The kill board
Chapter 15 · The kill board · generated from the rules manual
15.1. What is credited. An axis tank or gun the platoon knocks out counts to the tank whose shot did it — a hit at the same tick as the kill, from a tank of the platoon’s own. An axis team that breaks and runs counts to the tank whose fire broke it: no round is ever aimed at men in the open and recorded as a hit, so what is asked of the log instead is which tank’s round or burst carried them over into broken, and whether they were still broken when they went. A team that rallied first, and was broken again by something nobody fired — the pressure of a tank closing on them, an assault they fought off — is nobody’s mark. Nothing is claimed the log cannot prove: a tank that goes quiet, or slips out of an arc, without ever being fired on earns nobody anything.
15.2. The three marks. A tank knocked out paints armour; a gun knocked out paints a gun; a team broken paints infantry — the way a crew painted kills on their own barrel. The mark belongs to the slot that fired, not to the hull it fired from: a tank that burns takes its own paint with it, but the crew’s tally does not start over. Slot four’s marks carry across into whatever tank slot four fields next.
15.3. Awards. Five, each decided from the record and the state alone, with nothing new simulated to earn one.
| Award | Earned |
|---|---|
| Purple Heart | Once per man, the first time he is wounded or killed. He is not decorated twice for a second wound. |
| Silver Star | A slot credited with three or more armoured kills in one action. Earned again for a later action that does it again. |
| Bronze Star | Once per slot, the first time its running tally — armour, guns and teams together, over the whole campaign — reaches five. |
| Presidential Unit Citation | An objective taken or held in an action that cost the platoon two or more tanks. |
| Campaign star | The campaign reaching its last day. Not given to a campaign that ended with the lieutenant’s death. |
The campaign star is earned only when the campaign itself ends, never by any one action, and belongs to a later reckoning than this one.
15.4. Every award except the Silver Star and the Campaign Star is given only once; the Campaign Star is given once for each campaign the platoon sees through to its last day. A man already carrying a Purple Heart is not given a second; a slot already carrying a Bronze Star earns nothing more for climbing past five; the platoon does not collect a second Unit Citation for a second costly objective. The Silver Star alone is earned action by action rather than once for the campaign, so the same slot may be given it more than once, on different dates. The Campaign Star, likewise, is not a once-ever decoration: a platoon that finishes Tunisia and then Anzio wears two, one for each campaign it saw through to the end.
15.5. A dead man keeps his award. The kill board is a record of what happened, not a roster of who is still standing to wear it.