AMX-30 / AMX AUF1 Tank Expansion For TANKS The Modern Age & Team Yankee AMX 30 Tank Platoon

A closer look at the AMX-30/AMX AUF1 tanks expansion for "TANKS The Modern Age" by Galeforce 9. This game is a remake of ww2 "TANKS" with extended rules, and a spin-off of "Team Yankee". It contains a 1:100 model kit and some cards for the game.

First let us take a look at the plastic model kit that is included:

The kit comes in 2 green sprues containing enough parts to build either an AMX-30 or an AMX AUF1. Whatever you choose, there will be one complete turret left over for the bitsbox.

The kit came without any flaws. It is made in the same high quality as the other newer BM plastic kits I know. Neither sinkholes nor flash can be found on the sprue, a quick look offered that there are no ejector marks that would be seen when the kit is built.

After a look at the plastic, let us take a look at the cards which are included in this expansion. First there are the cards for the available units from this box:

The French AMX-30 offers with an Initiative of 6 and an Attack of 4 a solid base unit. Having an armour of 1 is ok, but only 5 hitpoints makes this one of the weakest battle tanks in the game. Sure, it is not the best tank in the game, but it is better than it may seem because of the AMX-30 special ability.

This tank is equipped with the "Rapid Fire" ability, granting this tank 5 dice against helicopters and unarmoured vehicles. For 13 points, this tank is a must-have for the French, even when there would be more battletanks to choose from.

The French AMX AUF1 is the only official artillery unit in the game. With a defense of 0 and only 3 hitpoints this thing is at the same level as most light tanks from the game. It has the lowest initiative in the game, with only 1 it moves first but shoots last what is a big disadvantage.

Its strenght is the "Artillery" ability, which lets it shoot over other tanks. "Brutal" is very useful too, it lets you change one hit to a critical hit.

With 10 points this unit is very cheap, but its usefulness may not be given in every game.

After a look at the units, let us see which other cards come with his game expansion:

There are 4 crewcards and one equipmentcard in this expanxion. First there are two French hero cards.

The commander "Paul Durand" adds 2 Initiative and 1 armourpoint. You also may place up to 2 tanks not before the game starts but in the first rounds repair phase. For 5 points this commander should join every French Platoon.

The gunner "Laurent Dyre" adds 2 Initiative during the attack phase, its special ability, just read it for yourself, is useful for any tank with a high Initiative. Pretty good for only 4 points.

The next 2 crewmembers are French use only and the new type of "Revealable" cards.

The "Charging Commander" adds for 3 points +1 initiative while the movement phase. When revealed, the tank gets +1 Armour for that round.

Next is the "Charging Driver" who adds +2 Initiative during the movement phase. When this card gets revealed, the tank gets the "Fast" ability for that round. This is a nice addition for only 3 points.

Last there is the "Bomblet Bombardment" for 4 points. Usable only for artillery tanks, it grants you an unmodified D3 attack versus the target tank and all other tanks in close range when discarded. This could be a big gamechanger, especially when combined with the "Artillery Observer" which is included in the AMX-10 expansion.

This expansion is solid, the model comes in a high quality and offers two choices to build. The units for the game are not bad, but I hope that GF9 will make more French battle tank expansions. The addition of the new French crewmembers with the "Charging" tag is nice, I will see how useful they are.

As usual, the only negative point on this model are missing crewmember figures, at least one figure would have been nice, and also there are no decals included.

The main battle tank costing only 13 points, makes me think that the French are a mass army compared to the USA or germany.

I got 2 AMX expansions, but only two of them are not enough for a good game, especially since they are not the best units available and they have a quite low cost of points, that is why I had to get some more AMX tanks trying to score victories by strenght in numbers. Getting a Leopard 2 or an M1A1 down one on one seems pretty impossible, but what if the ratio would be 3:1?

A closer look at the AMX-30 platoon for "Team Yankee" from Battlefront Miniatures. Team Yankee is a ww3 tabletopgame in 15mm/1:100 scale which uses the same models than "TANKS The Modern Age". That is why I choosed this box to improve my French tank platoon.

This box contains 5 AMX-30/AMX AUF1 sprues, which were already shown in this post.

Also included are some unitcards for "Team Yankee". At the moment they do not interest me, but since my mate Olli and I have rulebooks for the game, it is not impossible, that you may read some Team Yankee battlereports in the far future.

More interesting than the unitcards are the other things which came with this box.

First there is a small sprue with 6 tankcommander figures. It is made from the new plastic which is used for Battlefronts Miniatures figuresets. It feels minimal softer than resin or the Restic stuff used by Mantic.

This addition is very useful because the figures could be used for other nations.

Finally there is a small decalsheet with names for the tanks included. I did not test them, but I know, there are two different types of decals available from BM.

They are very thin and either they will need very long in the water, like the "Flames Of War" decals, or they need only a short period of watering before they can be applied, like their "Team Yankee" counterparts. No matter which type they are, all BF decals I used before were pretty fine even when sometimes it got tough to apply them properly.

I already started to work on the first tanks from these boxes.

On the picture you can see another bitsbox/3Dprint hybrid.

Due to the fact that I will get 7 spare turrets when I will have built all of one or the other AMX variants, I searched through Thingiverse, looking for possible spare parts and found this AMX AUF1 file.

Printing the hull took about 4 1/2 hours, but when it was finished, I saw that I will have to recallibrate the 3D printer since the surface details were not printed properly.
I can replace this anytime with a better print, but for now it is ok, I think the big turret distracts from the hull. The turret was magnetized using the method I used before.

I think I will print 3 more of these hulls, a platoon of 4 AMX AUF1, each under 20 points with useful equipment, may be pretty fragile, but with the right support units they may be a tough challenge.

A simple desert pattern was chosen, at least for the AUF1. The paintjob is not finished yet, there are some things left to do, highlights, decals, varnish, all that stuff.

All artillery units will get commander figures. To have something different, I used a "Flames Of War" tank commander with a French head with Kepi (also FOW), just  to let them look like the troops of the French Foreign Legion.

After I have uploaded the next closer look at the last remaining French expansion for "TANKS The Modern Age", after that and the first games using them I may write a post about the French forces for the Game. And since the amount of available choices for the Germans and French is very low, you may expect some more custom units for the game.