Loving the Team Yankee

After starting on my initial Russian Team Yankee force awhile ago, which actually started due to the ‘fire’ sale at The Source of all their Battlefront minis and rules, I finally was able to get some games in. So in this tale of woe and adventure, I played Patrick’s Brits and then Jason’s ‘mericans.

So firstly if you’re nearby the Twin Cities, you really should do two things. First, join the Flames of War / Team Yankee Facebook group and second pop by Dreamers Vault on Hiawatha. They are a really great store, player friendly and most important very supporting of gamers with a nice large area to play.

Coming into these games, like many my forces are in various states of assembly, paint and flocking. So across us all, the bar is pretty low for lead on table in whatever state not to mention even throwing in substitutions. We’re all making forward progress tho.

In my case, I’ve managed to get my initial set of Russian infantry all painted but not flocked, so this was their initial debut. My Hinds are my current focus so for these games, they are all in that early rough stage of being painted. Some of my vehicles (T-72s, BMPs etc) have their camo tho I haven’t painted a single track.

We’re still learning the rules and trying to separate out Flames of War style vs Team Yankee-isms.

Coming into the games I wasn’t expecting to win at all, but more get exposed to tactics and get a better idea of what are core critical units. Air and helicopters are different enough that it’s good to understand just how effective they are or aren’t.

Game 1

For the first game I decided to try out an Russian Afghanistan unit, so I took two sets of straight legs, one small (4 AK etc), one medium (7 AK), then with 2 Hinds and 4 Hinds. Next I fielded 9 T-72, a unit of Shilkas (2), and then 6 Frogfoots.

Patrick rolled up a No Retreat which immediately got us into special rules on top of special rules. First it’s a night fight. Gulp. Second I didn’t get to start with much on table so all that infantry I thought might be on helicopters, nope they were forced on.

On the bright side, I picked up 4 mine fields and dropped them both on the road and on my right flank since that had the objective closer to his side.

Immediately Patrick pulls in an airstrike. We did sort of wonder what was and wasn’t possible in the dark as far as airstrikes go. We applied the visibility modifiers and night fight modifiers but otherwise yeah, think it’s an interesting question.

Anyway after his air strike come down which thankfully was fairly ineffective, he started to move on both flanks in strength.

With my first reinforcement roll I decided to pull in one of my groups of Hinds. I kept them back from the Brit Rapier AA. We were a little unsure at night just what the ranges are for AA. Is it on the die roll? Do you need Radar? It’s a little unclear. So initially we were going on a die role.

I dropped my Hinds in to go after the Brit APCs and then in theory slow down this side of the fight. It worked fairly well and the infantry dropped out after the APCs took some damage and decided they had enough.

This put the Brit infantry out in the open in front of my LMGs and also facing the prospect of crossing a minefield.

Meanwhile on the opposite side the Harriers started to prep the other objective in anticipation of the Brits attacker here soon. My Gremlin team was happy with this and started to fire back, bringing one Harrier down.

Putting up the good fight on the opposite flank the Brits pressed and in my turn I set the Hinds on the tanks and they successfully brewed 2 and the 3rd made a run for it.

For my next reinforcements with the Brits starting to get close to my left objective, I pulled in my other Hinds as well as my Tanks.

Given the APCs had shot, one of the Hind groups made quick work… the chieftains OTOH were a different nut to crack. Jason had arrived and said that for the AA at night, guided was good enough to shoot at full range. So that meant that the Hinds got to feel lots of love prior to their attack.

The last turn before dawn lifted the Chieftains were just brewing T72s left and right. You’d think at 9-3 could have worked out a little better but nope, the dice just weren’t there and besides the Chieftains do have really good armor so sitting back and trying to plink away was not the right tactic.

Likewise I couldn’t get my Frogfoots to come in for the life of me. The entire game they didn’t come in for an attack.

Last picture of the game, Victory to Patrick as his Harriers take out the rest of the T72. The Shilkas having arrived didn’t even get a shot, they were gunned down by the Chieftains … again bad tactics on my part.

Game 2

This time I decided to field a Russian Red Banner Tank formation. I did two companies of 5 and 4 T-72, gated by the fact that I just have 10 T-72s assembled. That box of 5 more suddenly got a higher spot in the assembly queue.

