Clash of Steel is a rich and complex game, but at its heart lie some fairly simple concepts. Once you have learnt these, you can start playing the game, and then add more depth and variety to your games later.
Your tank cards will tell you how fast each of your tanks can move. There are four movement rates:
Tactical Movement: how fast your tanks can move and still shoot.
Terrain Dash: how fast your tanks can move through woods and streams, or over walls and other obstacles, without shooting.
Cross Country Dash: how fast your tanks can move at full speed across open countryside without shooting.
Road Dash: how fast your tanks can speed along a road without shooting.
The Cross rating tells you the score you need to roll for your Tanks to find a suitable crossing point to avoid stopping while attempting to cross difficult terrain.
Each turn you can fire each tank’s weapon. Weapons have a number of characteristics listed in their weapons line:
Range: how far your weapon can shoot.
Halted ROF: how many shooting dice your weapon rolls if you did not move.
Moving ROF: how many dice your weapon rolls if you moved.
Anti-tank: how good your weapon is at penetrating armour.
Firepower: the score you need to roll to destroy a Tank your shot penetrated.
A key concept in Clash of Steel is that the fighting ability of the target determines how easy it is to hit, not the skill of the shooting Tank.
In real-world combat, the training of a tank crew has the most decisive effect on the casualties they suffer. Elite crews can survive danger relatively intact, while inadequately trained conscripts risking their tanks recklessly will be gunned down en masse.
Score to Hit
The score you need to hit a target is given on the target’s own tank card. This is increased by:
Long Range: +1 if the target is more than 16”/40cm away, and
Concealed: +1 if the target is concealed at the edge of a wood or behind a hedge, wall, hill, or building, or
Concealed & Camouflaged: +2 if the target is concealed and did not move or shoot in its previous turn.
Armour Save
Tanks are well armoured to protect themselves if they are hit. The thicker the armour, the more likely they are to survive.
When their tank is hit, your opponent rolls a die and adds their tank’s Armour rating. If the range is greater than 16”/40cm, they would add an additional +1 to the armour rating as well.
Compare the opponent’s save total to your weapon’s Anti-tank rating.
Higher: If your opponent’s total is higher than your Anti-tank rating, the shot bounces harmlessly off their tank’s armour.
Lower: If your opponent’s total is lower than your Anti-tank rating, the shot penetrates their tank’s armour, so you roll another die:
If your roll is equal or higher than your Firepower, the enemy tank is destroyed.
Otherwise the enemy tank is Bailed Out. It cannot fight for now, but it is not completely destroyed.
Equal: If the opponent’s total is exactly equal to your Anti-tank rating, your shot hit home, but did not do enough damage to destroy the enemy tank, so you roll another die:
If your roll is equal or higher than your Firepower, the enemy tank is Bailed Out.
Otherwise your shot has no effect.
After your turn’s shooting step, your opponent now gets a chance to remount their Bailed Out Tanks and check the Last Stand of any of their Units that may have taken casualties.
Remount Bailed Out Tanks
A Bailed Out Tank cannot move or shoot, but is still a valid target to shoot at.
At the end of your turn, your opponent rolls a die to see if their crew can Remount their Bailed Out Tank and get it back into action. If they score their Motivation (or Remount if different) or better, the Tank starts fighting again. Otherwise, it remains Bailed Out and cannot do anything at all during their turn. They will get another chance to try to remount at the end of your next turn.
Last Stand
If an opponent’s Unit ends your turn with only one Tank or less left that are not Bailed Out or Destroyed, it must roll a die.
If they roll their Motivation rating (or Last Stand if different) or better, they continue fighting.
Otherwise, the remaining Tank flees the battle, Bailed Out Tanks are Destroyed and the unit is destroyed.
Now that you have finished your turn, it is your opponent’s turn. They go through all of the same steps. Once they have finished, this completes a full game turn, and a new game turn begins where each player takes their turn.