Panzer Strike series
almost 6 years ago – Wed, Jan 30, 2019 at 04:25:56 AM

We have repeatedly highlighted that we have been working on this game since 2006. There is a whole series of games being planned so we will briefly announce the most important ones.

_

1. PANZER STRIKE: WESTERN FRONT - The board of this game represents only the middle part of a French city. We plan to release several expansions for it, which will also be completely independent (every expansion will have its pieces and will be playable without core game).

NORTH: In the first expansion, the board is placed to the north side of the core board. It has two characteristic parts: a residential and an industrial zone that are divided by rails and a railway station. The rail branches out in several directions and there are three terminals for loading / unloading heavy cargo (tanks). Over the railway there is an overpass (3D). In addition to the usual plastic elements (trees, planters, etc.), mobile low and high obstacles are introduced in the form of locomotives and wagons (similar to the tram). Tanks can be transported in open wagons. There are scenarios in which tanks join fight immediately after the train arrives. Many streets in this part of the city are at an angle of 45 ° compared to the existing ones.

SOUTH: In the second expansion, the board continues to the south side. One half of this board depicts mostly residential buildings (and a radio station), with a river in the middle of the board. There are bridges and dams that create a city reservoir. In some places, some types of tanks can cross the river, while others have to use bridges and dams. Amphibious vehicles (an integral part of the expansion) play an important role. To the south of the river, there is a suburb which is characterized by a multitude of small houses with yards, which represents an ideal setting for hiding and maneuvering with tanks. The main trait of this part of the city is a part of the board that will be at a higher altitude, thus creating new interesting possibilities for maneuver.

_

2. PANZER STRIKE: EASTERN FRONT – is a very ambitious project. The board represents a city in Eastern Europe that is located on the coast and with a river mouth nearby. The city is divided into four parts: NORTH-WEST, NORTH-EAST, SOUTH-WEST, AND SOUTH-EAST. Each board is a game for itself, and the boards joined together will represent one huge game for extra-long games in clubs. The city will have several distinctive parts (residential, industrial zones, suburbs, parks, etc.), with bridges, overpasses, railway stations, port, etc.

The pieces will be in form of tanks and combat vehicles that participated in battles on the eastern front. There will be more sets of pieces, divided by time periods.

We will offer sets of tanks from various countries and different periods of WW2 even before the campaign for the above games.

_

3. Tanks were also involved in the Spanish civil war and the armored cars were also commonly present in significant numbers, although being often improvised by the addition of armour and weapons to civilian vehicles. One game from this series will surely be dedicated to this war.

_

4. PANZER STRIKE - OPEN FIELD series. Almost all tank battles are conducted in open fields. In such environment, there are no city streets that require the geometry of the squares on the board to be adjusted to the angles of 90°, so we will apply our original Triangle system to the board configuration. All other rules and mechanics will be compatible with other games in the series.

We have already published one game with the open field configuration (modern tanks in combination with helicopters) - LINK.

As a novelty in relation to this "old" game, we’ll introduce isolines, which means not all points on the board will have the same altitude. Mild elevations and depressions will significantly affect maneuver, hiding and shooting. It is important to say that the scale of the board and pieces will be the same in all Panzer Strike games. Also, the sets of pieces will be compatible.

Similar submarines being hidden from the opponent and their coordinates notated in the pads in Naval Battle in Archipelago, there will also be zones (forests, tall vegetation) in which tanks and (immobile) artillery will be hidden. In addition to natural shelters, players will also have smoke curtains and other ways to hide or mask the positions of their units.

There are likely to be two games in this series. In the first one, the board will depict a plain - a meadow with a mild variation of the terrain elevation, and in the second game, the board will depict the desert. Perhaps, as a special expansion, we’ll make a board that depicts winter conditions.

All the pieces will be adapted to the board. The plain board will host the fight between German and US+British or Soviet tanks, while the desert board will accommodate German-Italian formations in battle against the US-British ones.

__________________________________________________________________

During the WW2, not all tank battles were conducted in Europe and North Africa. Tanks were also used in the battlefields of Asia and Pacific, but these were mostly battles and operations related to landing operations. Our team of authors cannot wait to start working on these games, but for now this is not our priority.

The purpose of this update is to introduce the gamers to the great potential of this series of games. We emphasize that all the boards and pieces/miniatures will be mutually compatible, which allows diverse settings and experiences.

