The Chief
The Armoured Company revolves around the Chieftain MBT, which at the time Team Yankee takes place (1985), was being replaced with the Challenger MBT. The Chief represents the British focus on firepower and protection at the expense of speed. In the game, the Chieftain is just a bit slower than the T-72 and has one more point of FA for the non Stillbrew version of its Soviet counterpart. At the cost of 6 points per tank (7 with Stillbrew), the most you can hope to get in a 100 point game is 16, by taking one in the command element, and taking all of the 3 tank troops in the formation list and another 3 tank troop from divisional support. This makes it the closest NATO version of a Soviet tank horde. This is not something I would recommend, since that prevents you from taking anti-air or those great infantry platoons. Maybe at games over a 100 points, where you can mass your tanks and take other platoons in support, this might be an option.
What I do like about the Armoured Company is the price. You can take the mandatory 7 tanks of this company with Stillbrew armor for 49 points, and then add a mech platoon and some divisional assets to make your 100 point list. This seems to be pretty powerful.
Another great tool in this company is the Swingfire troop. These lightly armored vehicles perform the same job as the Jaguar did in Leopard by adding some long distance ATGM firepower to your tanks. Another neat thing is that the Swingfire can remain Gone to Ground after shooting, so they may stick around longer than their armor rating of 1 would usually allow. You can only take the Swingfire troop in the Armoured Squadron list for 2 points per vehicle.
Besides the Swingfire troop, your formation can have a mech platoon, Abbot SPGs, and a Scorpion troop to add to the two mandatory platoons.
The Medium Recce Troop
This formation is pretty small, with the formation consisting of 5 platoons. In this formation, you will get to choose between the Scimitar and the Scorpion, so you have the option to a mix of these two vehicles in your formation or just choose one.
The main difference in these two choices is the main gun. The Scimitar has a 30mm gun that can get 2 shots on the move, where the Scorpion gets that HESH shooting 76mm main gun which only has a RoF of 1 when moving. You can see that the tactical move for these guys is a mere 6”, however with the “Sneak and Peek” special rule, this goes up to 10” if they do not fire in the shooting phase.
Despite this, these guys are speedy - and looking at the dash speeds on both of these vehicles you can see how they can race behind you enemy and then wreak havoc. Both the vehicles have the Scout special rule which is a great option to have in your force.
In the Recce Troop, you have to take at least two Scimitar/Scorpion platoons with the option for a third. Rounding this out, you can take the Striker platoon, which is just like the Swingfire troop in the tank list. You also have the option for a Spartan Platoon, which is a small infantry section. These last two units are only available in this formation.
You can buy everything in this formation for a whopping 27 points, so you will have a lot of room for buying another formation or maxing out on divisional support options. In fact in IM you can buy all 4 formations with their mandatory platoons the cost of 81 points. Wild!
The Rest
Much like the other books for Team Yankee, you get some scenarios to try out. In IM, you get two where you can have Charlie’s Chieftains fight against the invading red horde.
The last part of the book tells you how to paint you British force, and much like the other books, new names for old colors to make you nuts.
Summary of the Maiden
Now that we have reviewed all of the formations in this book, I can tell you that I really like where the guys at Battlefront went with this one. I feel they went for the “all-arms” approach to the new period and took the focus away from the tanks and moved it to the infantry
Email: MitchWWPD@gmail.com
Twitter: @WWPDMitch
