MV – With Iron Coffins on pre-order, we sat down with Mike Bradford, one of the Achtung Panzer! writers and the mind behind the new supplement, to talk about where this mighty tome came from, what people can expect to find inside, and what he was most excited to work on. Reveal your secrets, Mike!
MB – I was very pleased when Warlord Games brought up the idea of a supplement for Achtung Panzer! as I felt it was something that was too good of an opportunity to miss. To avoid having a massively oversized and overcomplicated book, the ‘base’ game that came out last year focussed on the late war period from 1944 onwards. Now, by this time, all of the combatants had pretty much worked out that, whatever they may have previously thought, the main job of a tank was to destroy enemy tanks. To this end, most of the tanks featured in Achtung Panzer! are broadly similar in form and function; fairly mobile, decent protection and a gun capable against most of the opposition. Iron Coffins allows us to branch out considerably!
Interestingly, a lot of the early playtesting and rules development was actually done with tanks from the early war period because (a) we had lots of models and (b) they were fun to play with. Why? Well, mainly because very often these tanks were definitely not suited to tank vs. tank combat. When the war broke out in 1939, tanks in service varied greatly in capability, but a common factor was that shooting at other tanks was not a high priority for designers and strategists. Their views dated back to the previous war when tanks were intended to support infantry. Another important consideration was that money was scarce, so the cheaper a tank could be made, the better. Hence the proliferation of light tanks in most armies.
In Iron Coffins, players will find a wide variety of armoured vehicles. Some good, some ‘average’, and even some in the category of ‘what were they thinking?’. Tanks which had the potential for further development are here in their early versions. The German Panzer III begins the war with an ineffective gun and weak armour, but successive upgrades in the light of battlefield experience make it a difficult prospect for opponents. Likewise, the Soviet Union can field their T-34 and KV-1 variants which gave the Germans such a shock in 1941 and went on to serve throughout the war.
However, for every successful design there is a dead end. In the 1930s Italy and Poland bought some Carden-Loyd armoured vehicles and were so impressed they based their own series of tankettes on these. They proved to be pretty well useless against any other sort of tank. Towards the end of WWI, France had produced the highly successful FT-17 and there were still many in service in 1939. Unfortunately, most French designs between the wars were little more than modern copies of this. They had very good protection, but poor armament and a completely overworked two-man crew. Good luck playing these; you’ll need it! However, at the other end of the scale you can deploy the massive Char 2C. Seventy tons of armoured might was pretty fearsome in 1920. By 1940 it makes an inviting target. Commanding vehicles like these is a fantastic historical challenge, and if you’re able to win with them, then you can rightly consider yourself a tank ace of the highest calibre!
So, that’s the state of the hardware. What else is in? Going back to the start of the war, we were able to bring in other nations so you get the French, Polish, Italian, Finnish, Hungarian, and Japanese armies added into the mix. There’s even a couple of Belgian tanks thrown in for good measure! We’ve taken the Japanese up to the end of the war, although their most advanced tank is only the equivalent of an early Sherman. They do get a couple of advantages in other areas, so playing Japan is a challenging but rewarding experience.
All of the armies represented have a new set of asset cards. Some are familiar from Achtung Panzer!, but there are also some more weird weapons such as the Soviet Ampulomet (hard to hit with, nasty if you do), and the Americans can call on naval fire support if they want. The Japanese have some particularly unpleasant close assault assets, so beware of these! There is also a set of asset cards for the British Home Guard (Blacker Bombard anyone?) along with some improvised armoured vehicles if you want to try an Operation Sealion game. For players of the long game, there are campaign options for the new nationalities. A fun twist for the Japanese is the option to add a bit more jeopardy, with the reward of greater reputation balanced by the risk of getting your platoon commander killed!
The terrain options in the Achtung Panzer! rulebook are based on the relatively benign environment of the European theatre. Expanding the game has meant moving into less hospitable environments, so there are rules for the desert, frozen steppes, and steaming jungles. As well as swamps, snow, and boulder fields, the weather can change very quickly; sand storms, blizzards, prickly heat – none of these are good for tank crews, but both sides are equally affected so victory may go to the player who can make the best of adverse conditions.
Taking the war through to 1945 gave an opportunity to fill in some of the gaps in the European theatre. There are details for some of the massive vehicles that had begun to appear later in the war, such as the Sturmtiger and IS-3. We also went to the dying embers of the Third Reich for an encounter between the Red Army and everyone’s favourite ‘what if’, the mighty Maus. A tough nut to crack, but it can be done (although not when I’m rolling the dice!). Finally, we’re even able to head back to the Far East for some of the first armoured battles of the Korean War where communist T-34s and IS-2s face off against the United Nations’ latest Centurion and Patton tanks.
So that is Iron Coffins! It’s been a lot of fun to get it to this stage, and a good few years since I watched Kelly’s Heroes and thought, ‘that could make a good game’. Many thanks to all of the people who helped the game along, especially Roger Gerrish for toning down some of my more wacky ideas, and of course Paul Sawyer. On the final stages of the original game, his relentless eye for detail and knowledge of what worked and what didn’t really pushed Achtung Panzer! over the line.
MV – Thus spoke Mr Bradford! Iron Coffins is absolutely packed with new rules and vehicle profiles, adding an enormous amount of extra depth to Achtung Panzer!. If you’ve got a hankering for some tank-on-tank combat, make sure to get your pre-order in and be among the first to get your hands on the new book!
