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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Flames of War 2017 Masters Preview

When the days get shorter and the leaves with their reddish hues fall from the sky, we all know it’s time for the annual FoW Masters Tournament. Each year the top 18 players in North America get an invite to play against those who have excelled during the 2017 tournament season which went from September 2016 to October 2017. The 2017 Masters will take place once again at Games and Stuff in Glenn Burnie Maryland and will feature six tough rounds over two days, the 17-18th of November. When the dust settles after round six, the 2017 champion will be crowned and the 2018 tournament season will begin in earnest.


I have been to a few of the previous master’s events, however I felt this year’s tournament would be even more interesting with the advent of V4 of the game. When the tournament season started everyone was playing V3 and the first big V4 Event wasn’t until the Mid-War Masters at Historicon in July. So, the players at this year’s event had to deal with the change of the rules more than halfway through the season.

Despite the change of rules, the invitees to this year’s event features a lot of the same faces as years past:

Joe Lewis
Chris Fretts
David Vigor
Chris Jackson
Ron Wismer
Chris Novak
James Best Jr.
Tony Davis
Brian Sullivan
Will Yankausky
Keith Gilmour
Andrew Hopson
James Best
James Copland
Ed Sales
Tim McClelland
Rob Duchesne
Bryan Koches

This year, all 6 of the games will take place in the Early War period with each list being set at 1625 points. I will assume that the lack of lists in the Mid-War period made it very hard to use for the event. Plus, who doesn’t love early war?

As he has done in previous years, Battlefront’s event coordinator - David Griffin - and has some curveballs for the players who attend . The 2017 event will be a “reversal tournament” where players will play with their opponent’s army for half of the 6 games. Having played in events like this before, I can attest that this format really challenges your skills as a player.

Dave also plans to keep everyone up to date via Battlefront’s Facebook page and full rules of the tournament can be found here.

The event is open to the public so please stop by to watch or root your favorite FoW player on! I am planning to attend the event and maybe interview some of the participants, so I hope to see you there!

WWPDMitch@gmail.com
Twitter: @MitchWWPD

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Fog Of War Cards Review

Battlefront will soon we releasing Command Cards.  The Command Cards, at this time, represent three releases.  One is specifically for the British, one for the Germans in MW and one that is not nation specific called the Fog Of War Cards.  Today, we will be taking a look at the Fog of War release and how it may affect play for Flames of War in the future for both casual and tournament play.

It is imperative to read and review the post on the use of the cards from the Flames of War website before you read the cards to understand how they are played.

Below are all the cards.  We review them in detail on the Why We Fight Podcast and I encourage you all to read through and draw your own conclusions.  We have a summary of our thoughts at the end of the article.  The cards are said to be used in the Dust Up and Free For All missions.  I believe that they could be incorporated in the Annihilation mission as well.  Currently, the cards are not designed to be used in any other missions.

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FoW- Version 4: Late and Early War Special Rules Spoiled!

In this second of three articles on the new Version 4 EW/LW release, I plan to go over the special rules in both books in one shot. Starting with the EW/LW rule book; all national rules are covered along with special rules that cover equipment, weapons and unit abilities. While the “Special Rules Book” serves as a V4 translation of all of the EW/LW intelligence briefings and covers all of the warriors for those two periods of the game. While the Rule Book (RB) is a standalone product, the Special Rule Book (SRB) is not a standalone document, and you will still need the original books for the lists and arsenals that are contained in them. Even at first glance, I felt the SRB was easy to navigate and use, so you should not be confused as to what in the older intelligence books still applies in V4.  Starting with the RB, the special/national rules replace all of the special/national rules in V3. Not all of the rules made it to V4, and some like Mission Tactics are a part of the overall rules of the game and now apply to every nation. Others have been changed to adjust the balance of the game.

