Stripes: Reviewed and Spoiled by Sarge!

We here at WWPD got lucky to get our hands on the new Team Yankee book, Stripes, which focuses on the Americans and gives them some great upgrades.  This luck was compounded by getting some famous people who once wore stripes to talk about what they initially thought of when they read the pre-release copy.  We at WWPD thought this would be a great way to commemorate the upcoming Veterans Day and to have these enlisted icons tell you a bit about what is new in Stripes. Before we get to the Sergeants, I will tell you that this book is what every US player has been waiting for and really adds some flavor and color to the US lists from the original Team Yankee book. I know some folks really wanted the Bradley IFV to be in this book, however you get so many neat new toys here I just do not see any room to complain. Also in Stripes the developers take some liberties with some of the units and weapons that were around in Europe during the period (1985) that the game takes place in. Once again, no room to complain because the alt-history in Stripes really is minor and I like what they did here with this new book. Now off to those NCO's of Hollywood!

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Test Your Team Yankee Skills at Fall-In!

Come test your Team Yankee skills against the guys from WWPD at HMGS's Fall-in!  WWPD will be running Team Yankee Demos Friday and Saturday (3-4 Nov) at Fall-in, come find us near that day's Flames of War tournament and play a 30-minute, 35-point game with us and get a free Team Yankee sprue! Win and you get a $5 coupon from Battlefront towards and army box set. Maybe even play against a list from Stripes!  No models needed just show and test your skills! 

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Team Yankee North American Nationals 2017: Mission Selection

Over the last few weeks I have been planning the upcoming first ever Team Yankee Nationals that will be held at Historicon on 14 July 2017.  One of the issues that seems to have gotten a lot of comments on various forums are the missions we plan to select for each of the 3 tournament games. I held off on this decision for a while because I wanted to get the advice of others and I wanted to see what lists players planned to run at the event. I know that any decision I could make would draw the ire of the denizens of the forums.
My thoughts on making this decision were based on two major factors, 1) keeping the selection fair for all players and 2) not wanting the insane to run the asylum.

What I have notice so far in playing this game since it came out is that you do not have a very wide selection of lists from each nation to choose from and that there is a vast difference in the composition of the available forces. At 100 points an East German player can have 63 T-55AM2’s while a West German Player tops out at 9 Leopard 2’s, each list costing 99 points.  However list selection is left up to the players and that is something I didn’t want to get involved with. However based on the rules of the mission, a player can end up with a mission that their force is not built to accomplish. My thoughts on this is for players to build a better list that can handle any type of mission. However that thinking could be more based on Flames of War and may not be applicable for Team Yankee based on the lack of list diversity.

This lack of diversity is not Battlefront’s fault, modern armies are standardized and have a cross section of combat capabilities within them. The main difference in an armor force as opposed to a mechanized unit is one armor battalion is swapped for a mech unit. Combat support for both units will also be relatively the same.

So based on this I took a look at the “Expanded Missions” pdf that was put out to augment the number of missions that are available for players. Also in this expansion is mechanic called “Battle Plans” where players can bid to attack or defend and bases on that selection a type of mission is given o them and they roll off.  At first I did not care for this method, I felt that TOs should dictate what missions are played in order to make sure it is fair for all and that using battle plans rewards players who have on trick pony lists.

Another things I factored into the decision is that a lot of folks feel battles will time out. I feel that 2.5 hours per game is enough time and players who want to be competitive know they have to act aggressively and try to win the game instead of having a tie. Some players feel that certain missions lead to a tie more often than not, however I feel that good players know how to win and put forth tactics to achieve their goals in the time allotted. 

So after doing my research I feel that using the Battle Plans for the tournament is the right call and is a really neat mechanic. Deep down I still think it may favor certain types of lists which I will not go into here, however it is way we will go for the 2017 Nationals.

So let me set up the ground rules
- Players will have a copy of the Team Yankee Expanded Missions on them at the event. A link can be found here.
- Players will have 5 mins from the time table assignments are given to review the table and their opponents list, pick a “Battle Plan” and roll for a mission.
- Players will accept the mission that is rolled and will not re-roll even in both players mutually agree that they do not wish to play the rolled mission or have played that mission previously during the event.

