Hello dear reader. In this episode, I want to talk about armoured vehicles in ACP164.

One of my favourite scenes in the film ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’, is the one where the baddies are doing a deal with Alexei Sayle playing the Sultan. He says:

You shall have camels, horses, an

armed escort, provisions, desert

vehicles – and tanks!

So that’s my topic for today. This post covers the canon of armoured vehicles in ACP164, with some suggestions about how to reflect them on the table.

Canon

The origin of the word ‘tank’ comes from the British army in world war 1. Tank was the code name for the new vehicle, used in telegraph messages to conceal the existence of the new toys. Early on, we decided that the creators probably didn’t include this tidbit of information, so in the game, we call them armoured fighting vehicles, or AFV for short.

However, the comics didn’t feature AFV to any great extent, being more focused on what we might call ‘personal interactions.’ This is good for story development, but perhaps less so for gamers. As a result, we had to invent some back story, and this appears in the Sourcebook – which, again, I encourage you to buy!

Early War

In the early part of the war, AFV are not really a thing. Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC) appear in Phase II, acting as battlefield taxis, and the result of this was the development of weapons that could pierce their armour.

Phase III

The next logical step was to mount that weapon on another vehicle – and this is what we see in the early part of Phase III. The EDF fire support vehicle – the AV-8F is an example of this, as is the ILR P-69T. Both these vehicle types saw active use during the battles for Beii, and as a result, each side drew different conclusions.

The ILR saw how useful it was to have a mobile gun platform that could assist their fighting units, but also observed that the 67T was neither an effective APC nor capable of carrying enough propellant and ammunition to last long in combat. As a result, after Beii, the ILR introduced a new vehicle – the BT-71. (and retrospectively reclassified the P-67T as the BT-70.)

At the same time, they introduce an turreted reconnaissance vehicle, which is the SP-74. This is a development of the SP-67 scout vehicle, which was in turn a first generation APC, but I digress.

The BT-71 is an 8-Wheeled vehicle, with a crew of 4: Driver, Gunner, Commander and Communicator/Loader. Instead of the autocannon, the -71 features a 105mm smoothbore gun, which, in common with most Albedo vehicles uses a binary liquid propellant. Each part of the propellant is inert individually, but they are volatile when mixed in equal proportions. In the -71, the gun is manually loaded with a shell, then propellant is mixed in the breech, before being ignited electrically.

EDF and HomeGuard

The EDF, by contrast, continued to develop the FIST concept – the Fighting Infantry Support Vehicle, introducing the F2 variant, which more heavily armoured and featured a better armament, adding a missile launcher to the autocannon. However, the EDF were much more focused on the use of airpower, and introduced Aerodyne Gunships to solve the anti-armour problem.

The stated reason for this was a logistic one. Tanks are heavy and take up lots of space aboard ship, and that space is bettwer used on things that can serve multiple purposes. Of course, after Beii, the EDF had made a policy decision that muddy boots wasn’t really their metier and being elite commandos was much more fun. This is why they invested their effort into

Notwithstanding that, EDF Mechanised units in garrison would often bemoan the lack of adequate armour, often coopting HomeGuard vehicles, or establishing local production based on AV-8 chassis.

The HomeGuard drew their own lessons from Beii, which varied based on their political affiliation and distance from the scene of the combat. Suffice to say that there’s plenty of room for creativity, which, as I’ve said before is an excellent reason to play the HomeGuard as a faction.

Phase IV

As so often happens, the late war period is best characterised by evolution and adaptation, rather than revolution. The ILR introduce the BT-72, which has better armour and a revolver style auto-loader for the main armament, which is still a 105mm smoothbore cannon. The autoloader takes up the space formerly occupied by the communicator/loader crew member. To make up for the loss of a critter, the BT-72 introduces an AI function that is capable of handling the communications, systems monitoring and routine driving functions. Of course, it doesn’t help with maintenance or guard duties…

The EDF continue to upgrade their gunships – that’s a whole article in itself – and add functionality to the FIST vehicle. The up-armoured AV-8F3 replaces the autocannon and missile launcher with a beam laser turret – adapted from an aerodyne gunship. This gives support platoons and recon troops a real punch.

However, since the fighting finished, the EDF has rested on it’s laurels. By contrast, the ILR secretly developed a new range of vehicles, offering better protection and mounting a massive 120mm smoothbore cannon and featuring a ten-wheeled chassis. The BT-73 represents the distillation of ILR armoured philosophy. The onboard AI is capable of synthesizing a composite tactical picture based on all available information, It can also make target and maneuvering recommendations, greatly improving the combat ability of the crew.

Modelling Tanks for ACP164

At the end of the day, you can use any suitably scaled vehicle to represent armoured vehicles in ACP164. When I started playing wargames, I used pieces of paper with “tank” written on them. But it’s always nice to have models that look like the thing you’re depicting.

It is fair to say that, when I wrote the sourcebook, I had to make a range of assumptions. The first was that the game would be reasonably popular and get some uptake. This started, but Covid was rather a wet blanket, and other issues meant that interest waned.

As a result, the plans we made for developing the range have rather waned as well. So, as it stands, using the models that are currently available, you can represent vehicles from Phase II and III, and that’s about it. I should point out that stocks of these are a bit limited now, so if you still want to get your hands on a rare item… don’t delay! We had planned to produce models for all the other variants, once the market had been established.

However, in the interim, things have changed a bit. As we have seen, the ready availability of 3D printers means that suddenly we are able to be very specific about what we can offer. So, if we want to make a version of a specific vehicle for a scenario, that’s a realistic option.

In a nutshell, that’s what we are now doing.

So, what’s next?

I had a long chat with Chris from Sally 4th yesterday, and we’ve mapped out the plan for the rest of 2025.

Starting this weekend, you’ll be able to purchase STL files directly from either the Sally 4th web store, or MyMiniFactory. If there’s enough demand, we’re planning to produce a vehicle for each of the variants identified in the rules, using Steve Gallacci’s design aesthetic.

We (in this context) is myself and the very talented Deniper Graves. The first four vehicles should be available this week, and we’ll be aiming to produce a fresh tranche every month

Deep Green, the jungle campaign book is being edited right now. We expect that it will be available in PDF form sometime soon, certainly in March.

A second mini-campaign book is nearly done. This is set aboard a spaceship, is entirely played in heroic mode and introduces a new faction. We’re also planning to release a new starter set.

There’s also a larger development that you’ll see towards the end of the year, but there’s a few miles yet to go before I can talk about that.

But before we decide to devote time and effort to these things, we need to know that the interest is there. If you’d like to provide feedback. and get more insight into what we’re doing, why not stop by albedopatrol.com and maybe join the forum. As I update ToE documents, I’m hosting them there, and there will also be a range of free STL files, as needed and as I get to them.

Thanks for reading!