Of course with this it's more about how the game works and hopefully you can make out each tank comes with a datacard, these were really cool, full of loads of counters to indicate if your crew is experienced and what armament it has. Despite the cool factor there was a lot to keep track of, perhaps too much, certainly in a first game.What is also important is terrain. Any piece of area terrain can be used for various cards, where things like minefields or infantry units may lie in wait to deliver vengeance on any nearby aggressor.
I was running the German force, sorry I have no idea which tanks they are, although I think the middle one is the obligatory Panzer. Otty had 4 smaller American/British tanks. There are a number of actions you can do each turn, I think it's 2. One can be a move, or to load a weapon, or to target a tank, or to fire [but you can't fire unless the gun is loaded]. You can also do a command check to try and speed up the loading process but that also depends on how big your ammunition is. If you fail the check nothing happens, but the checks also work for things like driving through a fence [as seen on my right flank, I think the smaller ones are Stugs].
Otty had a stratagem that allowed a bunch of GI's to appear in the woods to my left. They had anti-tank bazookas and given they were firing into my side armour easily took out the Stug. To say I was a bit miffed to be taken out by some card that didn't even have figures on the board was an understatement. Even Otty's kind offer to put some models in the trees to represent the tank-killers was little comfort. This was made more annoying by the fact he was able to fire with the tank at the end of the road. he rushed loading, fired, and either missed because you roll two dice, hit on 5+, but it has to be both dice. Or, the front armour was super tough and it just pinged off. it just illustrated that it was harder to kill with the tanks, while the ambushes seemed a little OP.
I managed to get my Stug forward. All my tanks had their commander inside with their hatches closed, which makes it harder to target but they're less likely to get injured. Otty was running the opposite, which kept on allowing him to spot, which removes one dice, so only has to score one 5+. Then if you target I think it makes it a 4+, but if you change targets you lose the bonus. I think my Stug hit his tank below, but the intervening terrain took the force of the blast. I also used my minefield ambush card, but didn't do much damage.
With new cards I was able to send my own tank killing troops out of the middle farmhouse. They shot the small tank, and although it was not destroyed it was immobilised on the corner of the farmhouse. Meanwhile I'd drawn another strategy card that allowed my commander to do 3 actions. This allowed my panzer to fast-load an armour-piercing shell, target his nearest tank and fire all in one turn. Thankfully I passed all the command checks, hit with perfect precision, avoided the intervening hill and somehow blew up the tank. With that we called it a night with me sneaking a win, thanks to the smaller immobilised tank adding to my tally by a point.
OK I admit I was a bit underwhelmed. As a game, I did like the ambush cards, but they felt too powerful. They had much more impact on the game than being able to drive around the tanks and feel like they were having the definitive impact on the game. Maybe with better understanding of the rules the tanks might feel like the star but currently they're support actors in their own film. Additionally it felt just too long to actually get anything done. Loading, spotting and firing takes 3 turns without trying to speed up. And if you miss it's all for nought. There is an interesting mechanic in that each game has a set amount of minutes, I think you roll D6, but whoever has the turn priority can choose to to speed the clock up and roll 2D6 - great if you're in the lead and want to burn the clock. But if a game is only 30 minutes long you can see how quickly that can be over and done based on good [or bad, depending on your position] dice rolls. An interesting but flawed mechanic. We may play again but for next time I think we'll try something else.