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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Leopard Panzertruppen: Bella Fleck and the Flecktarn

When the Panzertruppen supplement came out for West Germany, I quickly downloaded a copy, it seemed like a great list to get my Leopard 1s on the table and the infantry mounted in M-113 APCs have 3 Milan teams per platoon vice the 2 of the infantry in Marders. So I wanted to get another blister of infantry for my German force.  I have some Command Decision M-113s and picked up 4 more from the Vietnam period during Battlefront’s Halloween sale.

With the Panzertruppen supplement you can not only field a Leo1 and M-113 company, you can also get a Fuchs formation to boot. The lists here are a must for anyone who wants to field a ton on Leopard 1 tanks. Since I have 9 of them I can field the HQ, 2 full platoons of 3 Leos each and maybe a platoon of 2 then and then grab an M-113 troop for about 35 points.

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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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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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Team Yankee Contest: Eat at Wolfgang's Truck

You have to love the ability to get an instant collector’s item for free and that is what WWPD and Battlefront plan to do over the next few weeks.  To go along with their release of Iron Maiden, the folks at Battlefront are making a limited edition of the Wolfgang and his Bratty Wagon objective, which they are not planning on selling to the public.  Here at WWPD, we have 20 of these one of a kind models and plan to give them out to our readers.

Who was Wolfgang?  He seems to have been a legend to the BAOR (British Army of the Rhine) troops when they were in the field.  During an exercise, no matter where a unit was, or how well hidden, Wolfgang would find them in his wagon, providing Bratwurst to the troops who had to otherwise eat field rations. I did some research on this guy and many wondered if he really worked for the Warsaw Pact’s 3rd Shock Army since he knew exactly where each unit was at any given time. The troops felt he was the best recce unit in the BAOR since he also knew the location of a units OPFOR during a field exercise. Sadly Wolfgang passed away sometime in 2015, however he lives on in resin and can be available to make an appearance on your gaming table.

Where is that bloody truck!  I' am hungry!

Each week WWPD will host the “Show Us Your Tanks” contest in which we pick 4 lucky winners who post pictures of their Team Yankee or Flames of War tanks.  Winners will be selected based on appearance, cool tips and tricks, and setting a (tank selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower is something I would pick as a winner).


One of the few known Pictures of Wolfgang and his Bratty Truck

To enter, upload a picture to the Why We Fight Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/WWPDWhyWeFight/

Or post it on Twitter using the hashtag #WinWolfiesTruck (don’t forget to message me @MitchWWPD)

The most "likes" or "retweets" would put you ahead of the pack!

You can always back up your post by submitting a link to it here WWPDWolfgang@gmail.com

Starting on 9 September, we will look over all the submissions  and select 4 winners.  You only have to enter once since we will look at all entries, however you can always add new pics at any time. We will post the winners on the “Why We Fight” Facebook page and I will send out a Tweet as well. Selections will be made on 9, 16, 23, 30 September and 7 October.

The models will be shipped to you once they are made and we would love to see how you painted them and made them look great.

Email: WWPDMitch@gmail.com

Twitter: @MitchWWPD

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Why We Fight Episode 3

On today's episode Eric, Luke and Mitch are back with some big announcements in ACT I, including a new contest.  The guys take a thorough look at the new Leopard book in ACT II as well as some list building talk for Team Yankee, in particular our new favorite Leopard lists.  In ACT III the guys wrap up the episode with some Team Yankee commonly overlooked rules and an in depth talk about the "Meta" of Flames of War.  This is a information packed episode so don't miss out!

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