Cobra Helicopter Expansion For TANKS The Modern Age

A closer look at the Cobra helicopter expansion for "TANKS The Modern Age" by Galeforce 9. The game is a follow-up to "TANKS" with an extended ruleset. While in the old "TANKS" you have only control over ground units, in "TANKS The Modern Age" you can also use air units for you platoon.

As usual, in this expansion one 1:100 model kit, taken from the "Team Yankee" tabletop game and some cards for the game are included, a flyerbase for the helicopter is also included.
First we take a look at the plastic, this kit comes in 3 different sprues.

The kit is almost flawless, there is minimal flash to remove, neither sinkholes nor visible ejectormarks were found on the sprues. Also there are virtually no mouldlines. As other kits from this range, the qualitiy is top.

Different weapon configurations can be attached, the instructions, as usual simple but well made, show only one version, for other weapon configurations you have to search the web. At the end of this video the leftover bits are shown and partly explained.

The flightbase is casted in good quality, gives you two height options and offers the choice for magnetization, but it works fine in my Cobra/Hind helis without magnets.

The last picture of the plastic shows a comparison between this Cobra kit and the 1:100 Revell Cobra kit, can you see, how oversized the panel lines are? I am no aviation expert but it seems like that the kits show different versions of the Cobra.

Beside the model kit some crew and equipment cards for "TANKS The Modern Age" are included in this expansion.

First there is the card for the unit itself:

The Bell AH-1 Cobra offers an Initiative of 7, what is pretty good, its Attack of 2 is very low but you may equip the missiles included in this expansion. The armour of 3 is pretty high but the helicopter has only 4 hitpoints. Its rapid fire ability offers 5 dice versus unarmoured vehicles and other helicopters. For the cost of 26 points (both missiles included) you get a unit which can attack everaything on the battlefield.

The included equipment offers the additional armament for the Cobra, the "M159" gives you a 3 dice attack against all vehicles in close range, the targets can only roll their base defence. The "TOW" missiles give you a 4 dice missile attack for 2 points.

The other two equipment/doctrines cards are "Defensive Manouevres", which gives you a reroll of your defence dice when you discard it, and "Countermeasures", for 3 points you may discard this card, this defence throw 3 also counts for defence.

After the equipment and doctrines  cards, there are only the crewcards left. First the 2 US heroes included, "Harry Stevens" gives you for 8 points an additional armourpoint and you may change elevation without taking a speed token. This is perfect for the heavy use of missiles.

"Connor Styles" gives you an additional dice if you use rockets and you have the possibility to reroll a sucessless attack. For 6 points this gunner is a very useful addition to any US helicopter crew.

Then there is the "Defensive Pilot" which lets you reroll one defense dice for the cost of 4 points.

Last but not least there are 3 different gunners included, the "Risky", the "Ressourceful" and the "Bloodthirsty Gunner", all 3 can be used by all nations for all vehicles. The "Risky Gunner" would work fine with the M159 missiles.

Again this is a nice addition to the game, the modelkit is fine (except for the oversized panel lines), and the cards will offer additional choices to equip your troops. The cobra must prove its worth, but I think it may stop the enemies Leopard 2 tanks when the Americans will try to conquer Germany after the Soviets are defeated.

Next in line are some more closer looks at some helicopter kits, pictures of the Hind expansion and the Revell Hind are already uploaded, both will come this weekend, and then we will return to Sassnitz, showing the miniatures I prepared for last years first game of "Rügen'46".

Update:

The kit was finished faster than this post. Take a look at the finished kit (and my chaotic hobby desk) at the picture below, only the heckrotor has to be attached, but it will get painted seperately and then it will get glued on the tail of the Cobra.