Build and lead your own army
Your Army
Not a box of counters: an army of your own, named, decorated and remembered, that is never quite the same twice.
In Panzerkeil the army is yours. Your units carry their names, grades, medals, traits and scars from battle to battle, and in Battle Mode you raise an army of your own from every unit of the war. This page sets out all of it, from the game's own rules.
Battle to battle
Your campaign army
The units that start a campaign with you are your core. What happens to them in one battle follows them into the next.
Carried through the war
Your core units go with you from battle to battle with their strength, grade, medals, traits and kills. A core unit destroyed is gone for good, so pull a badly damaged one back rather than lose it.
Named and marked
Tap a unit's name at Headquarters to give it a name of your own, choose an insignia for its counter, and paint the army seasonal, factory, winter, desert or ambush. Names and insignia follow a unit through refits and upgrades.
Refit and re-equip
Refilling a damaged unit with recruits is free, but replacing four or more strength costs it a grade; veteran replacements cost prestige and keep the grade. Re-equipping with the next type in its line keeps its grade, name and medals. Refit the army fills every unit at once.
Buy, call up, bring up
Buy units at Headquarters for the places a battle has, and up to 5 more to hold in reserve. In battle, bring a reserve unit up for half its price, or call up a new one to a town your supply reaches.
Unit of the Battle, Unit of the Campaign
Each battle's report names its distinguished unit, the one that destroyed most. Win a campaign and the survivor that destroyed most over the whole war is named Unit of the Campaign and wins the Campaign Star.
Service records and the Roll of Honour
Every unit keeps a service record: when it joined, every battle with its result, kills, promotions and medals, every re-equipping, its escapes and its long shots. The fallen go on the Roll of Honour, shown at the end of the war.
Battle Mode
Battle Groups
For matches against other players: an army you raise yourself, one for each side of the war, that always comes back.
Raise it
Each commander keeps one Axis and one Allied Battle Group. A group starts with three units of the nation you choose (Axis: Germany, Italy and Romania; Allied: United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, France, Poland, Greece and Yugoslavia), and grows to 30 units of any nation on its side. Name the army and give it an emblem.
Buy it with Command Points
The same Command Points as your tactics buy any unit of the war: 1 for every 100 of its price, at least 1, plus 1 for every two years after 1939. A grade costs its number in points, up to Trained, and re-equipping with the next of a line costs the difference, at least 1.
Take the field
Both sides field 2,800 points, so a smaller army is filled out with green units from the computer, which you command. Grades raise a unit's worth (Green ×1, Trained ×1.1, Regular ×1.15, Veteran ×1.25, Elite ×1.6, Guards ×1.8), each medal adds 5%, and a unit ahead of the battle's year costs 25% more for each year.
It always comes back
After a match every unit returns. Survivors keep their grade, progress and medals; a unit destroyed in a defeat loses a grade. While you are away, with your commander on the Train troops posting, one unit at a time can drill: a point of experience every 2 hours, up to Trained.
Ranks and rivals
Your stronger group sets your rank: Recruit under 1,000 points, Regular under 2,800, Veteran from there, and Game Center pairs players of the same rank. The army screen keeps its records (longest serving, most destroyed, most decorated, best single battle, most honours) and your score against each rival.
The army card
Before a match your opponent sees your army's name, emblem, rank, record and best three units, and you see theirs. Share any unit's card from its page.
Titles, feats and honours
Titles come with battles fought: Blooded (1 battle), Seasoned (5 battles), Hardened (10 battles), Old Hands (18 battles), Legends (25 battles).
- Tank Killers: 10 tanks destroyed.
- Sky Hunters: 10 aircraft destroyed.
- Spearhead: First into a town in 3 battles.
- The Wall: Came through 5 attacks in one enemy turn.
- Unbroken: Held on at 2 strength or less.
Every battle won adds an honour to each unit that fought it, and a ground won again counts ×2, ×3 and on. After a match a short ceremony shows who was promoted, who earned a title, a feat or a medal, and who lost a grade. Titles and honours are for show: medals are what change a unit in battle.
