KAMPFPANZER v1.4.0

Armored combat, 1937–1940. Each counter is a platoon, each hex 100 metres across, each turn 3 minutes 40 seconds. This tutorial takes you through your first action.

How to begin

The game opens on its illustrated title screen. Select Choose an action. Pick an action — Hannut is a good first fight, French against German armour in open country — choose your side, choose The machine as your opponent and Staff as its skill, then press Take command.

You start in setup: your platoons stand inside a shaded area. Select one and click another shaded hex to move it there. When you are content press Begin action.

Controls

Information is on the left — the selected platoon, the ground under the pointer, the Fire Slip and the war diary. Orders are on the right — the plot sheet and the order buttons. The map is in the middle: drag to pan, wheel or pinch to zoom, 0 to fit.

Plan, review and undo

The Battle overview shows your active, steady, shaken and panicked platoons, plus enemies currently spotted. Click an objective to center the map on it. The selected platoon card shows its plotted destination and movement budget.

Undo order restores up to 30 edits during the current plotting phase, including routes, facing, fire targets, riders and artillery missions. Clear order places the selected platoon on overwatch at its current facing. Edits autosave; a loaded save keeps the plots but starts a new undo history. You cannot undo a committed turn or another commander's orders.

Commit plot opens the order review. Check empty movement routes, flag-signal reliability, crowded destinations, riders, lost targets, unobserved artillery and friendly troops in your HE barrage area. Select a platoon in a warning to jump to it, or choose Keep planning. Choose Execute turn when ready. The first hot-seat commander instead commits and passes the screen.

The review uses current information and projected endpoints. It cannot predict enemy moves, every route collision, hidden mines or combat losses. Review before commit can be switched off in the menu; the Review button remains available.

Turn order

1. Plot. Both commanders write orders in secret on the SiMov plot sheet: a route, a fire target, overwatch, a ride on a tank, and one artillery fire mission.
2. Movement. Every platoon on both sides moves at once, in 12 impulses. Overwatching platoons snap-fire at the first enemy that moves in sight.
3. Fire. Every platoon that did not move too far fires, simultaneously; artillery lands at the same time.
4. Close assault. Infantry beside enemy armour attack it.
5. Panic. Platoons that suffered roll for their nerve; those left alone may rally.

Radio and flag signals

German, British, Czechoslovak tanks have radios. French, Soviet, Japanese, Polish, Finnish, Spanish Republican, Spanish Nationalist tanks signal by flag. Each side has a command platoon, marked with a pennant. A flag-signalled tank platoon that starts the turn more than 5 hexes from its command platoon must read the flags to take its new orders: the chance is printed beside its order on the plot sheet, 90% just outside range and 6 points less for each hex further. If it misses, a platoon that moved last turn drives straight on, and one that stood closes on the command platoon. Infantry and guns use runners and always receive their orders.

Light

In full daylight a platoon sees 20 hexes. Mist, fog, haze, snow, dusk and dark shorten that, and nothing can shoot or call observed artillery beyond what it can see. The light can change: at the Holsten River it is dusk (14 hexes), then last light (8 hexes) from turn 5, then dark (4 hexes) from turn 9. The sidebar shows the light; the map darkens or greys to match.

Movement

Select a platoon and click hexes inside its shaded area; the route is written on the map in pencil and on the plot sheet, with the movement points it costs. Roads are cheap, woods and streams dear, and climbing costs extra. At most 2 platoons of one side may share a hex. If enemy platoons try to enter the same hex, or swap hexes, both halt where they are.

Minefields. 5 of the 10 actions have minefields laid by the defender two to four hexes in front of his villages, hidden from the attacker. A platoon that enters one halts there, and each of its elements is lost on a roll: tanks 25%, tankettes 35%, infantry 20%, guns 20%. Once struck, a minefield is marked for both sides and cannot be plotted into.

Infantry beside a friendly tank platoon may Ride: they climb on, go where the tank goes and get down where it stops — but cannot fire that turn, and hits on their tank may throw them off (35% a hit).

Combat or scoring

Every vehicle or gun rolls to hit. Range, gunnery, movement (aimed fire +10%, overwatch snap −10%, firing on the move −20%), cover, target size and one-man turrets all count, and the Fire Slip prints every factor. Against armour each hit compares the gun's penetration at that range, ±20%, with the armour of the face struck: front, side or rear by the target's facing. A tank or gun standing on a crest is hull-down, −15% to hit. Wrecks give +5% cover each, up to three; petrol engines burn (60%) more often than diesels (25%), and a burning hex hides what is behind it.

Each objective village is worth 8 points to the side that last held it alone, and every enemy element destroyed scores its value.

The panic rule

A platoon that loses men, is shelled, or sees a neighbour destroyed rolls two dice. At or under its army's panic number plus its stress, it panics and runs; up to three above, it is shaken — half movement and −15% to hit.

Winning conditions

At the end of turn 12, or when one side has no steady platoon left, your score is compared with the enemy's and the margin with the action's par. Three or more points better than par is a marginal victory; nine or more a decisive one.

The campaign

The Long Apprenticeship takes you through all 10 actions in historical order, one attempt each. Each result scores points — decisive victory 3, marginal victory 2, drawn 1, marginal defeat 0, decisive defeat -1 — and points earn rank:

Losing conditions

Finish three or more points worse than par and it is a marginal defeat; nine or more, decisive. Lose every steady platoon and the action ends at once. Panicked infantry beside the enemy may surrender.

Saving and restarting

The game saves itself after every turn. Close the window whenever you like and choose Resume saved action from the menu to carry on. Save forces a save now. At the end, the after-action report offers Fight it again and New action (in the campaign, Next campaign action; the campaign is kept separately and can be started afresh from its panel); the Menu button returns to the cover at any time.

If the browser refuses local storage the game still plays, but cannot be resumed after the window closes.