So with this put to rest I want to once again plug the event.  The prize support and the fact that it is the first of its kinds means that you can have fun and be a part of history. Now if we can get more players who are not in love with the Leopard book we will be set.

You still have time to register; please send your list/force selection to WWPD2017wwiii@gmail.com


Twitter: @MitchWWPD
Mail: WWPDMitch@gmail.com

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Fulda in Fredericksburg: 2017 Team Yankee Nationals

Now with Cold Wars 2017 behind us it is time to turn our attentions to Historicon 2017 and the first ever Team Yankee North American Nationals also known as “Fulda Gap in Fredericksburg”.

Here are the details

GMs: Mitch Reed (WWPDMitch@gmail.com) and Brian Sullivan

Cost: Free!!!

Date/Time: 14 July 10am – 8pm Arrive at 9:30am to register.  Players who do not check in by 9:45 may have their spots taken by a player on the stand by list.
Three 2.5 hour rounds.  100 Points. All official lists from Team Yankee (including Afghansty), Leopard (including Panzertruppen), Iron Maiden, and Volks-Armee will be allowed.  All forces will be fully painted.  We have spots for 120 players and we will make a stand-by list if the tournament fills up. Each participant will get the Wolfgang’s Bratty Wagon objective for free for playing in the tournament.

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North American Yeam Yankee Nationals; 14 July 2017

With Brian Sullivan

First of all, let me fill you in on some big news; WWPD and Battlefront will be hosting the first ever Team Yankee North American Nationals on 14 July 2017! The event will take place during Historicon 2017 in Fredericksburg Virginia. So, this post serves as “save the date” for all of you that have been looking forward for a huge Team Yankee event and we will be posting a series of “Tournament Organizer” articles to keep you informed over the next few months.

We will be working with Brian Sullivan, who will be the POC from the Battlefront side of the house and I will be the POC from WWPD.

Right now, we have so many details to work out;

Points totals? Will 100 be too much? Is 80 the sweet spot?

Scoring? Do we use an alternative scoring system to have a definitive winner in 3 rounds?

Prize support? Well with Luke doing this I am sure it will be something great!

So, since we have more questions than answers right now please hold off any you have until we have firmed things up. Until we can get the event into the PEL for Historicon we will not be taking any sign-ups, so stay tuned to WWPD.net and we will drop more info as it becomes available.

We want to make this the biggest and best Team Yankee event ever! So come join us for "Fulda in Fredericksburg 2017!"

@MitchWWPD         

MitchWWPD@gmail.com

"Why We Fight" and "On the Road" Podcasts http://wwpd.libsyn.com/podcast 

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AAR: Iron Maiden Vs Volks-Armee

As the clock was running out for 2016 I was anxious to get my newest army on the table in force. I think I flooded all of you with how much I liked building my British force for Team-Yankee and I could not wait to get a full 100 point force on the table. In the time since I finished my Chieftain force I also was able to review Volks-Armee and in an effort to kill two birds with one stone, I was able to play my British force against the yet to be released East German’s. Let me get one fact straight before I proceed; I do not have any of the new models for Volks-Armee, so those hoping to see the new models can stop reading now.  What I did do was proxy the NVA force with the Soviets I have in my collection. Well even the term proxy is not quite fitting here since the list I built used the same T-72 and BMP-1 models I have in my collection, in fact the only real models I substituted was using my Soviet infantry for East German Mot-Schutzen.

 

So with two days left to go in the year, Throck, Ben (from Team Bro-Go) headed up to Glen Burnie Maryland to meet our gaming buddy Kato, who also wanted to get his West German’s on a table before the year ended. We love going to Games and Stuff in Maryland, it’s such a well-stocked store with an excellent staff that I always end up spending a few bucks in.

