The previous article covered the miniatures included in the new World of Tanks: Miniatures Game Starter set and the cards that accompany them, to get your playing straight out of the box for your first couple of games.
Once you have a good understanding of the core rules the next thing to do is dive in to the incredibly rich array of crew, module and upgrade cards, and how to add them to your tank.
We are incredibly fortunate that the team at Wargaming.net have built an immersive game that is filled with options for players to personalise and enhance their tanks in the online game. We wanted you to have a similar experience when playing the miniatures game and found plenty of inspiration when translating their game to a tabletop experience.
What Are They?
Crew, module, and upgrade cards represent the extraordinary soldiers or additional equipment that separates an individual tank from the factory standard. They are used to modify a basic stats of a tank, or give them extra abilities.
Upgrade Cards
There are three types of Upgrade cards; Ammo, Consumable, and Equipment.
- Ammo cards give you the option of using different types of ammunition, giving you a single-use benefit. For example, APCR shells give you an extra Firepower for that shot. Want more in your tank just-in-case, then add the card two or three times!
- Consumable cards represent single use items that can give you a boost, repair, or prevent damage. For example, Extra Combat Rations which can repair certain critical damage without having to roll a dice.
- Equipment represents items installed on or inside the tank, like the Gun Rammer or Camouflage Net mentioned in last weeks article.
You may attach up to three of each type of Upgrade card on a single tank, so up to three Ammo cards, three Consumable cards and 3 Equipment cards.
Module Cards
There are five types of Modules; Gun, Turret, Engine, Suspension, and Radio. Players of the online game will find many of these on the tanks inside the game so should be quite familiar. Of course, if you have never played before you will still find them very easy to understand and be ready to start tweaking your tanks performance after only a quick read through of your cards.
- Gun modules, generally speaking, give players extra Firepower by upgrading the gun to a bigger version. Some, like the 10,5 cm Stu.H. 42 L/28 card let the Stug III Ausf. G fire High Explosive shells, rather than the normal AP shells, giving it a higher chance of scoring critical hits.
- Turret modules will generally provide extra Initiative, Survivability or Hit Points.
- Engine modules help to give the tank a little extra horsepower and in the tight gun-fights on the World of Tanks: Miniatures Game battlefield this doesn’t translate into speed, but rather Initiative. The ability to manoeuvre a little faster can be the difference between getting your shots in… and being destroyed.
- Suspension and Radio modules, at least at the beginning, are fairly rare however we have introduced the Improved Suspension and Improved Radio cards as a general use option for players. This, like the Engine upgrades, gives a small boost to Initiative, but is useful to all tanks. We also have generic Improved Module cards for all the slots.
Once again, you may attach up to one of each sub-type of Module card on a single tank.
Crew Cards
Crew are the final piece of the puzzle and round out the options available to players. Each tank is already assumed to have a full complement of crew, so there is no need to add these specialists to your tank if you don’t want too, however they open plenty of new options for players to use.
Crew cards are marked with the position that the crew fills, whilst each tanks card indicates how many of each position of crew they can have attached to it. The positions of crew are; Commander, Driver, Gunner, Loader, and Radio Operator. Some tanks may let you take multiple of the same position of crew while others may not give you an option to attach some positions of crew cards. In some cases Tanks may have Crew Positions covering multiple roles, for example Commander/Gunner. In this case you may attach either a Commander or Gunner Crew Card in this position.
In addition to the specific crew, there are also three skills that can be allocated to any position and are a great way to round out your crews skills, these are Repair, Firefighting and Concealment.
Each nation has access to a limited number of unique crew. These are the crew that have performed well enough, and survived long enough to pick up multiple skills or abilities and represent truly elite members of your tanks crew. These unique crew are found in the expansion packs, but are not limited to just that model of tank!
Check out the image below to see a summary of all the types of cards you can add to your tanks.
Surprise!
Just like in the online game you can’t always tell how dangerous an opponent is until the shooting starts, so many of these cards are hidden at the start of the game. These cards are left face-down next to their tanks card, with only the points value showing. This gives you some idea of how nasty an enemy tank might be, whilst also letting you check that your opponent has spent the same number of points as you. Cards are flipped over and revealed when the player wants to use them and can be revealed at any time, although rules on the card might force you to reveal them at a specific time if you want to benefit from them.
Some cards are placed face up on the table. Generally these will be things that would be obvious if you looked at the exterior of the tank. These are things that change the look of the guns, turret or hull of the tank for example.
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There you have it, a quick run down on the types of crew, module, and upgrade cards you will come across whilst playing the World of Tanks: Miniatures Game. Hopefully this gives you some inspiration and answers some of your questions.
Stay tuned for more information about the rest of the in-game mechanics over the coming weeks
~Chris