Last night I decided to test out the Battling Tanks,putting a bit of a competitive edge,onto just driving them around the table and shooting at each other.
Only Paul was available (Brian's gone fishing!) so whether he wanted to or not,he was coerced into playing,what turned out to be,a very amusing and tactically interesting set of games-6 in total!!
Yoo Hoo!!this is me in my Tiger Tank,waving at Paul,in his Abrahams Tank.......
Yoo Hoo,this is Paul in his Abrahams Tank,waving at me in my Tiger Tank-this is now getting silly!!
I set the table up,with ruined houses etc. and trees,each marked with a letter,A-G,we each had to verbally state which piece of terrain we were going for(within a 3 foot radius),then move to it.
There was no firing on the first moves,but after that we could either fire and then move,or move and then fire,trying to destroy the other's tank-simple,or was it?-how two grown and experienced men couldn't work out which was left and which was right,is beyond belief!!
The problem was,of course,that to turn right,you had to push the left track lever on the controls-this proved beyond our capabilities,resulting in a swear-fest of unimaginable proportions!!-great fun,and a great way to unwind.
A study of total concentration,as Paul manages to hit one of the houses,and loses a track!!
The coast seems to be clear of enemy tanks!-Paul was great at "hiding" his tank so my infra-red beam couldn't hit him-and it must be pointed out that,at one stage,he managed to fire his gun through a window of the ruins and hit me!!-the man's a genius(or,as we suspect anyway,in league with the devil!!)
This is Paul,doing "running repairs" to his tank,which seemed to lose it's tracks at an alarming rate,due to erratic turning!!
All in all,a good night,certainly something different-roll on Sunday,probably a Marlburian,which will include Dave-hurrah!!
By the way,I won the battle of the tanks!!
Is this taking Wargaming to a new level,or just plain silly?
I have been toying(excuse the pun!) with buying these Battling Tanks,for a few months now,since seeing them in a catalogue,but the price of £50 plus £5 p&p put me off-I'm a P.O.P.(poor old pensioner) you know! However my lovely wife went onto "Amazon" and found the very same Tanks for £32 including p&p!!-so I bought them,and will have to live on bread and jam for the next few weeks!!
The Battling Tanks,c/w controllers-they operate on an infra-red system and radio control-as I'm not a WW2 buff I don't know what type of tanks they're supposed to be,but as they are very well detailed,I assume they are taken from historical types.
After I had deciphered the Chinese version of English(see above!) the instructions were simple,and once the batteries had been fully charged,I was ready to go!!
This shows both tanks on my 10x6 table-loads of room to move about-I put a couple of obstacles on the table to see if I could manoeuvre around them-and with a bit of practice I did-however to turn right you use the left hand lever,and vice versa(very confusing for a man of my age!!)
Both tanks are about 11inches long including the gun barrel-the large red light on top of the tank is your aiming point,and the smaller red light are your "life" indicators,which automatically go out if you're hit-clever these Chinese!!
The tanks in action!-because Paul couldn't make it last night,I had to control both ,but I defy anyone not to enjoy this type of action.When the gun fires it makes a realistic noise,and when the "cannon" fire the noise is a comforting "ratatat" noise-hilarious!!-even more hilarious is the "Ahhhhh!! noise made by the tank that is hit-I was bad laughing by the time I had finished.
These are the "life" indicators-once three lives are lost you can't fire the gun,but the turret still revolves and you can fire the cannon.After four lives are lost the tank is "dead.-great fun.
With forward and reverse,360 degree rotating turret,gun and cannon fire,with sound effects-these are worth the money.I can't see me switching to Battling Tanks full time,but for a good,fun evening on a long winter night,I can see great potential-all I have to do now is convince the rest of the club!!
So I'm off to "super enjoy the emulational fight of the tanks!"