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Finishing up Iron Maiden

Don’t you just love that feeling when you put the last touch of paint on a model and you know your work is done? It is a rare feeling since we always seem to be expanding our collections, however with the lower model count in Team Yankee I was able to finish off my forces from Iron Maiden and I think I will be set for the time being. Maybe it is one of the things I like about TY is that once you finish your core 100 point force, you do not have the need to keep adding models, I think between this and ability that you can take more than one formation adds to the games allure. My last article detailed my building and paining my Chieftains, FV 432s, Rapiers, and of course the infantry. I was left with building the Lynx helicopters and the recce vehicles for my force which were the last to be released.

I wanted to cover the Lynx for the article because I do not think these guys were be making it on many lists I plan to make. I think it’s a neat to have the choppers in the game, however AAA is just so good I do not think these guys will not have a long life span.

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Iron Maiden: The Unboxing and Playing

As I was writing all those articles on the “Iron Maiden” release, I also volunteered to do the “unboxing”; not just because I wanted to write more about the subject, but to feed my desire to play with this new and interesting faction for Team Yankee. As some of you know from reading the past articles I penned on the Brits; I have always felt that this new force will change how the game is played. The forces in IM gives the player some really good infantry and a cheap but deadly main battle tank that can hold its own on the game table.

The Chief
I was able to get a hold of this box set that has 5 Chieftain Tanks and 2 Lynx helicopters. The box also comes with the new mini rule book witch is better made than the V3 FoW mini-rulebook, it will not snap its spine when you open it. 

Having made a Chieftain during the roll out event without instructions I found making them with the guide was a snap. Even the baskets on the sides of the turret fit right into a groove and you do not have to worry about misplacing them. One decision you will have to make is to use the regular or Stillbrew turret. While I love using magnets to swap things like this out, this kit does not give you the parts to do that; with only one cannon and one set of baskets available. I decided to use the Stillbrew turret for uniformity and for the fact that it not only looks a bit better, but it is also not that noticeable to the untrained.

Two things that will slow down your speed building of this model; the first is the cupola machine gun, which is just ripe to get ripped off the tank unless you are careful. The other is the side skirts, they seemed to go on at a slight angle and this is something you will have to play with to get it just right. Based on the pictures I checked out on the Chief, the actual side skirts so somewhat taper in the rear. The only real “complaint” I could think of is the commander who sits in the open cupola.  They seem to be at a larger scale and some of the included commanders will only fit in the turret at an angle. They also leave little logical room for the HMG, unless you want your crewman hugging the gun awkwardly.

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On the Road: Iron Maiden Roll-Out Tournament

With pictures from Kato Lee

After all the hype over Iron Maiden, I was looking forward to the release of the models and new book that will certainly be a hit for all of us who love Team-Yankee. The folks from Battlefront always like to make a big splash when it comes to a release, and the one on 8 October lived up to the excitement I had for the weeks prior. Battlefront used a series of world wide tournaments to introduce the public to the new line, and I was lucky to have an event near me, at my not so local gaming store Games and Stuff in Glenn Burnie Maryland.

Besides the release I had other reasons to be excited, as Battlefront was holding an 80-point TY tournament with the winner getting an 80 point British army and this event was going to be the test bed for our first "On the Road" podcast that Sean Sarah and I will be putting together for the WWPD community. So Sean and I headed up to Games and Stuff with Ben Gobel and Scott MacLemore in tow, both competing with loaner armies we were able to scrap together for them. Ben used my Soviet army, since I wanted to play with my West German force.  Scott and Sean followed suit and both also fielded 80-point German lists. The 3 West German forces we traveled with with were all based on having 5 Leopard-2 tanks and 4 Gepards.  I had Marders, Luchs, and Jaguars backing up this force while Sean had Leopard-1s from the new Panzertruppen list while Scott used a combo of Jaguar, Luchs and attack helicopters supporting his MBTs. Ben took and interesting force of 2 T-72 platoons of 4 and 5 tanks each, a medium sized BMP company, Shilkas, Carnations, and of-course Hinds to make up his force. Perhaps the best units he picked were the two scout platoons which cause me so much grief.

