We all love new toys to play with, and with the upcoming release of Iron Maiden the folks from Battlefront have some great stuff heading out way. In the first of three preview articles, I am going to talk about the Iron Maiden army deal called “Charlie's Chieftains”, the British paint set, and the Lynx. I am excited to share this stuff with you because it seems much like the previous releases for Team Yankee, the British models look excellent.
The Chief
The centerpiece of Iron Maiden is the Chieftain tank which bring me back a bit. When I was younger, a company called Corgi came out with a series of excellent die-cast metal tanks that could shoot little red projectiles from its main gun. One of the tanks in the collection I really loved was the Chieftain, and in fact it is the only one of the collection I still do not own. Despite is plan color, I just had to love the look of this tank.
Well now with the release of Iron Maiden, I can re-live those days with a plastic version, that also has an AT rating of 22. Looking at the single Chieftain sprue, you can see that two turret tops are included - one for the normal version of the tank and another for its “Stillbrew” armor.
The British used this modification to increase the protection of the tank over the years to meet with the latest threats it would face on the battlefield. In the game, for 1 point each you can upgrade your 17 FA Chieftain with Stillbrew armor and increase your FA rating to 18. This does come with a down side because the “Cross” rating goes from 2+ to 3+ because the tank is so much heavier.
What I wish I would have seen on the sprue is an extra turret bottom so we can swap out between regular and Stillbrew versions. I will have to wait for the unboxing to see if something can be done with magnets to remedy this.
I also like how they have the Berlin Brigade version of tank in both the book and the picture below. I hope that someone tells us what colors the Berlin camo used and how to apply it. I think using the alt-camo would be very cool.
Just like previous releases, Battlefront is selling “Charlie’s Chieftains”, a box set that has five tanks and two Lynx helicopters. With this you also get two decal sheets, six cards, and the Team Yankee Artillery/Salvo template. I am sure that they will come with a sprue for commanders and some magnets to keeps your choppers off the ground.
Much like the other releases, in the future you will be able to get a box of 5 Chieftains to add to your force. I also hope they have the single sprues available for purchase because 3 boxes of the tanks leaves you one short of the max you can take at 100 points.
The Lynx
Like the other three releases for the series we have seen the army deal comes with the Lynx Helicopter.
The army deal comes with two cards for the Lynx, one for the Tow firing ‘HELARM Flight” which cannot carry passengers and the transport version which can carry 3 stands of infantry or missile teams.
Color Guard
The last item I will preview here is the paint set that is coming out for the British. Chieftain Green, Harrier Grey, and DPM Sand joins the nationally named color list and I wonder what previous colors they translate to. I hope that some can post a translation of all the color names back to the tons of Vallejo paints I still have.
So it looks like the first few releases for Iron Maiden are of the same quality as the rest of the plastic models in the series. The army deal, the paint set, and the Chieftain Green spray should be in stores around Canadian Thanksgiving.
Stay tuned for more articles on the models of Iron Maiden.
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Twitter: @MitchWWPD
