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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Review: Plastic Soldier Company T-55 Kit

Like many of you, I was excited to run a mass of T-55 when the Volks Armee book came out.  When I say mass I mean it - in a 100 point list you can run 62 of these guys. Think of rushing forward with 62 tanks, what list can put up enough shots to stop it? For those who dreamed of a huge horde of T-55AM2 tanks like I did, we were faced with the economic reality of the huge cost of such a list. You would need 13 boxes of tanks which gets you 5 for $72, so unless you have $1000 laying around to spend the horde was just a dream.

My actual list for Volks Armee did have about 20 T-55 tanks, and after buying 2 boxes and trading for a box of 4 tanks I was still short and I was waiting for the new T-55 kit from the Plastic Soldier Company to hit the shelf of my LGS.

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There and Back with the Volksarmee - A Historicon 2017 Team Yankee Nationals AAR

by Tom Burgess

I really wanted to get out to Fredericksburg for Historicon this year before it moved back to Lancaster, PA. - and being that this might be my last Historicon for a while, I wanted I really wanted to get the most out of it. So I signed up for the I-95 Late War Doubles, Team Yankee Nationals, and Mid War Nationals. That was going to be ten games over three days! But the focus of this AAR will be on the three games of the first ever Team Yankee Nationals.


Most of my Team Yankee "Soviet" collection was completed before I knew I could actually commit to going to Historicon. The problem was that it was mostly a T-72 collection and had not been terribly effective in any of my Team Yankee games. Turns out that a battalion of T-72s (I had 21 of them) just is not "meta." Sad face. However the Volksarmee book opened up some new options by offering a weaker, but cheaper T-72 and also expanding some cheap BRDM options in both the recon and Anti-Tank roles. Even though my force was painted as "Soviets," Volksarmee would let me use almost all of my existing collection on the table at once! But in a sense, my entire army was "proxied."

My Historicon force as designed by my friend Chris

The force I rolled out with was designed by my friend Chris as the most effective given my model collection limits. This forces was:

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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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Great War to World War III in a Weekend!

I decided to take a break from all of the articles on Version 4 of Flames of War and write about some of the gaming and painting I have been up to. Plus it would be good to write about something less contentious that will not draw the ire of our readers. In many respects I have made the mental conversion to V4 for FoW already and I am excited for the release so I can play it in public. I know I have two more V3 events coming up at Cold Wars, and plan to use that as a farewell tour and put V3 in the past. So with my lack of interest in V3 I was able to really get into playing some other great games over the last few weeks.

Great War
A few weeks ago I wrote an article that showed off my new GW French and Yanks and since I finished them I have been itching to use them in a game. I will once again shamelessly plug playing GW; it is such a different game than the WWII version and really tests how well you can handle an infantry force.  For those of you who listen to the Why We Fight Podcast know that I was excited to test my new forces at the GW tournament held at Huzzah Hobbies on 11 Feb.

In the weeks before the event I went back and forth over what list I was going to run. It came down to the two I wrote with Wayne Turner and were released via the FoW app; The USMC or the Harlem Hellfighters. I feel both lists have their strong points and would be fun to play, however the New Yorker (and former NY National Guardsman) in me made the Harlem Hellfighters an obvious pick. The best way to think of the Hellfighter’s are as Fearless Trained French troops. In the game the Hellfighters cannot be on a list with any other US troops and use all of the French National rules. They also get to re-roll all Morale Checks which did help me out during the tournament.

Harlem Hellfighters Company
HQ Cmd Rifle Team (25 pts)
HQ Support 2 x 37mm guns (100 pts)
Half Rifle Platoon (200 pts)
Half Rifle Platoon (200 pts)
French Half Rifle Platoon [F/V] (250 pts)
HMG Platoon (3 MGs) (190 pts)
Mortar Platoon 2 x Type 58 Mortars (180 pts)
Light Tank Platoon 3 x FT-17 [C/T] (2x 37mm 1xMG) (345 pts)
Total: 1500

I know, I have stated I was not an advocate of tanks in the game, but I wanted to try to get those funny painted tanks on the table.  If I had to do it over again I would have taken another Hellfighters platoon and a French Flame Section, maybe another HMG.

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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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Unboxing the Volks Armee

Part of bringing you the Preview of a new book is writing about the toys that come with it. For the Volks-Armee book, Battlefront is releasing 6 new boxes and one blister of NVA goodies that I was fortunate to get my hands on. I also was able to get a copy of the new book and I picked up some of those very cool NVA tokens and decals as well. In my last article I detailed a fight between my Iron Maiden army and a T-72M list from VA. As I look to playing in my first real Team-Yankee tournament in February, I think the NVA will be the guys I pick to battle with.

The Book
I hate to start off with an excuse, however when we preview a book it is always a PDF draft and may differ from what comes out in the final version. This was true in VA where the final draft of the book does not have the Basic Stabilizer on the T-55AM2, so no +2 when you move and shoot, it’s just a +1 for being Slow Firing. I first saw the book at a tournament in December, and even now I am so impressed with the front cover and I think it may be the new wallpaper for my laptop. So you will just have to excuse me for giving you a false alarm about the T-55AM2.