Around 14 players showed up for the tournament and it was a good mix of all three of the nations represented in the game so far. The event run by Battlefront's John-Paul Brisigotti and Brian Sayman started off with a "build a Chieftain" contest. The goal was to build a Chieftain from a sprue and the winner was to get an Iron Maiden book.  What made it difficult was the fact that we had no instructions, so I felt I had an edge from doing so many articles on the Chieftain last month.  I finished my tank in less than 5 minutes and was bested by Sean who was accidentally declared the winner on a tank that did not have any machine guns. I plan to give Throck a hard time about this as much as I can.

Right after this, the first games began and because of the large turn out, Scott and I had to play on a table set up with terrain from another game. It was cool to play on a real city table.

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Iron Maiden: Winners of Wolfie's Truck

WWPD and  Battlefront ran a contest where we gave away a unique objective marker for those who send us a picture of their tanks. The response was overwhelming, and we were able to end the contest early. 

I was really impressed with some of the pictures and even more impressed of how many participants we have from around the world.

So here are the winners;

Hugo Carmona, Portugal
Carsten McLean, Canada
Robert Kelly, Canada
Mark Francis, USA
Andre Silva, Portugal
Alex Rainbow, UK
Mattiw Valenti, Italy
Igor Torgeson, USA
Ian Harrington, USA
Dane Tkacs, USA
Kevin Morris, USA
Daniel Lengauer, Germany
Stephen Lee, USA
Sebastien Clement, France
Florian Benzel, Germany
Adam Booker, Australia
Matthew Hartnett, USA
Antti Arajavi, Finland
Chris Potter, UK
Danny Masterovich, USA

... and here are some of the pictures we received:

 From Adam Booker, 'Panther on Wood"

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Iron Maiden: My Wish List

Many of you can accurately say that I beat the Iron Maiden release to death this month! I did feel the need to cap off the month with an article on what my future IM list will look like. I think you may have gathered from my previous articles - and the podcast dedicated to IM - that I really like this book for a lot of reasons.  With IM, Battlefront really changed the scope of the game away from it being an fight based on just tanks, and gave us some really good infantry to disrupt the “meta”. It’s not that the British tanks are bad - in fact they are quite good and appropriately priced - it is just that the strength of this list is the amount of missiles you can throw at your opponent. While tanks do feature on my list, I know going into this that I have to play them differently that I would the Leo’s and T-72s.

So here we go with my 100 point list:

Formation 1: Chieftain Armoured Squadron
HQ: 1 x Chieftains (6 Points)
Platoon 1: 3 x Chieftains (18 Points)
Platoon 2: 3 x Chieftains (18 Points)
Platoon 3: 2 x Swingfire Troop (4 Points)
Formation Total: 46 Points

I know I said my list would be based around the infantry, and here I go spending half of my 100 points on tanks. My defense of that is simple: tanks cost more, and a full up list based on tanks would have a lot more tanks in it.

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Iron Maiden Preview: Armored and Recce Company Detailed

In the previous article in this series, I spoke about the great British infantry lists contained in Iron Maiden. This article will turn its attention to the other two lists in the book, the Armored and the Medium Recce Companies. For those who have read my other article, you already know that the Mechanized and Airmobile lists are already some of my favorites from IM. The other lists are still pretty good, and I feel they support the mechanized company very well. I will also give some details on the scenarios and paining instructions that are in Iron Maiden, which will wrap up our preview of the formations contained in the book. 

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.

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Iron Maiden the Last Wave and a Freebie!

In this article - the last of three that are focused on the new releases coming out for Iron Maiden - we have a bit of surprise for you.  The folks at Battlefront are releasing a new mini version of the Team Yankee rules in the new Charlie’s Chieftain boxset deal.   The mini rules are 90 pages and cover everything except the data on the forces of the game.  I like this move since you will get the info on the forces either from the books or the cards when you buy the models.   I am guessing here, but Battlefront sent me a picture of the sticker that announces that a particular box has the mini rules, so maybe we will see the mini book in other releases and maybe re-releases of the three previous box sets.  I have some snaps of the new mini rules at the end of this article.