Green to Guards
Experience
Shown as brass pips. Experience comes with hard fighting, a step at a time.
| Grade | Attack | Defence | Movement | Actions to the next grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Green | — | — | — | 4 |
| Trained | +1 | +10% | — | 7 |
| Regular | +2 | +20% | +1 | 11 |
| Veteran | +3 | +30% | +1 | 16 |
| Elite | +4 | +40% | +2 | 22 |
| Guards | +5 | +50% | +2 | — |
A commander's Training attribute takes an action off each promotion at ranks 2 and 4. Train troops gives your commander 5 experience an hour, and drills one Green Battle Group unit you choose: a point of experience every 2 hours, up to Trained. Command Points can train a unit no further than that either: anything better is earned in battle. Campaign armies learn only in battle.
Decorations
Medals
A unit that does something remarkable in battle is decorated under its own army's name for the medal. Each kind once, each with a permanent bonus kept through refits and upgrades.
| Deed, in one battle | Permanent bonus | Named, German · British · American · Soviet |
|---|---|---|
| Destroy four enemy units in one battle. | +1 attack | Iron Cross · Military Cross · Silver Star · Order of the Red Star |
| Destroy six enemy units in one battle. | +1 attack, +1 defence | Knight's Cross · Victoria Cross · Medal of Honor · Hero of the Soviet Union |
| Destroy three enemy armoured units in one battle. | +2 hard attack | Tank Destruction Badge · Military Medal · Bronze Star · Order of the Patriotic War |
| Shoot down two enemy aircraft in one battle. | +2 air attack | Front Flying Clasp · Distinguished Flying Cross · Distinguished Flying Cross · Order of the Red Banner |
| Destroy three enemy ground units from the air in one battle. | +1 soft attack, +1 hard attack | Luftwaffe Honour Goblet · Air Force Cross · Air Medal · Order of Alexander Nevsky |
| Cost the enemy twenty strength points with artillery fire in one battle. | +2 soft attack | War Merit Cross · Mention in Despatches · Meritorious Unit Commendation · Medal for Battle Merit |
| Survive five attacks in a single enemy turn. | +1 defence | Close Combat Clasp · Distinguished Conduct Medal · Distinguished Unit Citation · Medal for Courage |
| Take the first objective of a battle, and win it decisively. | +1 movement | Assault Badge · Distinguished Service Order · Legion of Merit · Order of Glory |
| Be cut down to one strength point, destroy an enemy unit, and see the battle won. | +2 initiative | German Cross · George Medal · Purple Heart · Order of Kutuzov |
Medals change a unit in battle in a campaign and in Battle Mode. Scenario matches between players are fought without them. Achievements are separate: see Leaderboards.
Nerve
Morale
Every unit has morale, aircraft too, and nothing predicts it.
| Step | On the counter | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Inspired | ▲▲ | +2 attack and defence. |
| Confident | ▲ | +1 attack and defence. |
| Steady | — | Fights as it is. |
| Shaken | ▼ | −1 attack and defence. |
| Broken | ▼▼ | −2 attack and defence, and it cannot attack. |
Surprises move it
Morale moves only when a fight goes clearly better or worse than its odds, by 2.5 strength points or more against the forecast. Hit harder and lose less than expected, and a unit rises a step while the enemy it fought falls one. Driven out of a town, a unit falls a step.
It spreads
A surprise touches each unit beside it half the time, the same way. At the start of its turn a unit drifts a step toward its neighbours when most of them stand above or below it.
A fresh start each battle
Morale returns to Steady for each battle (Shaken, for a Fearful unit). Traits stay. A unit's card shows its step, its traits, and every reason it moved.
Broken and cut off
A trapped unit loses a step of morale each turn it begins out of supply. At the start of its turn it surrenders if Broken, and one time in three if Shaken; an Unbreakable unit never surrenders. A surrender pays the captor 25 prestige, and a tank, gun or anti-tank gun is taken intact one time in three and joins the captor's army Green at 3 strength.
