TANKS The Modern Age The Easter Front

Yesterday we played our first 2 vs 2 game of "TANKS The Modern Age". With almost 800 points it is the biggest game we played for now.

Setting up the game was some work, I had to move some of my furnitures to get enough room for the playfield, the cards and the players. Since we do not have enough cards for all tanks, I had to go to the copyshop to get some backup cards. Luckily there are some cards from "TANKS", which can be used in "TANKS The Modern Age" too.

The battlefields size was 2,20 x 1 meter, to save some time I preset the scenery. The village was built with H0 houses (in pretty bad condition) and some selfmade ruins. The hills in the South count as unpassable terrain, and the windmills block attacks from ground to air/air to ground and helicopters. Most of the stuff you may have seen in some older posts.

The Soviet Unions army, on the left side you see the Southern attack group. It is made of 4 T-64, 2 BMP-2 and 2 Hind helicopters for 162 points and has equipment and crews for additional 60 points.

On the right you see the Northern attack group of the Soviets, for 118 points it containes 1 T-72, 3 T-55AM, 2 BMP-1, 1 2S1 howitzer and a Hind chopper. Additional crews and equipment worth 52 points was used.

On the all T-55AM and BMP-1 I used some Team Yankee GDR decals.

Both groups united had 392 points against the troops of the NATO.

The NATO troops were made up from the US Army in the North, equipped with 2 M1 Abrams, 1 M60, 1 M901, 1 M163, 1 M109 howitzer and a Cobra attack helicopter for 114 points, who got additional crews and equipment worth 56 points.

The South was protected by a Bundeswehr platoon, consisting 3 Leopard 2, 2 Marder and 2 PAH for 164 points and got crews and equipment for additional 60 points.

Both NATO groups together had tanks and equipment for 394 points.

394 versus 392 points, that sounded like a fair fight, and sure, this game would take some time. We did a simple chart where we could see the order of tanks to play. And this clearly showed that the Soviets may be stronger in numbers, but the NATO has a higher initiative for almost all tanks

The dice decided that the tactical advantage for the first round was on the Soviet side. After all troops were placed, it was time to start the war. But before we did that we had to make some makeshift cards for Ollis Leopard 2 because he forgot them at home.

Just some impressions from the game. The first two rounds went on quite slow. For the first three rounds the tactical advantage was on the Soviet side. They concentrated their air force in the South, trying to push the NATO forces to the North, while the brave T-55AM tanks of the GDR tried to take the village in the North. Eqipped with missiles these reletively weak tanks would offer a threat to any helicopter.

First blood was taken by my comrade who shot down a PAH in the third round.

With the first casuality it was getting hot, the Soviet Hinds attacked the Nato choppers and AA tanks. The NATO got the tactical advantage for the 4th and all following rounds. Bundeswehr Leopard tanks tried to push back the enemy while the US troops held position at the border of the village, knowing that fighting within the streets of Auerbach would be fatal for both sides.

One of the players had to leave the game after the 4th round, so my mate Olli had to take over his US platoon. And he played them well, securing his positions and waiting to strike back. Meanwhile the 3 Hinds dominated the air.

As you may see, it was getting late, the sun went down, and I had to use the flash of my camera. The whole game took over 6 hours, luckily we had foreseen that it would take much time to finish.
In the North the village fell and all NATO troops withdrew or were destroyed.

Since the Soviets in the South were pushing hard, the rest of the NATO forces had to move to defense positions. The Soviet Hind gunships were a big threat and both Marder got destroyed, giving the Soviets air advantage.

While the Soviet T-64 in the South took heavy fire from the technical advanced NATO tanks, the supporting Hind helicopters distributed heavy fire to get rid of the last NATO choppers. Most AA units were destroyed resulting in Soviet air superiority.

The 7th round was the final round, what means that one round took about an hour. But we did not rush and played a pretty relexed game without any stress.

The game made a lot of fun, even when one of us had to leave before we finished. Due to the experiences from our first 2 vs 2 game, a lot of improvements were made, for example this time we did not have to use an ironing board for the cards, and this was helpful too.

More pictures will follow when I copied them from the other players who also made some pictures.