Equipment, Weapons and Unit Special Rules
This section of the RB covers a lot of rules that came about in the intelligence briefings over the last few years and are now incorporated into the main rules. Many of them take the exact same rules that existed the arsenal (ex. Turntable), or represent a change in how they are applied (Protected Ammo is not a re-roll and now is a -1 to your remount rating), or a total change in the rule (No-HE now adds a +1 to hit an infantry or gun team).

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Flames of War: Version 4 for Early/Late War, Rules Preview

Now that we have taken care of all of the Mid-War releases for Version 4, it is now time to turn our attention to something I am excited for, which is the EW/LW update to V4. For those who have been following my coverage may be thinking, what a hypocrite, he blasted MW V4, let likes it for EW/LW. First of all I do think we have two related but vastly different games here, and I feel after you have taken time to compare the two, and perhaps play them you will see the difference as well. Despite my praise I do feel gamers will have some issues with some of the concepts that have changed from Version 3. This article is the first of a series that will cover the V4 EW/LW rules, the next article will cover the Special and National Rules from this book and from the Special Rules book.
The new rules come in two books; the first are the core rules which comes out to 109 pages and is a standalone set of rules not a translation of the V3 rules for V4, so you do not have to keep referring back to V3. The other book, which covers Special Rules and Warriors is not a standalone book, and serves to translate, amend, and update the info from all of the previous EW/LW intelligence briefs to V4, so you will need to refer back to the original book.

Both books will be given to you free if you present a copy of the V3 book, and even that simple statement has led to many questions of the forums. So why have two books for the V4 rules? It goes back to what I stated above, they are different games now. All of the rules that dealt with things like warrior teams, pioneers, flame throwers, etc. are not out of the MW version of the game, so why have it the rules since they are no longer applicable. Also, the deep and interesting lists, with their unique special rules are unchanged and are no long comparable to the mid war game. Another big difference between the two is that MW will have a different point scale and use cards for players to keep track of their forces vice using lists.

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Desert Rats for V4 Previewed and Spoliled

The British 7th Armored Division, known as the Desert Rats must be a favorite of someone at Battlefront because these guys pop up in so many books. And now, the first Mid-War Version 4 Allied army book follows this trend. It really shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, like the Monty Beret, few things make us think of the war in western desert more than the Desert Rats. So, in the aptly named book of the same name, players are given the opportunity to build a formation that features the tanks used by the 7th during the war in the North African desert.

What is in store for us in Desert Rats? Players have the option of fielding 4 formations in this book; a heavy tank formation featuring the Grant tank, two cruiser tank units that feature either the Honey or Crusader tank, and of course an infantry formation that represents the 7th AD’s motor rifle brigade. The formations available in DR represent a huge reduction from the variety of units that were previously available in the V2/3 North Africa books. However, this book only covers the 7AD and perhaps follow on books will cover the other units involved the desert war. One omission that I noticed is that the Sherman tank is missing from the lists - a fact  some “rat lovers” may gripe at. Rumor has it that Battlefront is going to include them in a later release. So until then your fights vs. the Afrika Korps will have to be without the iconic M4.

OK, let’s take a look at the formations.

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Afrika Korps for V4 Previewed and Spoiled

Welcome to V4! With the first two mid-war books now upon us (or nearly so) it’s time for some good ole’ spoilers and thoughts from your WWPD team.

First up, we’re taking a look at Afrika Corps, the German V4 book covering the fight in North Africa.

This book, and it’s counter part Desert Rats, are supposed to show us how the implementation for V4 will work. Unlike Early and Late-War Battlefront is waving a magic version wand and changing everything all at once.

The books also give us great insight into what future books built entirely for V4 may look like. We already know that US and Italian forces are coming by the early summer with the Eastern front due to arrive before the fall. We also heard rumors that the Pacific and the Far East will be added in late 2017 or early next year.

