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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Review: Struck by Red Thunder?

It has been a while since I wrote an article about anything other than the Team Yankee Tournament at Historicon.  With that behind me, I wanted to review the new book for Team Yankee called “Red Thunder”. What a great title, especially since thunder has no color, it’s a sonic event, but anyway I was very impressed by the book and I feel you will feel the same. With the initial release of the game, we were given rudimentary forces based in part by the book the game is based on. Many tank-grogs argued about using the T-72, which was not really the top of the line Soviet tank in 1985, however it was used in the book so we got stuck with it. However Red Thunder corrects this mistake and gives some love to those of us who like to push the red horde.
I plan to talk about the new toys first.

Tanks for the Memories
The biggest addition to the game is the new T-64, which is more than just an improved version of the T-72. While it mounts the same gun, the T-64 has better armor, moves faster, and has the ability to shoot the Songster missile from its main gun while on the move.  With a front of 17 and side of 9, the T-64 now has the protection that is closer to what your NATO opponents have had for a while now.  The Songster missile has an AT21 and a range of range 48”; which gives the T-64 a mighty punch.  The range of the missile also gives the T-64 the ability to fire against the longer range guns of NATO tanks before they get into gun range. This also comes without the +1 for distance and another +1 for the target’s armor save.  The speed of the tank is also 14”, which makes it 4” faster than the T-72, so you now enjoy some of the mobility the NATO tanks have had so far.

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