III blends in with the scenery).

As mentioned earlier, this is definitely not a game for armor buffs who like to line up the tanks at 2000 meters from the enemy and trade shots as both sides close in a scene strangely reminiscent of the tactics shown on the covers of most Civil War miniature rules. The T34/76, with its poor 76.2mm gun and lousy ROF/turret traverse is useless outside 500 meters, but the T34/85 (the Soviet answer to the Tiger and Panther) will have to close to 500 meters to kill a Mark IIIj or Mark IVH frontally, or even a flank kill on a Tiger I (only the SU 100 can take on a Tiger or Panther frontally with some hope of success).

In addition to the interesting tank gun/armor relationships that tend to further turn Stalk into a game of close-country maneuver and vicious 500 meter gun battles, the game also in fine-tuned enough to show the greater penetrating capabilities of anti-tank guns and the ability of the high velocity German AP 40 rounds (APCR to Tobruk fans) to enable the Mark III and IV tanks to deal with the T34/KV line of tanks.

Detailed

Stalk I provides a really good system to use the wealth of detailed and easy to understand tank gun/armor data in a space of two pages, and if you can forget about hairsplitting and ultrafine precision (although rate of turret rotation is used directly in the system, but is explained in six sentences - a record of sorts for wargame designers) and focus on the intricate strategies of hill-and-dale fighting with tanks with loads of handicaps and quirks a really good game can be played in an unbelievably short time (don't look for a phase system for one turn that takes a whole page either, since things an geared for playability with realism rather than complexity with detail and little else.

The data in Stalk is also good for modifying the info in other rules that appears a little too optimistic and overrated, and CinC Miniatures has produced a wargamer's guide that can be used to expand Stalk for desert or other campaigns.

Now, after you've heard the big buildup, there are a few issues that might rankle some wargamers. Stalk comes without any predesigned scenarios, and only ten tanks (5 Russian, 5 German).

What might make it even more hard to accept is the mix of tanks included in the $15.00 game. While the COI sophisticate might expect a Tiger, Panther, SU 85 and some T34/85s, what one finds is three BT 7s (wuzz dat?), two PzKw 38(t)s (I thought they were all turned into Hetzers), two Mark IIIgs, one Mark IIIe with a 37mm gun, and two T34/76s from the first half of the Eastern Front conflict (the part that PanzerBlitz didn't include because the tank profiles were generally too small to be identified as anything but ink smudges on the counters).

After I got over the initial shock of having to keep my nails cut so the tiny PzKw 38(t)s didn't get stuck to my finger, things looked a little better and when I started to grasp the subtleties of the Stalk system things were better. But then the scenarios.

While there weren't any designed scenarios, there were suggestions. Scenario suggestion number one was to attempt to race the two T34s the entire length of the four boards with all five panzers as the opposition. The boards were set up, the combatants raced their engines, and the battle began. The T34s moved down the boards, moved up to the German tanks (and waved out of the hatches since tank machine guns can't be used in the game) and then took their time going off the other end. My opponent, the German, yelled "swindle," 'cause when we checked the data it was impossible for the 1941era panzers to kill a T34 in the rules. Even with AP 40 ammo and putting the long barreled 50mm gun on the Mark IIIs, it would be two against two (the Pz 38(t) and IIIe tanks are worthless against T34s except for blocking roads and providing hulldown mobile shields for the "better" tanks), and with no time limit the T34s could use their superior mobility to outsmart the Germans (and this is where the meat of the game system lies).

All in all, Stalk I represents an excellent game system which is an attempt by CinC and Dennis O'Leary of Excalibre Games to produce a playable, easy to learn, detailed and fun game for wargamers, and while the rules are open ended in a large number of cases and the playing pieces are historically interesting but somewhat unexciting, as an introduction to miniature armor gaming it is an excellent foundation from which to build. After getting the Stalk game, the additional data sheets for other tanks and more "intriguing" miniatures can be purchased from CinC, to provide a complete base for playing armor miniatures.

Hopefully, CinC will decide to expand the excellent armor system with rules covering infantry, artillery, smoke, mines and other features that add dimension and depth to wargaming with "moderns" so that the appeal and attractiveness of the Stalk system will become more universal than the presently restricted approach (which is interesting in its own respect, but limits the battles one can fight to tank/anti-tank gun engagements). When it does, Stalk I will become one of the major miniature armor games in the hobby today.

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