While turnout was small (Forum being down = limited promotion) it was spirited and fun. To recap, about 8 people showed up in the DA, and for the first half hour we just friendly furballed in the mud a bit. Then with only 6 players I still set up a combat scenario everyone thoroughly enjoyed.
Acting as referee from CM Eye Mode, I had two tankers spawn in for the town in Tigers where they were to defend the two churches from being destroyed by the other team of 4 M-8's. The Tigers had 1 life only and the M-8's had two.
Just as the Tigers started to approach the town I released the M-8's to spawn. Both sides had to first FIND the two churches, whether to defend or destroy. There were a variety of tactical solutions available to each side.
Guess who won??? The M-8's... but barely. After all four lost their first lives to the Tigers they revised their tactics and with only 1 M-8 remaining (Tigers were bruised a bit, but never hurt) the second church was destroyed, despite BOTH Tigers being in close proximity. It was a riot.
Anyway, the idea of TANK CLUB is to do a sort of modified, simplified Snapshot, but with no historical reference. We'll develop and run various match-ups of the different GV's, balanced and unbalanced opponents (dependent upon tanks made available to each side), and a variety of mission objectives to provide a multitude of combat situations. I have several scenarios in mind.
We will do, hopefully two battles minimum, with each side getting to be both attacker and then defender in whatever mission is proposed. Someone (myself for now, and other voluteers) will referee and as much as is possible, score each battle. Referees can rotate each week to be able to participate.
There will be absolutely no aircraft or bombing involved. This is strictly for tankers. There shouldn't be many rules, but a few will be needed depending upon the battle scenario or scoring, same as the Snapshot.
IF Tank Club gets popular enough that we get sides of 12, 15, 20 tanks each, I have some further ideas to expand the gameplay to facilitate true armored tactics (or as reasonable facsimile as we can accomplish).
Our one critical constraint is that the DA has only ONE area for tanks and it is flat and mostly featureless. This can make things a bit stale over time. I have suggested at the next update that HiTech add some spawns at the bases in the Canyons area. Who knows whether that will ever happen?
However, my real long term goal is, if we get some sizable turnouts, I might be able to interest a real CM to setup the SEA for us during unused time, for our Club battles. This would give us unlimited terrain options and tank scenarios. Maybe this might even become a sanctioned event someday.
This is why I picked Sunday (late afternoon/early evening) to start things off, as there is currently minimal activity in the SEA on that day (Monday as well, I think). So, I thought to get people acclimated to that day in the hopes eventually we can move from the DA to there.
Finally, if anyone is interested developing a battle scenario for the Club and submitted it, please PM me and I'll provide my email address. You would need to plan out the scenario, including the force composition for each side with adjustments for different numbers of participants, any rules about number of lives (re-ups), out bounds areas, spawn timing, mission objectives, and scoring.
Please help get the word out and tell other serious GV'ers you know about this. And show up this coming Sunday for the second TANK CLUB event, in the DA at the vehicle base area, at 4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern. Tune your vox channel to 203 for TANK CLUB. And if at all possible, come a bit early so we can briefly discuss what we want to do and get organized. This is YOUR TANK CLUB so I'm expect to spend a little time hearing some ideas from everyone. Your contribution, patience and cooperation will be rewarded!
