Monday, January 06, 2020

Panzer Leader............A blast from the past

Played a game of the venerable Avalon Hill 'Panzer Leader' (my first ever board wargame !) with my Dad last night.
We played the scenario 'Garden - Anti Climax' set late September 1944 with a mixed force of US and Belgians (Brits) attacking Germans.
A great game it was too with this very playable game.
Sure the artillery is mega powerful, the vehicles moves are huge, there is no morale or command & control but it just works as a light WW2 game with tanks and combined arms in a (very) abstract fashion.
Tough scenario for Allies as they have are burdened with attack against Germans with more plentiful artillery and Panthers whilst being restricted to which board they can enter until achieving a 3:1 superiority on a board.
Spotting is an issue especially if Germans hold their fire (no hidden units in PL but you must spot) as Allies then need to get adjacent to enemy on cover to spot them, no mean feat.
Fun time was had with this retro classic and a German Tactical victory after the 12 turns.
Whilst it was old school, old style, old graphics and so on one can also see why PL and Panzer Blitz where so ahead of their time in 1974 and 1970 respectively when compared to the older 'classic' titles such as D-Day, Bulge, Stalingrad and such like with their standard CRTs and strategic level.




















8 comments:

  1. One of my favourites when I was in the Army, sadly lost in a flood in 1991, must try to pick it up again

    Cheers
    Matt

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  2. Lovely nostalgic blast - by coincidence I will be setting up my first boardgame tomorrow - it harks back to 1977 (Cobra). This wargame thing is good :-)

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    1. Cobra is great game too, lots of units though, but stacked Divns get nice bonuses.

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  3. My father found our copy of Panzerblitz in the loft and I'm now teaching my son. Such a great game!

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    1. Great hope he enjoys it as much as we do :-)

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  4. One of the classics I never got to play. Most of my boardgaming was with 3-5 people; the two people I did play a lot of 2-player games with were both not into these types of tactical boardgames. I feel there is an absence in my formative boardgaming years :-)

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  5. Yes definitely a classic but there are certainly 'better' games galore now and so many more to choose from with a great variety of systems.

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