Let me make one thing clear, I am not writing this article on the core V4 rules, which I really like, but on the one of the two books that are supposed to replace the old North Africa book. Afrika Korps covers the German forces from the 1942-1943 campaign against the British 8th Army. When I first glanced at Afrika Korps I was struck by how light it was on lists, and those lists were even lighter as far as options.

To get some perspective, let’s look at the Africa Company infantry list from the older V3 North Africa book; it has a lot of neat options at the company level:



Drilling down to the platoon level, once again you have so many options, which fits in with the Kampfgruppe style organization this unit found itself having to cobble together during the Western Desert campaign.

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My Impressions of Version 4: An Editorial

Let me start off with a few disclaimers; if you have not listened to Episodes 10, 11 & 12 of the Why We Fight Podcast you may be confused by some of the things I plan to bring up in this article. Even a cursory listen will help you, or if you read any of the detailed breakdown of the WWF in places like the WWPD forums you will have a better understanding of some of the changes and my impressions of Version 4 of Flames of War. Now a second disclaimer, this article offers my opinion which is based on my reading of the rules and play testing them over the last few months. This opinion is not influenced by any relationship we here at WWPD have with Battlefront. In the past I feel I have called out things I do not agree with enough to call myself impartial. The final disclaimer is that my opinion is based on the draft we received from Battlefront which converts the Early and Late War into Version 4. Things often change from the draft to the final version and often we are not privy to this. I can point out to the issue I had with the T-55AM2 stats in Volks-Armee just last month.

I was not very vocal about the fact that I felt that Flames of War was getting stale.  I was not as active in the tournament scene in 2015-2016 as I was in years past and did not look to play the game outside of tournaments.  It’s not that the game was bad, it was that very little was changing.  A lot of this is self-induced, I played the game a lot when I first got into it, and collected army after army in all three of the time periods the game covers.  So call it burnout or staleness I just wasn’t getting the same enjoyment as before.  I was not alone, I have noticed a shift in the FoW “old guard’ in my area, even this web page, once totally devoted to FoW now covers all aspects of the gaming community.

When Team Yankee was announced I was not 100% thrilled, which I was vocal about.  Having seen so many modern miniature war games fail to capture a large ground swell I doubted that this new game would be anything special.  I also used some confirmation bias to protect myself when I made claims that modern war should be fought in 6mm and that the 15mm scale was unrealistic.  Then I played it and realized how it just worked at 15mm, and the rules were tight.  So I was not a fan until I tried it, and once I did I became hooked.

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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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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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Good Riddance 2016; Hello 2017: The Year in Gaming

Every year I try to write an article that summarizes the passing year and share what I am most excited about for the upcoming one. Let’s be honest here, 2016 was a crazy year! A year ago did anyone think that we would end up with Trump for president? Or have the Cubs win the World Series? Would I after a 16 month hiatus resume paining again? Despite the turbulent year, it was yet another great year for the gaming community and 2017 looks to continue that trend. Over the last few years the gaming industry has a seen a boom as far as leveraging multiple platforms, broadening its appeal by expanding the span of topics in which we could play, and the explosion of card based games; all of these factors really point to the fact that we are in the “golden age of gaming”.

The Industry
In 2016 the value of the video games market alone is $99 Billion dollars worldwide with it expected to grow to about $130 Billion by 2019. This boom can be attributed to the growth of app based games.  Who didn’t almost run someone over while playing Pokémon Go this year? The popularity of board games has also dramatically risen  over the last few years and as more interesting titles hit the shelves this will continue to grow. Card based games such as Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Pokémon are attracting many young players to gaming and we can see the effect when 30-50 tweens jam into our local gaming stores and prevent us from getting a table. Historical based gamers have also seen a boom, this year Bolt Action came out with a second version, Battlefront’s Team-Yankee grew and has attracted many new players to the hobby. Of course the games tied to movies did well, Fantasy Flight’s Star Wars X-Wing had many new releases that were tied to the very popular Force Awakens movie.

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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: 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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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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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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