Tiger Fear Issues?

[Eric T Holmes]

Can someone explain “Tiger Fear” in regards to an Imperial Japanese force going up against a German King Tiger. (Tournament play) I wasn’t aware that “Tiger Fear” applied to all armies, just the “Allies,” not “Axis.”🤨

Concerning those rules for “Tiger Fear,” at what point is a unit inside a building required to take the “Tiger Fear” rule? If the unit is “Down,” how can “Tiger Fear” be applied from behind a wall? I truly think that some of these special rules are very, very “Hollywood” and not “Historic.”

By late war, most “Allied” forces were not worried about a “Tiger” tank, just that it was a tank that needed to be dealt a kill shot. And along those lines, by D-Day, American infantry were all trained in the use of the bazooka, so lists should be changed to allow any late war American Squad to have an integrated bazooka team within its ranks.

Some “Jeeps” were modified to have four, yep, four bazooka launchers on a 360 spindle, as well as the pair of bazooka.

I know, it’s a game…so, YMMV. Roll Sixes! Eric

[Stuart Harrison]

Unless you house rule otherwise, Tiger Fear would apply vs any enemy – even if you were playing Germans vs Germans with a Panzer IVG on each side.

Tiger fear is in effect if the enemy unit has LOS to a tiger fear causing vehicle, (the FAQ even extends it to passengers in a transport who technically don’t even have LOS – hopefully that one will be fixed). Being “down” doesn’t stop you drawing LOS to/from a unit, even in a building, it just makes it harder to score a hit.

Including Bazookas in a squad won’t be as useful to you as the current access to multiple bazookas in a platoon – they have no provision to independently target as they’re neither one shot or indirect, so you would be either tying the bazooka to waste it’s shot at the same soft target as the squad, or waste the squad’s shooting while the bazooka targets armour.

[Eric T Holmes]

I now see that you consider “enemy” to imply “opposing.” A fine distinction, even if the first sentence includes the word “Allied.”

As far as the Bazooka, I understand your analysis of including the bazooka as part of the squad based upon the independently targeting rule. That begs the question concerning flamethrowers included as part of the squad. They would fall under this same rule if they are included in the squad breakout.

[Tim Haslam]

Japanese V Germans is not historical is it!
It’s a very broken rule anyhow and not one I’d use in any event.
I understand the background to the rule, and I can see the idea. But it’s too powerful in practice.

I love BA, but just can’t get my head round non historical tournaments, so much so that I’ve stopped attending them.
With BA being such a popular game, surely we could have more historical style events, with no blue on blue?
I attended one event using my soviets, only to play 4 other soviet armies and a US force!

I wonder, has this super competitive style of tournament come about because of a migration on ex 40K players coming across? I say that with the greatest of respect, as of course space marines V space marines is fine because it’s fantasy!

[invisible officer]

Tim hits the nail.

Fantasy games can not use the arguments based on historical backed rules. “Why should Japanese or Martians fear ….”

Tiger fear was designed to show how much the Tiger myth affected the allied ground forces. There are many contemporary reports of units having such a fear that fought against German units without a Tiger.
In Normandie even French Beutepanzer or Sturmgeschütze caused that.
You find many 44/45 reports of fights against Tigers in areas far away from next kitten. Some even made it into modern books.

The Japanese never met true Panzer, just the cute Shermans. If they had they surely would have Tiger fear. 😉

[Stuart Harrison]

I remember ancients tournaments back in the ’80s, non historical match ups were pretty much the norm at local/regional events as armies spanned Bronze and Iron ages, stretching geographically from the British Isles into India and Asia. Other than the Romans, most of those armies only had a few historically accurate opponents.

“I now see that you consider “enemy” to imply “opposing.” A fine distinction, even if the first sentence includes the word “Allied.””

That first sentence is italicised “fluff” with the rationale behind granting the rule. It has no particular bearing on the application of the actual rule which starts at “All Enemy units…”. Fluff is a constant problem with Bolt Action, for instance talking about vehicles that were used in a reconnaissance role in their fluff, then not granting them the recce special rule, leading to queries about whether that vehicle can recce or not – they can’t unless it’s in the special rules part of their stats.

Edit to add:

“That begs the question concerning flamethrowers included as part of the squad. They would fall under this same rule if they are included in the squad breakout.”

Flamethrowers in a squad (ie: pioneers) do have that problem. There is no provision for them to split fire either as they’re neither one shot or indirect weapons.

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Stuart Harrison.

[Tim Haslam]

Lol
I too remember those ancient tournaments from many years ago!
When I used to organise ancients, we were already starting to attempt to break the periods down to a more realistic period, Dark Ages for example. Let’s not forget years and years of Roman in fighting and civil wars, so perfectly acceptable to fight Rome V Rome.

I’m not having a go at this completely open style tournament play for BA, it’s just that I don’t see it’s necessary in a lot of cases?
Surely it’s better to give a ‘theme’ for your tournament and make it a little selective. Even Flames of War have Early, Mid, and Late war events.

We are kind of going off topic here, sorry.

Yes Tiger Fear, is a nice idea, but a bit pants as a rule.
I just don’t use it when fielding panzer IV’s
Now if I was in a Normandy style event, and I was using an actual Tiger I against US forces, I may just see some justification. But probably not against Vet troops.

[Stuart Harrison]

“Yes Tiger Fear, is a nice idea, but a bit pants as a rule.”

No disagreement there (hence leading my comment with “Unless you house rule otherwise,”), plus with the other three changes to German national rules it was probably a step beyond correcting “first book syndrome”, therefore unnecessary.

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