I also said in my second article of this series that I will provide you pictures of the sprues for some of the plastic models.  I finally got my hands on the Scorpion/Scimitar and Spartan/Striker. It looks like unless you find a smart way to make it work with magic or magnets, you will not be able to do swap outs between the two different versions for either model.  Maybe the gun on Scorpion/Scimitar can be magnetized, however the Spartan/Striker looks like it will take more creativity since the rear of the model is so different.  I will be doing the unboxing articles in the future and I will see what can be done to give you some flexibility.

Scorpion-Scimitar-sprue

Spartan-Striker-sprue

On to the new stuff.   This article will detail the resin and metal releases that are coming out with Iron Maiden. Much like the metal and resin of Leopard, we are looking at infantry and support vehicles.

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Preview: The Forces of Iron Maiden: Tommy’s Not Tanks

Now that you have seen the spoiler and the cards for Iron Maiden, the next step is to give you an idea of the formations the book offers you. Let me go back to my first impression of Iron Maiden: “Wow”. Yes, the book shocked me. I saw right away how different the British would be as compared to the other three nationalities in the game. I got the advanced copy of the book before Throck, and I left for the Guns of August Tournament in Williamsburg VA. I told him I saw the book and he asked for my thoughts. I can recall saying “it’s different” and “if you like infantry, this book is for you”. I loved the fact the first lists - and especially Leopard  -featured the tank as the main weapon. Who doesn’t like tank fights? However, with the release of IM, I see how the developers expanded the scope of the game and put a tool in the game's tool box that you will love to play or hate to play against.

On to the Book
While Leopard had 3 formations to choose from, Iron Maiden has 4 types of formations: Tank, Mechanized Infantry, Air Mobile, and Recce. After reading the book a few times, I would say it would be hard to argue against the fact that the strength of the British in Team Yankee is their infantry.  This article will detail the infantry-based lists from Iron Maiden.

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Iron Maiden, Release Preview Two

Last week we gave you a look at the Chieftain, Lynx and the Charlie's Chieftain army deal, This week, we will look at the plastic models that will come out in the second batch of releases. We have some vehicles that you will just love and use quite a bit since they will carry around your infantry, shoot missiles at planes and tanks, or scout. So far, I have been very impressed with the quality of the plastic models for Team Yankee, especially the Leopard IIs and the Marders from the Leopard release. I have a feeling I will have a stack of these boxes on my painting table since each box set can be built into two different types of types. We are lucky that the British used some of the same chassis and hulls on different vehicles or we would be looking at a ton of different box sets coming out. Since I have yet to see the sprues for these models, I do not know if you can do some magnet magic and swap out the tops of the vehicles as you can do with the BMP box set. Once I get those pictures, I promise to tell you if that is possible. No matter what, the models look great and they look relatively easy to paint which is nice.

The first box set is the Spartan or Striker troop.  The Spartan makes an appearance in the Mechanized Company armed with the Milan missile, or they can bought from Divisional support where they cover your forces as mobile Blowpipe teams.  The Spartan is in your Recce Company, you have a slick version which acts as your command vehicle or can carry around some infantry.

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Team Yankee: Comparing the Main Battle Tanks

So who is number one?  A question that should be familiar to us here in the United States with college football season about to kick off. The answer to that question usually is “Depends on who you ask”.  However the question we are asking is not about football, but out of the 4 main battle tanks (MBTs) in Team Yankee which one is the best? Oddly the answer to this question is also “depends on who you ask” and since we do not have a playoff system like college football (which is flawed) I will try to tackle that question here. I wanted to find out a few things about the game, first of all is it well balanced and does it hold up to history.  I also want to see if some of the thoughts I had about the different forces in the game were true. I also looked at the match ups based on Red vs. Blue fights in order to look at the historical accuracy of the game.

With the upcoming release of Iron Maiden, we now have 4 MBTs that form the core units of the 4 nations represented in the game.  Each MBT has different abilities and attributes, however how do these effect gameplay?  I plan to analyze and compare these MBTs and try to see if we can determine which one is the best.  I will limit the discussion to only gameplay and not how these tanks performed in the real world.

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Preview: Iron Maiden, Charlie's Chieftains Army Deal

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.

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