Kept like medals
Traits
Twelve traits in all: four that come by chance at the ends of morale, and eight earned by what a unit lives through.
Morale's four
A unit holds at most one from each end of the scale; a new one replaces the old.
| Trait | How it comes | Effect | How it goes | On its card |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leader Good | Reaching Inspired: a 1 in 3 chance. | Units beside it never fall below Shaken. | Kept, until a new trait from the same end replaces it. | Inspired, it carried the units around it with it. |
| Careless Bad | Reaching Inspired: a 1 in 4 chance. | −2 defence, and it will not dig in. | Lifts when a hard knock leaves it Shaken or worse. | Inspired, and too sure of itself. |
| Unbreakable Good | Reaching Broken: a 1 in 3 chance. | Never falls below Shaken. +1 defence. | Kept, until a new trait from the same end replaces it. | Down to Broken, it did not run. Something in it set hard. |
| Fearful Bad | Reaching Broken: a 1 in 3 chance. | −1 attack, and starts each battle Shaken. | Lifts after a battle won without losing a unit. | Down to Broken, it has lost its nerve. |
Earned in the field
Never by chance: each comes from something the battle did.
| Trait | How it is earned | Effect | How it goes | On its card |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tank Hunters Good | Destroy 3 armoured units in one battle. | +2 attack against armour. | Kept for good. | Three armoured units destroyed: it knows how a tank dies now. |
| Street Fighters Good | Hold a town or city through 3 attacks in one battle without being driven out. | +2 defence in a town or city. | Kept for good. | It held the town, house by house, and learned the streets. |
| Winter-Hardened Good | Come through a battle with 5 turns of snow. | Snow neither slows it nor cuts its fire. | Kept for good. | Through a battle of snow, it has learned to live and fight in it. |
| Mud-Wise Good | Come through a battle with 5 turns of rain or mud. | Rain and mud neither slow it nor cut its fire. | Kept for good. | Through a battle of rain and mud, it has learned to move and fight in it. |
| Alert Good | Be ambushed under fog of war while Steady or better. | Sees a hex further, so it is seldom caught by an ambush again. | Kept, until an ambush while Shaken turns it to Hesitant. | It walked into an ambush and came out of it. It will be watching now. |
| Hesitant Bad | Be ambushed under fog of war while Shaken or worse. | Under fog of war it has a point less movement. | Lifts after a battle won. | Ambushed while shaken, it now fears every hidden hex. |
| Shell-Shocked Bad | Lose 6 strength between two of its own turns. | −1 initiative, and repeated attacks wear it down twice as fast. | Lifts when it takes replacements, or when the battle ends. | Too much, too fast. It needs a rest and fresh men. |
| Battle-Weary Bad | Fight 4 battles in a row while others of the army sit one out. | −1 attack and −1 movement. | Lifts when it sits out a battle. | Battle after battle while others rested. It needs a battle off. |
Fate and long odds
Cheating death
Cheated Death
A unit that comes through an attack with a 60% chance or worse of being destroyed has Cheated Death, for good. With it comes a second chance in every battle: once a battle, dice that would destroy it are thrown again, and the second throw stands. Your army keeps it from battle to battle.
Against the Odds
Destroy an enemy when the dice gave less than a 20% chance and the moment is celebrated, the odds counting down to the real chance; under 8% it is the Impossible Shot, a bigger celebration still. The unit wins the Long Shot ribbon, ×2, ×3 and on for each one after, with its slimmest odds. A record only: it changes no dice.
The fate moment
When an enemy attack has a good chance of destroying one of your units, the turn slows to show it, and the more history the unit has (battles, kills, medals, a name of its own), the bigger the moment. Your own attacks with a good chance of a kill are framed close up.
Your general's voice
A general of your side calls the moments aloud: a town taken or lost, a ring closed, a storied unit fallen, a unit cheating death, a long shot, the last turns.