By John Sulek
The Spotsylvania Area Gamers decided to pull out all the stops for a big Team Yankee game. We played Free for all with Wayne the Soviet player as the attacker. Wayne ran his army out of Red Thunder. Ren and I ran our armies out of Stripes. We set points at 150 per side. Ren chose to run a standard M-1 Tank Company of 1 M-1 HQ, 2 x 3 M-1 Tank Platoons with 4 VADS and 2 Cobras. He topped out at 69 points. I ran a Mech Infantry Combat Team out of Stripes with 1 HQ M-113, 2 full mech platoons minus the extra Dragon team, 2 VADS, a 6 gun M-109 Btry, FIST, and then tried out a few of the new units in the new Stripes book. 1st up, an IPM-1 platoon of 4 x IPM-1's. The extra front and side armor worked good going up against Wayne's T-72's. Next was the new Scout sections. I ran 2 and the extended deployment area helped out also. Then I ran 2 x SAM Stinger teams. I used 2 M-151 Jeeps with dismounted stinger teams for proxy. Then last but not least, I ran a Platoon of my 82nd Airborne Paratroopers that are also included in Stripes. Not exactly as I envisioned them but overall not bad. I took a full platoon of 7 stands plus 2 x M60 GPMG's and an extra Dragon team. In Stripes, they ride into battle in UH-1's but I chose to proxy 4 of UH-60 Blackhawks. With the Soviet AA on the board, I waited to deploy them until turn 4. Unfortunately, they were too late to change the outcome and the right flank in the county side fell. Ren went up against Wayne's T-64's and BMP's and was pretty much overwhelmed by turn 5 in the city. My scouts were within 14" of an objective when Wayne's T-72's assaulted my Arty Btry and they finally gave way. Overall a fun game. Lessons learned and I look forward to running this again.