We will continue the practice of rewarding our returning backers in each new project, so this campaign is a great opportunity to gain this status.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: IMPROVED BUILDINGS!
almost 6 years ago – Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 12:39:10 PM

In all previous projects, Forsage Games has introduced various improvements to the project both during and after the campaign. We´re not referring here just to the stretch goals, which are the usual way for that.

To remind you all:

- Naval Battle in Archipelago was finally produced with plastic pieces of ships instead of cardboard ones. We also introduced a whole new dimension to the game by adding the Combat Jets (3 on each side). As stretch goals, two more Combat Jets, Ekranoplan and Guided Missile Cruiser were included.

- The entire Tank Chess campaign was marked by an excellent atmosphere and good rhythm, so it went on to see 13 stretch goals added to the game, through which we introduced many more new realistic vehicles, and sometimes even fictional ones, along with some special additions. More importantly, after the campaign we introduced: a hard cardboard tube for the Deluxe version, two new types of obstacles (bushes and mud) that will even more enhance the experience in all variants of the Fun Set expansion; moreover, we added the Mortar Hunt game as a special gift and decided to make the miniatures of tanks in the Realistic set expansion in a much better (and more expensive) 3D printing technology - SLS. Our ultimate goal is to keep the backers satisfied, despite the fact that various additions and improvements account for more costs in production.

---

For this campaign, which is now at its mid-point, we are happy to announce the following improvements:

Box for Light version: We only announced a transport box for the Light version, in order to keep the price of the set as low as possible. Now, we can announce that we will be making a classic, high-quality box out of thick cardboard for this version also (40 x 34 x 6 cm)! In addition, all options will have an additional transport box. We remind bakers who pledge for a Standard or Premium option that all the buildings, even after they have been assembled, will be able to fit into the box.

.

Improved buildings: In Update #4 (50 Buildings) we announced buildings that were going to be made of thin cardboard (similar to the Central Square expansion of Tank Chess).

Now, we have decided that instead of that, all the buildings should have walls made of quality "Eska" solid board that is 1.5mm thick! All the walls will come already cut to the exact shape and dimensions. The bases of the buildings will be made of somewhat thinner solid board (1mm thick). The order of assembly of walls and foundations will be explained in detail in text and picture. When the construction is assembled, the laminated (matte) self-adhesive paper should be stuck onto it. Buildings are much easier to assemble this way, and they are much sturdier and durable than the previously announced ones. When we made a detailed calculation of the extra cost, we realized that this is acceptable for us as authors and manufacturers and that it is a change worth making.

The following illustrations show the various stages of assembling several buildings. We are still a bit surprised how easy it is to assemble when made of this material. We believe that this change will be very appealing to the backers and that after receiving and assembling the whole city, everyone will be very satisfied with their decision to support us in this campaign.

The buildings are quite sturdy and heavy. See a drop test:

Here are some photos of a prototype (one quarter of the board):

50 BUILDINGS
almost 6 years ago – Sun, Jan 27, 2019 at 11:46:01 AM

In the pictures on the main project page you can see the 3D buildings that contribute significantly to the aesthetics of the game, which is one of the reasons that many of you follow this project. When the game was conceived in 2006, it was immediately meant to have 3D buildings, but then we did not have the means to make a prototype of adequate quality.

Game history

In 2015, the WW2 Museum in Gdansk ordered from us a copy of this game for their "History on the table" collection. Then, for the first time, we made a small series that included 3D cardboard buildings. We adjusted the size of the board and the buildings to the tanks that were available to us at the time. Because of that, often there was only one building that could fit between two adjacent streets. The set included a detailed buildings assembly guide.

However, some of our friends that tested these prototypes had a problem when assembling the buildings (although for us authors that wasn’t an issue). Having in mind the whole community, we realized that the small size of the buildings could potentially be a big problem for most of the people and, therefore, this version never entered serial production.

In our previous Tank Chess project, we offered the expansion Central Square, which also features cardboard buildings. However, we adjusted the size of the buildings to the 1/300 scale of the tanks, so in this size the buildings are easier to assemble.

For the PS:WF project, we’ve also adapted the size of the buildings to the pieces and miniatures that are also in the 1/300 scale. The layout of the streets on the board is very similar to the board from the mini-series in 2015. We added several squares on each side, because additional playtests revealed that some of the streets in the previous version were too narrow and caused specific ‘jams’. The larger board made possible setting up groups of buildings (instead of one building in the initial prototype) between the streets in many places, which makes the whole city much more realistic. All the buildings that belong to the same block are to be glued to one thick cardboard and all the blocks assembled that way will fit into the box. Detailed instructions for assembly of buildings will be provided. 

