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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Peiper Down: The New SS lists in the Ardennes Offensive

By Mitch Reed

One of the first articles I wrote for this blog was a piece in my “Lists We Play” series where I talked about some of my favorite Waffen-SS lists.  One of the lists I did mention in that piece was KG Peiper from Battlefront’s Devil’s Charge book, which at the time was relatively new.  The new Ardennes Offensive (AO) book augments the Waffen-SS force that took part in the offensive by adding two new lists which I will detail in this article.

Much like my last article on the Waffen-SS I want to reiterate my distaste of the actual SS, however their inclusion in the game does cause us to remember their history and helps us ensure that we never see another organization like that again.

KG Hansen
In my overview article on AO, the I said that KG Hansen is like KG Peiper without the tanks - however there may be more to this list than what I assumed at first glance.  The biggest reason why players would shy away from a list like this is because it is rated a Fearless/Trained instead of Fearless/Veteran like most other Waffen-SS units.  However, being that these guys are trained means that you are paying less for then as you would vets and in a true Bulge themed tournament, where they use the snow and fog rules these guys may not get shot up so much. 

One thing I didn’t like about this list was the lack of types of tanks you can pick, however I forgot how great the Panzer IV/70 (V) is.  They have a front armor of 9, and a gun which has an AT of 14, which at 390 points for a platoon of three is not too bad. They do have some downsides: they move slow, have glass sides (side armor 3) and are overloaded.  However placing these in ambush would be deadly to any American tank the Battle of the Bulge book.

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Team Yankee: The British Army of the Rhine in Iron Maiden

The British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) has its roots in the British forces that occupied Germany at the end of World War Two. Initially made up  of the units from Field Marshall Montgomery’s 21st Army Group, these units found themselves busy in rebuilding post war Germany and preventing the westward expansion of the Soviet army.  When the occupation of Germany changed to the front line of the new Cold War, Great Britain, a founding member of the NATO alliance pledged forces for the defense of Western Europe and the BAOR was stood up as the administrative command for these forces.

The BAOR commander was dual hatted, and not only served as Royal Army’s senior officer in Germany, but also as commander of NORTHAG, or the Northern Army Group which consisted of the 1st British Corps, III US Corps, Dutch and Belgium Corps, 1st German Corps, and depending on the year some French forces as well. The territory that NORTHAG was responsible for was the area north of the Harz Mountains to the Elbe River near Hamburg. This area is well known as the North German Plain and factored in many battle plans drawn up by both NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

Many felt that the flat farmland in this part of Germany would be a great axis of advance for an army.  While this fact is true, it is also the widest part of what was West Germany and it is dotted with rivers and towns that also form natural defensive barriers. No matter the suitability of the terrain, the British and the Warsaw Pact forces would have had a bloody fight if WWIII ever kicked off.
The BAOR was made up of forces that were stationed in Germany permanently such as the 1st, 3rd and 4th Armored Divisions, and the 2nd Infantry Division that was based back in the United Kingdom. In the event of a conflict, the 1st and 4th ADs would meet the Soviet attack at the frontier, with the 3rdAD held in reserve. Once the 2nd ID arrived from the UK it would be used as a reserve force and to provide rear area security.  The other major British force in Germany was the “Berlin Brigade” which was not a part of the BAOR and was based in West Berlin.

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Playing the ETC Meta Nostradamus part 1/2

Ok, so now that we are through with Athens, I decided to do a quick check of how my guesses about the Mid War meta have turned out and then move on to the new, exciting stuff that is LW 1625 :)
For this second part of the article, I will concentrate on what books have been added and what are their rough contents, instead of doing a full review. Predictions will follow in a separate post!

So almost a year ago I did some investigations into the lists and came up with my own ideas of what would be the most common lists. Here is a summary by company type and how they performed at the ETC:

Tanks
- I was totally right about Soviet tanks (especially Mixed Tankovy lists). There were only a few teams that did not have Soviet armor included in their structure.
- I completely missed the fact that Panther lists would also be so popular. At that time, companies like Tancuri, Czech Panzers or US Tank seemed more versatile and fitting for the role. And even though I have seen a few of each, Panthers were the dominating second choice among tank forces at the ETC 2016.

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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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Intensify Forward Firepower XXIV: Eatin' Lwabstah

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In Episode XXIV: A Cah Pahks in the Doah Yahd, Dano, Skyshuffler, and DT have lost the mysterious bounty hunter Easy somewhere between the aft and fore taints of the Flesh Star Destroyer. In his place, the dot matrix printing R1H4 sits at the conference room table. The crew talks about recent tournaments, upcoming events, and of course their thoughts on all the new toys with a few (dozen in some cases) games under their flesh belts.

Want to join the conversation? Please sound off in the comments below, or let us know on our forum!

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Bolt Action - AAR: Campaign: Road to Victory, part 2

Last Campaign game saw Pavlov and Schmidt lose most of their men.  Now they have been reinforced with replacements and additional units.  The Russian drive into Poland has brought them to a poorly defended German checkpoint.  Word of the Russian advance has reach Battalion HQ and Lieutenant Schmidt and his men are rushed to the front to stop a potential break through by Pavlov.

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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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Team Yankee - Iron Maiden Unit Cards Reveiwed

Iron Maiden, due to be released in October, brings to life the British forces in World War III for Team Yankee.  Who else better to review and spoil the new British forces other than we Colonials over here at WWPD?  This article will focus on the units available and will show you all of the new force structures and units available to the British.  The excitement around this release is well justified.

The British feature air mobile options along with the Chieftain Main Battle Tank, which I might add are only six points each. They may lack the ROF 2 of the West Germans and Americans, but can quickly make this up in numbers coupled with great support options and more Milan missile teams than you can shake a stick at.

Mitch has already given us a quick preview, so now we will give you all the new units you can expect in Iron Maiden.


The basic British force structure.  There is a plethora of Recce options to choose from here and you can accommodate quite a large force of lighter troops to compliment the Chieftains.  As with Leopard, we see a tremendous amount of support units to accompany your force.

 You get the option of having either 2 (for 5 points) or 4 (for 10 points) Harriers.  Cluster bombs for the win.  This will definitely make me want to purchase this air option.

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Team Yankee - How I painted my Leopard 2s

Well team we have all had time to digest the great new range of West German kit coming out from Battlefront Miniatures and I have been seeing some amazing painting efforts in the community. I finished painting up my Leopard 2's recently and thought that I would share my techniques for those looking to get their force up to a tabletop standard in quick time. I did a similar guide here for the Russian vehicles and I will be using some of the same techniques.

I always prime in black and follow it up with a light spray of white to create a small amount of subtle colour modulation. I then used an airbrush (a brush would be suitable as well) to spray on Olivgrun Base AK1172 from the AK Interactive range of acrylics. I did not worry about any variation in the green as it was pretty thin and the black and white base did all the work for me.

I had painted a Leopard 2 previously for this review and rather than go to the templates online I used that tank as the template. I figured I would rather have my force looking similar so if I made a mistake on the first one it will at least be consistent with the entire battle group. I painted with a brush the black part of the NATO camouflage first using Vallejo Game Color German Grey 70.995. This was the most time consuming part and will be the most amount of brush work.

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