Eastern Front Tank Leader (West End Games, 1986)

[Whiterook]

This one has been on my radar for a long time! I’ve considered both this, the Eastern Front version and it’s sister Western Front game as ones I wanted to add to my collection, but it’s always been a case where price versus condition (it’s a 1986 game) has been an issue. However, a friend has been selling off a large collection of games from a passed-on gamer friends’ wife who wants the games to go to a good home where they would be loved and played; my friend sold it to me for the Friends Price of $10! …can’t beat that!!!

Eastern Front Tank Leader is the first game in West End Games' Tank Leader series. A tactical (platoon/company level) game where formations are activated by playing command cards. The emphasis is on command, control, and communications with the use of Command cards that represent formations which are used to determine order of movement/combat, rallying, and group cohesion. The game is similar to the Panzerblitz type of game but with the addition of soft factors such as unit experience, command, and morale. The terrain on the map is variable for woods, contours, and cities, which are defined in each scenario.

— BGG

The rules are innovative for their time, and still, in that it is progressive learning in two segments… the first 13 pages are just basic Standard Rules that play Armor only; the next 4 pages are Advanced Rules, that add in Infantry and Artillery. based on my reading so far, the rules are meaty, but not overly complex. 




the map is gorgeous for it’s day and still holds up very well in todays market with well-rendered artwork and trackers. The map is pretty substantial, so there’s a lot of gaming surface here; made on thick paper, it will be best played with plexiglass atop.



The player aid cards are very nicely done, with bright graphics; two identical ones are provided for 2-Player game ease.

The counters are OK, as shown below, the red being Soviets, of course. The silhouettes are a bit tiny and get a tad swallowed up in the dark colors, but they are of the style I really like for armor, which reminds me of my beginnings with Avalon Hill’s, Panzer Leader. The back of the unit counters is interesting, in that they have a nationality symbol…after the unit is activated to move or fight, you flip the counter to indicate it’s done for rest of that turn… I’ve not seen that before. Overall thumbs up from me, though!

The formation cards (Soviet and Germans) are beautiful and indicative of the quality from the 80’s… many games today suffer in lower quality cards, in my humble opinion.



The box even included a sales sheet of games of the time! The whole game is pristine inside, and other than punched and placed in the included counter tray (I believe that actually came with the new-bought game), the map looked like it was maybe unfolded one as it folds were super crisp, and the map is perfect’ the outside of the is shelf/moved worn but intact.

This was a super deal! I can tell from what rules I’ve read so far that it will see a lot of play time!

[Whiterook]

Working my way through the rules of this one. The rulebook starts with the basic game, which is all Armor only, which is 13 pages long, but with large graphical examples, pares down to 12; the second part of the rulebook introduces Infantry and Artillery, adding another 4. I like short rulebooks!!! Granted, the type font is small, akin to what we all saw back in the early days of wargames, but it’s still a decent ease of reading and retention. The verbiage used is rather atypical of the loosely-goosey style of todays’ game authors, in using terms not used anymore (like “Operations”, instead of actions)… but it is rather nice seeing no typos so far, lol!

Five pages in, I’m currently figuring out Formation Cards. These come in three tiers:

1. Combat Cards, which represent a Company or Battalion, composed of units represented on the card. These are the actual grouping of unit counters that will be in play for a given formation, such as the card pictured below on the left; the German A Company, 91st SS Tank Battalion, which look to be Panthers... in this cards’ case, you will place four Panther unit counters on the map (see the graphic of the tank counter, it showing there are four counters making up the Combat Formation in play in that one card; this card being used to “Activate” that formation of four tanks.

Depending On the year of the scenario played, the quality of the formation will either be, Green, Seasoned, or Veteran… reflecting different intensities of combat strength in the units’ combat and movement factors; on the card mentioned with the Panthers, those units are Veterans; showing their Morale of “10” and C3 unit quality rating of “A”.



2. Parent Cards, which represent a Soviet Battalion…only the Russian side has these cards, being as they had different organizational structure than the Germans. This card shows what Combat Formations (Companies A, B, and C of the 1st battalion, 6th Tank Brigade ) that all add up into that higher tier Parent command.

OK, didn’t we just say the “Combat Card” (above, in #1) related to a Company or “Battalion”? Why, yes it did say that in the rules, and hence my first area of confusion! The problem is each nation has different organizational structure, so a Battalion in one nation is something else with another nation. I guess the real tell on this is how the cards’ text is written: The Combat Card’s organizational descriptive starts with “Company”, whereas the Parent Card starts with “Battalion”. The other tell is, there are no unit counters/#s shown on a parent Card…just the Company formations, as show in the card pictured further below in Figure B.

…and 3. Command Cards, which represent a Regiment or Brigade for the Soviets, and a Kampfgruppe for the Germans. Soviet command cards list the parent formations which comprise the regiment or brigade; while the German command cards list the combat cards which comprise the Kampfgruppe.



It’s a brain twister! It took me about three read throughs to start to understand the hierarchy involved… I’ve not really ever studied it in-depth so, it was its own learning experience! It’s going to be a struggle to figure out how to use Combat, Parent, and Command cards and what effects they present to units becoming separated due to being out of command range.

The other big thing to note on the cards is the big bold letter in the box at the bottom left of the cards… this is the C3 rating: This stands for command, control, and communications. A central mechanic in Tank Leader is that troop quality, training, and communications equipment was far more important on the WWII battlefield than hardware — gunnery, armor, speed, and so on. The T34/76 in service in the Red Army from 1941 on, was far superior to any tank the Germans fielded until the Tiger and Panther; yet, the Pz.III and IV companies consistently defeated the numerically superior forces of T34/76s. The term C3 was coined years after the war and has become the axiom of modern military science. WWII Eastern Front tactics, and particularly the German defensive genius exhibited post-Kursk, could only be explained by C3.

The rulebook states clearly that this C3 Rating dynamic is the most decisive factor in play within the game, as it determines when units can move and fire! Players receive a number of formation cards, as determined by the scenario being played; there’s at least one for each formation in play. During the Operations Phase (the middle of three phases; which comes after the Reinforcements Phase and after the Morale Phase), the players play these cards from their hand to say what formation of theirs they want to activate, which always start with the Lowest formation C3 Rating in their hand…an example would be if their lowest card was a C3 Rating of “E” (such as the Soviet, A Company, 1st battalion, 6th Tank Brigade), they would play that card and activate that brigades’ units.

However, the opponent can “Interrupt” that card by playing a card from their hand with a higher C3 Rating (such as the German A Company, 91st SS Tank Battalion, with a rating of “A”)

…this can go on back and forth…or the same player could play several cards, one-upping the rating, creating a, Activation Pile, which the players then play from top to bottom as the units activated!

This is a pretty cool mechanic for mid-80s! I kinda am fascinated by it, compared to say Lock ‘N Load Publishings World at War, where you use a shuffled draw pile to activate formations.

Cool stuff!

[Whiterook]

So, Area of Operations and Tactical Doctrine, and how do they work?







Okaaaaaaay… come again? It took me a long time to figure out the diagrams included in the rules, and the Western Front game is worse!!! Going backwards, back into the Eastern Front game, I was able to piece it together, and I made these quick diagrams to drill down how it all works…





Another way of identification is, in the Soviets’ case (in the example above):

• The Command Formation lists the Brigade with all the sub-Battalions at center card;
  
• The Parent Formation lists adds the Company before the Battalion designation;
• The Combat Formations are the individual Companies.

An example of Soviet operations…



This took me a long while to figure out!