We have to point out that it takes a dose of skill to assembly everything perfectly. That’s why we will also put in a set of "spare" buildings so that the backers can practice a bit. In total there are 50 buildings in 26 blocks. The following pictures show the buildings - walls and roofs; later we will add the surfaces to which the adhesive should be used and indicate the folding directions for every building.

As you can see, the design of many buildings depicts damage due to combat, but they are all complete. We'll soon build the first Destroyed buildings set, which will feature buildings that are partially or almost completely demolished. There will be a total of 8 blocks with demolished buildings. For the gameplay, it is important to say that the demolished buildings will create new passages for tanks to pass and shoot through, which will add even more dynamics to the game. The Destroyed buildings set will be presented before the end of the campaign.

On the boards in the Light sets, the buildings are shown from the vertical projection - only the roofs can be seen. A set of demolished buildings will contain a set of cardboards that will depict ruins and among them will be some clear squares over which the tanks can pass (representing passages between the ruins). We remind the backers who pledge for the Light set that a set of 3D buildings will be available as an add-on through the pledge manager after the campaign.

Boards in Standard and Premium versions will also feature drawn roofs so that the games could be played without setting up the 3D buildings (i.e. if you’re in a hurry).

An update about pieces and miniatures will be published soon.

Panzer Strike vs Tank Chess
almost 6 years ago – Wed, Jan 23, 2019 at 10:44:39 PM

Panzer Strike is a game we've been working on for 12 years. The game has received various upgrades in the form of new vehicles (at the start, there were only two types - Light and Heavy Tanks), and all the rules have continuously been improved.

Tank Chess, on the other hand, was created during a conversation between the authors in July 2015. The idea was to make an abstract, diceless game based on Panzer Strike. Everything that was decided that afternoon was immediately written and never changed.

Tank Chess history

This first board for Tank Chess had 16 x 16 squares and each player had 3 types of pieces: Heavy, Medium and Light Tanks, with one of the Lights in the role of the Command Tank. The first edition was published in 2016, with tanks pieces that were available to us at that time. From the very beginning, we considered the possibility to include more tank types in addition to the three existing types and we found the inspiration in the real armoured vehicles that are, as usually, part of almost every tank battle. In preparation for the Kickstarter campaign at the end of 2017, however, we decided to include only two more types of vehicles in the basic game. As a counterweight to the almost indestructible Heavy Tank, a Tank Destroyer with a strong gun was introduced. Also, we wanted to introduce an armoured vehicle that could shoot over the obstacles and have a short range and so the Heavy Mortar made its way into the game. Due to the increase in the number of pieces, we made a board of 20 x 20 squares. Both boards (16 x 16 and 20 x 20) have printed obstacles on one side, while on the other hand there are only empty squares so players can set up the most diverse combination of obstacles (using the provided cardboard/plastic forms). A special brochure shows the most diverse schemes of these obstacles, including those for 4 players. Some of these schemes were suggested by the backer community during the campaign.

Tank Chess rules

Tank Chess brochure

The rest of the considered vehicles was included in the Fun Set expansion. All the basic rules are absolutely the same, with only the characteristics (speed, armour, firepower) of each new piece being adapted to their purpose and the historical model. At the beginning of the campaign, we offered 10 new types of pieces, and in the end, thanks to the achieved stretch goals, we included a total of 16 pieces (some will remain a KS exclusive). In the basic game, there are only high obstacles (buildings) that prevent shooting for all the tanks except for Heavy Mortars. In the Fun Set, however, there are five other types of obstacles: Low, Water, Tree, Hedge and Mud, and two types of mines. In addition to the Rulebook, the Fun Set includes another brochure with different obstacle schemes. There are some for 4 players, and also some asymmetric ones according to the position of the obstacles or to the number and type of pieces each player has at their disposal.

Fun Set rules

Fun Set brochure

By introducing new pieces and obstacles, this game has become more realistic and in some way more similar to the game from which it originates - Panzer Strike! There is another Tank Chess expansion: Central Square. It doesn't feature any new pieces, but it contains a new board with 3D buildings, fountains, trees, so it very much resembles visually the atmosphere from Panzer Strike.

