Mein Panzer

WWII Rules

Reviewed by Bill Rutherford

MEIN PANZER is a set of company-level WW II miniatures rules published by Old Dominion Gameworks. Components include a 59 page (exclusive of player aids and adverts) staple-bound rulebook, a 47 page equipment data and TO&E book, two player reference cards, two sheets of color counters, templates, etc., and a clear scatter template. The rules contain a decent table of contents and index, a lengthy introduction that clearly lays out the rules' objectives, and a bibliography - no annotation, but lots of sources. Game set-up is quite extensive and seem oriented towards points-based competition-type games, with deployment areas, special recon deployment, random table-side selection, etc.

Scales are: one model or stand represents a single vehicle or half-squad; one inch equals 50 yards; and one turn represents a short - average six minute - period of time. The rules are modular to the extent that all engineering, infantry, air support, etc., rules appear in distinct sections, which helps with finding things. Based on an initiative die roll each turn that determines who goes first, the sides alternate activating units (typically platoons) until all have acted. The larger side has some units doubled-up to avoid the old problem of the larger side having a pool of units left over as a de facto reserve to commit when the smaller side's done. Activated units can move (if they're in command control) and perform one other action, which may consist of firing, overwatching, spotting, or moving again.

Movement is standard - fixed maximum distances, modified by terrain. One nice feature is an action called "hide". Units may, even if they're in enemy LOS, hide themselves, if they're in cover. Spotting is ranged and probabilistic, with numerous situational modifiers. All stands are assigned a quality rating, which is the basis for most morale, reaction, and command control checks. Stands may react to enemy in close proximity, regardless of whether they've been assigned overwatch. Morale is determined for stands, checks are prompted by taking or seeing casualties, failures can generally be recovered from, and results range from a couple of levels of degraded performance, to simply (and permanently) routing from the battle. As far as I can tell, there's little effect at the unit level, i.e., platoons and companies never suffer from morale problems. Command control is very basic, mainly letting stands that are within range of their command element perform more actions (see above) and react better to morale checks.

Tank combat is simple, ranged, and probabilistic, with one die roll to hit the target (with range, troop quality, and weapon system modifiers, amongst others) and one or more die rolls to damage it. Tanks can fire several types of ammo, all of which play a part. Unusually for a 1:1 set of rules, MEIN PANZER avoids the whole issue of measuring penetrations, defining angles-of-hit, etc., and this is good. Infantry combat, both ranged and close - use slightly different mechanics but generally obtains the same results. Artillery fire is reasonably simple, with deviation, various ammo types, and persistence.

It appears, however, that artillery, when called, always arrives (somewhere) and does so the turn it was called. Engineering rules are simple but extensive; most battlefield tasks can be accomplished, given enough time (an antitank ditch, for example, takes 200 turns to dig, while a squad foxhole takes 4 turns to dig…). The air support, amphibious, and armored train modules are similar to preceding: simple, workable rules - lots of them - that try to allow the player to do anything they can think of on the game table.

The rulebook contains a single scenario - Sidi Resegh - that is quite well done. There's a good description of the battle, a section on scenario rules, player briefings, orders of battle, some optional rules, a decent game map, and some notes on how things historically turned out. This scenario provides an important clue as to the game designer's intent, too: with 22 German and 19 British models on-table, it's noted that it's an ideal four player game, suggesting a player command span of around a company.

The TO&E book contains statistics on more equipment than most players will ever use, including extensive aircraft lists, and covers the US, UK, USSR, Germany, Italy, Japan, and France. TOE data generally consists of complete organization data for an armored division, though the Japanese make do with an infantry division and the USSR gets an infantry division and a tank brigade.

MEIN PANZER is a reasonably fast-playing set of rules, with lots of flavor, if you stay at or below company level (per player). I would have preferred a bit more command control than is present, as well as unit morale, but these can be worked around. The mechanics are simple enough, though, that people are going to try to play using battalions, and that's going to drastically slow things down. I warned you… They nicely fill a niche between the squad/platoon level games and the battalion-and-above games using platoon models. Recommended and available for $25.00 from your FLGS. If you can't get them there, go directly to Old Dominion Gameworks at PO Box 1456, Winchester, VA 22604 or see their website at www.odgw.com (email them at mpanzer@odgw.com).

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