Tractics is a set of rules for conducting World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 style combat with 1:285 scale

1:285 scale

1:285 scale or 6 mm figure size is a US Army scale introduced in the late 1960s, and used for wargames and some scale model dioramas. It is used in miniature wargaming to depict large battles in a relatively small gaming area...

 micro armour

Micro armour

Micro armour refers to small figurines made of lead, pewter, die cast metal or plastic, usually used for wargaming purposes. Variations of the name include: mini armour, mini armour, microscale, mini tanks, miniature armour, miniature armour, miniature tanks, micro tanks, minitanks, minifigs,...

 miniatures. It was originally written to use 1/87 scale miniatures which were easily available at the time of its writing. Written by Mike Reese

Mike Reese

Mike Reese is a Republican member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. He serves on the House Commerce and Children and Youth Committees.-Career:...

 and Leon Tucker with contributions by Gary Gygax

Gary Gygax

Ernest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with Dave Arneson. Gygax is generally acknowledged as the father of role-playing games....

, the game was published by Guidon Games

Guidon Games

Guidon Games produced board games and rulebooks for wargaming with miniatures, and in doing so influenced Tactical Studies Rules , the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons. The Guidon Games publishing imprint was the property of Lowry's Hobbies , a mail-order business owned by Don and Julie Lowry...

 in 1971 and republished by TSR, Inc.

TSR, Inc.

Blume and Gygax, the remaining owners, incorporated a new company called TSR Hobbies, Inc., with Blume and his father, Melvin Blume, owning the larger share. The former assets of the partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies, Inc....

 in 1975. It came as a boxed set containing three booklets with illustrations by Don Lowry

Don Lowry

Don Lowry is a wargamer, businessman, illustrator, and game designer who is best known as the publisher of Chainmail and the editor of Panzerfaust Magazine....

. It has the distinction of being the first published game to use a 20-sided die. TSR printed about 5000 copies of the game and then let it go out of print in 1977.

The name of the game recalls the popular Avalon Hill

Avalon Hill

Avalon Hill was a game company that specialized in wargames and strategic board games. Its logo contained its initials "AH", and it was often referred to by this abbreviation. It also published the occasional miniature wargaming rules, role-playing game, and had a popular line of sports simulations...

 board wargame

Wargaming

A wargame is a strategy game that deals with military operations of various types, real or fictional. Wargaming is the hobby dedicated to the play of such games, which can also be called conflict simulations, or consims for short. When used professionally to study warfare, it is generally known as...

 Tactics II (1958). Although WWII style combat was popular with board wargamers, few miniature wargamers

Miniature wargaming

Miniature wargaming is a form of wargaming that incorporates miniature figures, miniature armor and modeled terrain as the main components of play...

 were enacting WWII battles in the mid 1960s, in part because appropriate miniatures were scarce. In 1968 Reese and Tucker, two members of the LGTSA

Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association

The Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association was a prominent wargaming club active in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin during the 1960s and 1970s. Its membership included Gary Gygax, Terry and Rob Kuntz, Jeff Perren, Mike Reese, Leon Tucker, and Don Kaye. The organization usually met weekly in Gygax's...

, began play-testing rules for tank combat that would eventually form the core of Tractics. Gygax contributed some rules on infantry, covered in the second booklet, and the third booklet would cover additional topics such as airstrikes and the MODERN period (which at the time included rumors of the XM-1 tank).

The rules are for the dedicated wargaming enthusiast. The players must first acquire the miniatures and build the terrain. Reese and Tucker were interested in an accurate simulation, and as a result the game provides data describing the rate of movement, thickness of armor, and rate of fire for the makes of tank in service from 1940 to 1970. The game is consequently slower to conduct than a board wargame such as Tactics II. For miniature wargamers who felt that the amount of detail was excessive, Reese and Tucker recommended their earlier Fast Rules

Fast Rules (game)

Fast Rules is a set rules for conducting table top wargames with H0 scale WWII miniatures. The rules were developed by Mike Reese and Leon Tucker and published as a 24 page pamphlet in 1970 by the Armored Operations Society, an affiliate of the IFW...

 (1970) although that set covered WWII only.

Tractics is not a perfect information

Perfect information

In game theory, perfect information describes the situation when a player has available the same information to determine all of the possible games as would be available at the end of the game....

game and requires the use of a judge. A player does not initially know where his enemy is located, and pieces are placed in the playing area only when they come into open view or are detected by active observation. Tanks have a base 30% chance (i.e. must roll a 15 or higher on a 20-sided die) to hit a target. Modifiers apply depending upon factors such as how well the target is concealed.