Semovente 75/18 Tank Expansion For "TANKS"

A closer look at the Semovente tank expansion for "TANKS" made by Galeforce 9. This expansion contains a 1:100 model kit and some cards for the game. As all other expansion kits, the modelkit came from another game range.

The Semovente model kit was made by Battlefront Miniatures for their "Flames Of War" strategy game. You can build either the Semovente or the M41/14 tank from it, basically this is the same kit that is included in the other Italian expansion for "TANKS" and what I wrote about that kit fits perfectly here:

The kit comes in a sandcolored sprue of styrene. As with most BFM model kits, I can not see any flaws on or with the sprue. Except for some mininal mouldlines arround the tracks, no further cleanup is needed, the kit is nicely moulded. The overall grade of detail is fine, the rivets may be a little oversized but they still look fine. The tracks offer a simple but nice grade of detail comparable to the better made Zvezda "Art Of Tactic" kits.

Some stowage and spare tracklink parts are also included on the sprue.

After wee took a look at the plastic kit from this expansion, let us take a look at the unit itself:

The Italian Semovente 75/18 tank is a weak unit with an attack of 4, 0 armourpoints and only 4 hitpoints. Its initiative of 5 is lower than the initiative of the Italian M41/14, but still acceptable. This unit is an assault gun which limits its use, but a bunch of them could still be a potential threat to every unit with a lower initiative.

This tank can join your platoon for the low cost of only 13 points. Its Italian special ability which aims at larger tank groups, makes it effective in groups with at least 2 other Italian tanks.

As usual, next come the upgrade cards, 7 of them are included, and as we saw in the M14/41 review, there are no global cards included.

First, we have the crewcards, which all support attacks on close range:

The Italian tank Commander "Pietro Bruno" adds +2 initiative for the movement phase. If you score uncancelled hits at close range, you may add an additional hit. For 4 points this may be a good commanders, but it needs some strategic moves and a lot of luck on the dice to get in close range, since the Italian tanks are pretty weak units.

The next 2 cards have the Italian exclusive "Risky" prefix, just as the French for "TANKS The Modern Age" use the prefix "Charging".

The "Risky Gunner" lets you score critical hits not only on a 6 but also on a 5, but only at close range. Costing 2 points, this crewmember can be useful if you find the right strategy to compensate  the weakness of the Italian tanks.

The "Risky Loader", available for 2 points, lets your exchange a critical hit made by you for 2 regular hits, but also only on close range,

The other 4 cards included in this expansion feature some new doctrines and equipment for Italian use only:

The first card, which is the most interesting card of this expansion,  has text on both side, depending if you want to use Italian tanks for your German platoon or vice versa.

On one side we have the "German Support" doctrine, with this upgrade you may add any German tank to your Italian platoon, but for that are only non-hero German and global upgrades allowed.

For 1 point you could add a Tiger (for 29 points) or any other German tank to get some more firepower.

On the other side we have the "Italian support" doctrine, for 1 point you can use this doctrine to add this or any other Italian tank to a German platoon. Theoretically you could use a bunch of cheap Italian tanks combined with some high level German units, and I think I am going to build an Afrikakorps squadron including some allied Italian forces.

With the use of the "German Support" doctrine you may add any German tank to your Italian platoon, but for that are only non-hero German and global upgrades allowed.

For 1 point you could add a Tiger (for 29 points) or any other German tank to get some more firepower.

"Face the Enemy" is a doctrine which needs a lot of luck on the dice. As long as you have the card eqipped, that unit gets +1 initiative. If you discard it, this tanks and any friendly tank in close range may rotate to any direction with the cost of getting 0 initiative til the end of the turn.

This doctrine combined with "Avanti" and some upgrades can make a turn a bunch of Semovente assault guns into a big threat, if they stay alive until they can shoot.

"Effento Pronto" adds an additional attack dice when discaded. For 2 points this is a useful upgrade. We have seen this card with different names, I think in "TANKS The Modern Age" the US forces have "Silver Bullets" available which give the same effect.

The "Local Wine" lets you re-roll any one die when consumed (discarded). For 1 point this could be a lifesaver.

What I wrote in my closer look at the other Italian expansion fits here very well:

This expansion for "TANKS" offers a nice 1:100 kit with two options (only one is supported in this expansion) to build a cheap unit for the game which may be a threat when at least three of them are used.

As we have seen, the strenght of the Italian tank force is staying together in groups to benefit from "Avanti" and other advantages from crew and doctrine cards. The addition of the doublesided support card offers the choice to use either Italian tanks in German platoons or to use German tanks in Italian platoons, the choice is yours.
The only minus of this expansion is the absence of any decals and any commander figures,  a fact that this game expansion shares with all of its kind.

Next weekend I may lead them into their first battle, after that I will give you my experiences and thoughts on the strenght and weakness of the Italian army for "TANKS".

The kit was easy to build and the result looked like this:

No matter which tank you will build from this kit, there is one complete upper structure left over. I choosed to build another M14/41 from the kit and in best DIY tradition I turned on the 3D printer to try to create another 3Dprint/bits hybrid.

On the picture below you can see this new hybrid, actually I made 2 of them. After it was finished, the tank commander was made from a British soldier and some Greenstuff, I may change it in the future but at the moment I did not find any other approciate mini.

While it is not perfect, for me this is good enough and that is what counts.

I planned to post on Saturdays about a Zvezda 1:144 or 1:200 "Art Of Tactic" plane expansion, but this "TANKS" expansion was still missing on the list. Tomorrow (17:00) we will take a closer look at another game expansion, then it will be an unit for "TANKS The Modern Age".

Update:
I did not see that one of the cards had text on the other side, too. Not only that, the same thing happened with the M14/41 expansion, in which this card also is included.