The book comes with all of the “conversion cards” for previously released models that are used in VA. So you get cards for a T-72M force, and unit stat cards for the T-72M, BMP-1, BMP-1 Scout and OP, Shilka, Gopher, Carnation, Hind, Raktenwerer, and Hind. Let me tell you how much I like this and I think it opens up a lot of flexibility for Battlefront. Once the product lines are put in place for commonly used equipment, it makes adding other nations that much easier since they can come out with the book and the cards. So we may see Poles, Romanians, and Hungary one day in TY. Same can be done for a lot of the smaller NATO nations as well taking into account the lines put out for TY, Vietnam, and Fate of a Nation. I think this strategy grows the game’s appeal and of course will sell more models with those of us with OCD.

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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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The Tanks of Volks-Armee

The new Volks-Armee book from Battlefront features one of the most iconic tanks of the Cold War era, the T-55. The T-55AM2 featured in VA has been vastly upgraded since the original model rolled off the assembly line in 1958, and features many upgrades that enhanced the protection and fire power of this mass produced tank.  In VA, players are given the option to field a ton of T-55AM2 tanks, which would be fun to play and is historically accurate. The other MBT featured in VA is the T-72M, which was the export only version of the T-72 and did not have all of the same features of the T-72 used by the Soviets during the 1980’s. Used separately or in tandem, these two tanks used in mass can give your opponent more targets than they can handle on a single turn and if played right can lead to certain victory.

T-55
The T-55 was born out of the T-54 program and is one of the most mass produced tanks in the post WWII period. Like many Soviet designs, the T-54/55 program did not feature a tank build from the ground up, instead it took many design features of tanks used during WWII. Thought its service life the T-55 featured the D-10T 100 mm rifled gun which when it first came out was a feared weapon, however as other MBTs were produced with better protection (and better guns) the effectiveness of the D-10T fell behind any enemy tank the T-55 would have to face.

While the gun remained the same, the tank received numerous upgrades in other areas. By the mid 1980’s the T-AM version was the standard MBT of most of the Warsaw Pact nations and featured the Volna fire control system, stabilizers, laser range finders, a more powerful engine, and smoke dischargers. Perhaps the biggest upgrades went into protection, with BDD armor applied to the tanks turret, as well as many other features that would protect the tank and its crew. The actual version used in VA is the AM2, which was produced under license in Czechoslovakia and sold all over the world. In fact the T-55 has seen combat in the Middle East and Africa, and even today is used by many nations. The tank was simple to operate and maintain and had a low profile so a nervous crew could hide better if the situation called for it.

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The Volks-Armee, The Other NVA

With the upcoming release of Volks-Armee from Battlefront, I thought it would be a good idea to give players a brief history of East German military and the weapons they used. The formation of the National Volks Army (NVA) took a different path than many of the other nations in Eastern Europe who found themselves in the Warsaw Pact. First of all the creation of two separate German nations was not something that was planned prior to end of the war. The plan was to carve Germany up into zones of occupation under the Allies and the Soviet Union after World War Two, with the thought that one day the entire nation would revert to self-rule.

Obviously this never happened because the two sides could not agree on very much and in 1949, the Soviet Union turned over their occupation zone to the German Communist Party and they formed the German Democratic Republic (DDR in German). I think the term “turned over” is applied very liberally here since not only did the Soviet troops stay in the DDR, very little went on in East Germany without the approval of Moscow.

The DDR geographically composed of what was agreed to during the Potsdam conference of 1945, with the eastern most parts of Germany and East Prussia being given to Poland and the remaining territory being east of the Oder–Neisse line to the new Polish border. The German capital of Berlin was also similarly split between the Allies and Soviets in 1945 and in 1949 the City of East Berlin became the capital of the DDR.

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That's All Volks-Armee

Out of all the Team Yankee releases, the one that would give us the forces of East Germany was the one I was most curious about. I have some ties to the former DDR, when I was 4 my Grandfather - who lived in West Berlin, and worked in East Germany - took me across Checkpoint Charlie. The East German border guards were very nice to him, not only did they see him every day, but they all knew that their officers school was named after his Aunt. More recently this interest has been piqued by the Hulu series Deutschland ’83, which takes place during the height of the Cold War and it’s a series I recommend to everyone. So after a year since its initial release,Team Yankee has only one “Red” force, which are the Soviets from the first book. When I play the game I like Red vs Blue fights so we needed another force for some variety. I know from reading the posts on many forums that many players were eagerly awaiting this new release.

First of all the cover of Volks-Armee is one of the neatest in the series. It is true porn for those who love the T-55 and the HIND.

Inside the book, which is about 33 pages in length, we are introduced to the DDRs 9th Panzer Division. Like the other books in the series, a back story of that unit is given and their fight when the cold war went hot. I do not know how they plan to release this, since VA is a bit slimmer than other releases and has no scenarios, or at least the version provided for my review.

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