Big guns on big tables

There's been a bit of a renaissance of Team Yankee at the club summed up somewhat by clubmate Paul who exclaimed "why didn't you tell me you were playing this?!" 

Bloggers Tank, Pelarel, McBeth and I played a 140 point doubles game of Team Yankee in advance of next year's Panzerschreck event in Palmerston North. "Practicing is cheating" has been a catchcry for the last few years but given we've not played a game of TY in a while, playing some practice games seemed like a good idea. 

So Tank and my M1A1 Armoured Combat Team & Marine LAV company took on Pel and McBeth's Challenger Armoured Squadron & Queens Dragoon Guards.

Phase One: Handbags 

The Challengers attacked up the American right flank, straight into an M1A1 platoon in ambush. The two Bradley IFVs and M1A1s did a sum total of nothing to the Challengers. An effective start.  From here we withdrew around the walled farm and repositioned to draw the British forward. See how that manoeuvre turned out later on...

Meanwhile, the two recce screens met around the town and some Scorpions tried some cheeky shots at an oncoming LAV platoon who promptly opened up with their 25mm Bushmasters and set the Scorpions packing. The second Scorpion platoon hiding behind the houses met the exact same fate at the hands of the Marine gunners:

Around the nearby airport, a sum total of not much was happening other than some recce Bradleys taking position near the taxiway and then spending the subsequent five turns exchanging ATGWs with some British Swingfires for a sum total of one bailed out vehicle. Ever. The middle of the board really didn't much enter into the game in the end.

Phase Two: More Handbags

In an effort to limit the amount of handbaggery, the second British Challenger platoon arrived from reserve and bravely attacked the flank of our second M1A1 platoon (which had arrived the turn prior) before we could overrun the objective. Turns out the whole RoF1 and no Advanced Stabilisers kind of really sucks super hard as they promptly missed.

Meanwhile, on our right flank, our opponents pulled this incredible shenanigan to stop our M1A1s taking an aggressive flanking charge on the Challengers:

This unsporting manoeuvre will live on in infamy! Especially as what followed was a sequence of poor armour saves, remounts and last stands that lead to the total loss of the M1A1 platoon after a sequence of handbags. Turns out that there's a point where rolling 1s does hit hard. When the British infantry and Challengers rolled towards the objective that's just out of shot behind the walled farm there, I took great pleasure in putting some HMMWV Stingers into a stupid wall too. Just to make a point.

However, on our left, everything came up roses. The M1A1s survived the flanking manoeuvre and, with the arrival of the last of the LAVs and the M1A1 company commander, overwhelmed the British Swingfires and Scimitars protecting the objective to score a  win for the Americans.

 Thoughts? 

Challengers are HARD. No RoF2 on the move is painful. We also developed some good ideas about how to commit shenanigans with helicopters and came to the collective view that in a world with Rapiers and Chaparrals and Geckos that fixed wing aircraft that aren't A10s might be a bit garbage. 

But playing large games of Team Yankee on 8' x 6' tables is the best way to play it. It lets NATO and WARPAC play doctrinally correct games and while it requires some scenario specific tweaks to make sure that the extra depth and breadth doesn't break the game, they're pretty straight forward. 

Will be playing more! 

Next Time

Good question. Something basic I suspect!