Regarding the piece and square size, Panzer Strike and Tank Chess are the same so the sets are compatible. The board of PS: Western Front can also be considered as an enlarged version of the board for TC (30 x 36 squares) with an asymmetrical distribution of obstacles (high, low, tree) and asymmetrical arrangement and number of pieces. So, another idea for the gamers would be to play PS using the TC rules, if they want to combine the two different experiences into a new one! The rules for TC and Fun Set (as well as brochures) are available on our site in several languages. Amongst the add-ons, there will be a set that includes: all the Tank Chess and Fun Set pieces in black and white (including the Heavy Howitzers, Superheavy Tanks, Twin-gun Tanks, Recovery vehicles, etc.), Rulebooks for TC and FS, as well as a special Brochure that shows the initial positions, number, and types of pieces in different game variations. The Brochure will also explain some specific options related to the board.

Tank Chess has got great reviews on several sites, blogs, and forums and we believe its popularity will only rise in the coming period.

Reviews of Tank Chess

If you back this project, you can also order TC in several versions as an add-on or just some TC elements at prices that are 10-15% lower than those on our website (note that the prices on the site are in EUR, while add-ons will be in USD).

Tank Chess (standard) - $ 36

Tank Chess - Light edition - $ 10

Tank Chess - Rollup - $ 42

Tank Chess - Pocket - $ 10

Tank Chess - Deluxe - $ 105

Tank Chess: Fun Set expansion (standard) - $ 12

Tank Chess - Pocket: Fun Set expansion - $ 9

Tank Chess - Deluxe: Fun Set expansion - $ 42

Tank Chess: Central Square expansion (standard) - $ 32

Tank Chess - Deluxe: Central Square expansion - $ 52

As a final reminder, if you are planning to purchase some add-ons, by increasing funds on your Kickstarter pledge you will help reaching more stretch goals! Extra pledge will be automatically credited in the pledge manager (Backerkit). 

Game rules - part 1
almost 6 years ago – Tue, Jan 22, 2019 at 10:05:53 AM

In this update we'll present you the first part of Simplified rules, which are written in detail with many examples. Simplified rules are primarily adapted for the molded pieces (the instructions for using rotating turrets of miniatures are in the second part of the rules).

The differences in the Core rules are explained in the comments between the following images. Beside the basic differences from the Simplified rules, there will be series of advanced optional rules which can be applied in any combination, depending on the desired level of realism (for example: difference in accuracy when moving and when standing still, different types of damage, etc.).

- Core rules:

Instead of the red dice, 2 green and 4 white dice are used. And, of course, instead of Simplified tables, Core Table 1, 2 and 3 are used.

The same rulers are used, but the distance is determined by the other side.

- Core rules:

The movement is divided in two major types of vehicles: Tracked and Wheeled (including half-tracks). Movement of tracked vehicles is the same as in the Simplified rules, while the wheeled vehicles will have two different modes of movement: forward and reverse. Wheeled vehicles can't rotate in place (which makes them a bit harder to maneuver in urban environment), but they don't loose speed when turning.

The reverse speed of faster vehicles (both tracked and wheeled) are not limited to 1 step, but according to the reference tables.

- Core rules:

Beside front, side and rear armour, all vehicles have values of the top armour which is taken into account when howitzers are shooting parabolically.

The Premium set has miniatures which have rotating turrets (360°). The explanation will be in the second part of the rules.

- Core rules:

Instead of a combined factors of penetration and accuracy in a single calculation, Core rules have those two separated.

When a tank has a target in range, a pair of green dice is rolled first, which determine the accuracy. This means that even a weak gun can destroy low-armour targets at higher distance, and that the strongest gun can still miss at low range, regardless of its high firepower.

If the target is hit, then one of the 4 white dice (depending on the gun) is rolled to determine if the penetration value is enough to defeat the target's armour.

As an additional factor, all guns have different "blast power", which is taken into account when destroying walls, barricades, etc.

- Core rules:

The other sides of the rulers have different marks: a fewer number of larger zones. There are a total of 8 zones, with the end of the 8th zone being the maximum possible range of a gun (36 squares - i.e. the length of the whole board). This means that, in general, all tanks have higher range than in the Simplified rules.

In each increscent zone, the accuracy and penetration value is reduced by 1.

The second part of the rules (which explains parabollic shooting of Howitzers) will be published in one of the next updates.