I fielded 9 BMP-1s with 7AKs, etc, 2 Shilkas, 2 Gophers having suddenly gained AA religion due to the prior game, 4 Frogfoots, 4 Hinds and a 3 battery group of Carnations with an OP in a BMP-1. Just 93 points but Jason could only field 92 pts of ‘mericans so that kept me from throwing in more stuff.

This time it was an encounter mission, and we played on the same table as before.

For units this time I choose my Shilkas, Gophers, the BMP mounted infantry and a company of tanks.

Jason had his artillery, M1s, Vulkans and Infantry to start with. Both of us put our objectives out to generally the flanks to spread each other out.

I decided to press my left flank and trust that I could either flow over my infantry in support of my other objective or presume that reinforcements would save the day.

As I was the attacker for the setup, the second roll for who goes first… sigh I didn’t get. I had assumed that by attacker for setup I was attacker for the initial turn but I wasn’t. I figured this was going to cost me dearly with my initial armor placement.

The M1s opened up and blazed away at my T72s but only bailed out a couple. Both remounted on my turn and I pressed forward getting behind the trees so the M1s couldn’t shoot at me. Next the M1s moved out of the forest (1 bogged) to cover the objective and the tank battle ensued.

Luck was with me and I brewed up an M1, and bailing enough to cause a morale which with Jason rolling a 2, they boogied off. This was crazy huge but the game was far from over.

With Jason having to worry about his right flank and throw all he could there I decided to pull my BMPs and infantry in. First I flowed between the buildings, getting just enough BMPs to shoot at the American OP and took it out. It was a trade for 3 (and infantry inside) but in the end it was worth it.

Meanwhile Jason pulled in his 4 Cobras on his reinforcement roll. Being the hunters they are they immediately started to brew up my tanks. My Gopher SAMs tho were able to take one out. 6s to hit is pretty tough, clear a 2 Gopher battery of SAMs isn’t quite enough.

Price check on Gophers over there on the shelf?!?!?

Next I pulled on my Hinds and Frogfoots for my reinforcements. Only one thing to do… get those Cobras. Commence crazy amounts of AA fire from the Vulkans….

So I lose a couple of Frogfoots but they take out a Corbra ….  2 more to go…

Hinds, get to work, and they did, talking out the remaining two, again with a loss of 2 due to the Vulkan AA. That’s a heck of a lot of shooting at air targets and I think kind of a quibble for me with the rules, sure AA should be able to defend against air attack but once you expend your AA, having an infinite ability to shoot at attackers as each comes in just seems wrong.

Still the question wasn’t quite settled as Jason was rolling over his APCs to go after the other objective. Likewise I was calling back my BMPs to cover the objective.

My last unit of reinforcements another company of tanks would be coming on … but where?

On the wrong side of the table, that’s where… but the objective was pretty much secured until Jason again with his last bit of reinforcements was able to bring Vads in to contest.

With the remaining Hinds and Frogfoots they went after Jason’s APCs and between them and the BMPs were able to shut down that rush for my right flank. Likewise on the left, my remaining tanks were able to take out the Vads and it was game.

Final thoughts

Mighty fun time, two games in and still lots of rules to look over and a re-read of the rule book being a good thing.

The game and time period is quite deadly. With 2+ FP rolls for armor vs armor, burning vehicles will pile up all over quickly.

Air and Anti-air is crazy essential. The cobras are really impressive. Likewise Harriers, Frogfoots and even Hinds can do some damage.

The stream lined rules are generally good and play pretty well, tho some of the particulars around night fighting need to be FAQed I think.

All throughout the time we were playing, we have quite a number people come up and ask, what’s that? Definitely encouraging and added to the fact that in the area, many are rapidly building forces, means there will be lots of fun ahead.

I’m definitely looking forward to some Team Yankee tournament play but I do seriously think that the old Flames of War scoring system needs a change. I’d really really strongly point towards Star Wars Armada for a better model or even Chain of Command/Sharp Practice.

Last I think the missions need a revamp. They barrow heavily from Flames of War and that’s ok, but fleshing out is definitely needed with some additional flavor added that could really make the game shine. I’ll blog on this in the not too distant future as I have some specific thoughts and want to try some things out.