M14/41 Tank Expansion For "TANKS"

A closer look at the 1:100 M14/41 tank expansion for "TANKS" made by Galeforce 9. This game is a spin-off from Battlefront Miniatures "Flames Of War" wargame. It uses models from that range, but concentrates on tank battles only. As you have have read in the past, a lot of the previous posts are dedicated to this game and its successor, due to the simple fact that they are played by me and some friends of mine, and building and painting these small models makes a lot of fun, at least for me, they offer a nice distraction after work.

As usual this expansion contains one 1:100/15mm modelkit and some cards to use ingame. But with no further words, first let us take a look at the plastic which comes with this expansion:

The kit comes in a sandcolored sprue of styrene. As with most BFM model kits, I can not see any flaws on or with the sprue. Except for some mininal mouldlines arround the tracks, no further cleanup is needed, the kit is nicely moulded. The overall grade of detail is fine, the rivets may be a little oversized but they still look fine. The tracks offer a simple but nice grade of detail comparable to the better made Zvezda "Art Of Tactic" kits.

Some stowage and spare tracklink parts are also included on the sprue.

You can build two different tanks from this box, but more on that later. Before that let us take a look at the cards which are included in this game expansion:

The Italian M14/41 tanks is a pretty weak tank with a low attack of 3, 0 armourpoints and only 4 hitpoints. Its initiative of 6 is in the medium range, but a bunch of them could be a potential threat to every unit with a lower initiative, since this tank can join your platoon for the low cost of only 12 points and the Italian special ability which aims at larger tank groups, it should be used in groups with at least 3 tanks.

With the introduction of a new nation, also its special ability is revealed. Italys "Avanti" offers an additional armour point if two allied Italian tanks are in close range. This is a useful ability which offers some different strategies.
As far as I found out, the Capricorn logo of the new Italian cards belongs to the 132nd Armoured Division Ariete , but I may be wrong about that.

With this expansion come 7 crew and upgrade cards, and the first thing that we see, is that there are no global cards in this expansion, all cards can only be used by Italian tanks.

Starting with the 4 crewmembers, first comes the Italian hero card "Luigi Arbib Pascucci", this commander offers the benefit of 2 additional initiative points. also all other Italian tanks of your platoon get +2 initiative as long they stay in close range.

For 5 points this guy is pretty useful, especially in combination with "Avanti".

The next 3 cards have the Italian exclusive "Risky" prefix, just as the French for "TANKS The Modern Age" use the prefix "Charging".

First there is the "Risky Commander", for 2 points you can choose between 2 critical hits if you got critically hit but only if you are in close range of the attacking tank. Not bad, but I would prefer to stay out of close range, but other Italian crewmembers are beneficial too, if you go on close range to the enemy.

If you choose the "Risky Driver" for a tank, you will not have to substract one defence die on close range. For 2 points this can be useful if you go all in to fight the enemy on close sight.

The "Risky Radio Operator" is another crewmember that supports attacks on close range. If your tank is within close range of an enemy, this and all other allied tanks get +1 initiative. This may seem pretty useful for 2 points if you play with allied German tanks who have the "Blitzkrieg" ability.

The other 3 cards are Italian doctrines.

"Believe! Obey! Fight!" offers for 2 points an additional +1 to armour if an enemy tank is on close range. Another card which supports rushing into the enemy.

"Always Forward, Italy!" gives you for 2 points an additional initiative point, and all other "Risky" crewmember would cost 1 point less. You could fill your Italian tanks with these crewmembers (at least from this expansions) for only 1 point each, if you would use this doctrine.

The next card, which is the most interesting card of this expansion, has text on both cards, depending if you want to use Italian tanks for your German platoon or vice versa.
On one side we have the "Italian support" doctrine, for 1 point you can use this doctrine to add this or any other Italian tank to a German platoon. Theoretically you could use a bunch of cheap Italian tanks combined with some high level German units, and I think I am going to build an Afrikakorps squadron including some allied Italian forces.

On the other side we have the "German Support" doctrine, with this upgrade you may add any German tank to your Italian platoon, but for that are only non-hero German and global upgrades allowed.
For 1 point you could add a Tiger (for 29 points) or any other German tank to get some more firepower.

This expansion for "TANKS" offers a nice 1:100 kit with two options (only one is supported in this expansion) to build a cheap unit for the game which may be a threat when at least three of them are used.

As we have seen, the strengh of the Italian tank forces is staying together in groups to benefit from "Avanti" and other advantages from crew and doctrine cards. The addition of the doublesided support card offers the choice to use either Italian tanks in German platoons or to use German tanks in Italian platoons, the choice is yours.
The only minus of this expansion is the absence of any decals and any commander figures,  a fact that this game expansion shares with all of its kind.

How good this unit actually is will be seen in a future game.

The construction of the kit went straight forward, everthing sits and fits well, the finished model is shown on the picture below:

You get a complete upper hull of the Semovente tank (to disapper in the bitsbox) if you build the Fiat M14/41 and first I wanted to magnetize this kit to have both tanks usable, what seems pretty easy to do, but after the examination of the Italian cards, I will turn on the 3D printer to make a matching hull and use the leftover bits as I did before. Since I also own the Semovente expansion for the game, I think I will use the upper structures of the M14/41 for two new hybrids.

The next post will include a new custom unit, either for ww2 or ww3 "TANKS". Tomorrow I should have the time to visit my local copyshop to get some testprints to see if the cards are alright. This would be a good opportunity to showoff some of my mate Ollis tanks, before he picks them up in the next days.

If everthing works as supposed, you will be able to download the KV-2 and a new German cold war kitten custom unit cards tomorrow.

Update:
I did not see that one of the cards had text on the other side, too. Not only that, the same thing happende with the Semovente expansion, in which this card also is included.