Battle Report - Team Yankee 50 Pts

Hello Folks,

So finally got a chance to test out a game of Team Yankee, the new game from Battlefront for cold war gone hot. We both had out starter sets painted, turns out that the Russian box comes to 49 points so we decided to go for a 50 point game, this meant I had to drop on tank which made me 47 points. So that is 5 M1s (commander and 2 platoons of 2) with 2 Cobras vs 10 Russian T72s (Commander 1 platoon of 3 and one of 6) and 2 Hinds.

We just went with the first mission to try things out, so that was Free for All. Very similar to the Flames of War version, but there is no roll to see who goes first the attack just does.

Also we found a few questions in the rules that we were one sure of, and surely made a few mistakes. I noticed some of them later, but I will just put that discussion at the end.

Under the new rules both plays choose if they want to attack of defend, and have a roll off if they both choose the same. We both wanted to attack so there was a roll and Serge one so got to choose sides deploy the first unit and take the first turn, but everything counted as moving due to meeting engagement.

So here is the starting set up, I have 2 Abrams tanks in a vineyard covering one objective, two and a commander covering the one on the far corner of the crop fields, and 2 Cobra helicopters taking cover behind a wood. The Russians have the small platoon behind a hill with one objective, and the rest massed around the forest.

We are kind of still testing the waters at this point so no one really wants to make any big moves to start. The Russians move the Hinds in to try and shoot down the Cobras with their chain guns, while the small platoon goes into overwatch hull down along the hill, and the rest advance cautiously. The tanks were not effective as mine where in cover and gone to ground so a 6 was needed, the ones on the hill could see into the field so just got unlucky.

The helicopter fight we assumed would be very decisive, but this turned out to be wrong. Their guns don't have dedicated AA so are only getting one shot each. I got to fire AA with 3 of my tanks and the Cobras first to no effect, and the the hinds similarly no effective. Also feels a bit strange that the range is so short being only 8".

On my turns I moved the 3 tanks up to the edge of the crop field and took some shots, but not much effect, and the tanks and helicopters both tried to shoot the hull down platoon but no effect. This meant just 1 tanks was down so far. Things were looking allot harder to kill the we thought!

Next turn the Russians kept up the advance on that objective bringing their tanks down off the hill. This concentrated fire got them a kill and a bail. I passed my morale test to avoid retreating with the bailed tank, but he failed the 2+ to remount! But I advanced with my platoon in the vineyard, no one bogged thankfully, and killed the platoon of 3, so starting to fight back.

The Russians moved in to take the objective and finished off the bailed out tank. Meanwhile the hinds moved to the corner of the table to attacks my other platoon but missed their shots. This was one of the rules mistakes by the way.

On my turn I moved the commander within 4" of the objective to contest, and the advanced my tanks to fire on the T72s, This got me another kill, but in retrospect it may have been better to go for the open Russian objective behind the hill! My Cobras shot their missiles at the Hinds thinking the couldn't fire on the tanks but no effect. Helicopters are hard to shoot down it seems. Actually the odds and very much the same as shooting the tanks in the front, and the Hinds missile is a bit more dangerous so trying that sometimes seemed smart anyway.

Of course the T72s moved up to murder my commander and secure the objective, no luck for the Hinds again.

On my turn I moved my remaining Abrams forward but was to far to contest, so now I had to try and kill all the tanks. My Abrams got 2 of them, and thinking the Cobras couldn't shot I fired on the Hinds but was still not able to kill them. This left the Russians without a unit in good spirits so they had to take a morale test before the could win, which they passed easiler (I think another 2+ or maybe 3+), so a win for the Russians, but it was pretty close and came down to the wire.

So first up rule mistakes that I noticed afterwards, probably there are more. Firstly the missile on the Hind can only shoot 20" so they are not able to move around and avoid all AA fire like we were doing, so they should have taken at least 1 shoot each time as the tanks have an AA gun that also has a 20" range. Lastly we thought the Cobras couldn't shoot the tanks assuming they must be out of the arc of fire. But actually this game has no concept of arcs at all so they could have turned and shot without moving. But neither of those were a big deal.

In terms of the game I found it to be quite fun, better then I was expecting I really. The tanks seemed quite tough but that may have been a matter of dice rolling, and the helicopters were hard to shoot down but no real AA at this point.

They have taken allot of the fine points out of the flames of war game, so there is allot less room to have arguments, and things flow a bit better. The terrain rules are also allot more clear, but less about true line of sight.

The only thing I didn't like was that the Cobras oddly can't move and shoot their missile. This means it's kind of best for them to just sit in one place and fire away, so they don't feel like a helicopter at all. The Russian ones thou don't even have a halted rate of fire so they are always moving around taking shots and it feels much better. It may be that with dedicated AA units the Cobras fare allot better as their rules will help deal with that better maybe, they can get cover and their missile can out range them. But we shall see, I still won't like being stuck in one place.

It is tempting to drop the Cobras for the other tank, will have to think about that.

So there you have the new game, maybe Serge can put his thoughts on it in the comments so we can have both of our thoughts about it.

I already ordered a bunch of new stuff, but half of it came up on back order which is disappointing.

Thanks;
Mike