T-34 Tank expansion For "TANKS"

A closer look at the 1:100 T-34 expansion pack for the "TANKS" strategy game by Galeforce 9. As usual, this box contains a 15mm model and some upgrade cards for the game.

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

This kit comes in two green sprues, the first of them contains the main parts for the turrets and the hull.
There are virtually no mouldlines, and any possible ejectormarks will not be seen when this kit is built. Also, there are no sinkholes and only a minimal amount of flash needs to be removed.
All turret hatches can be build opened or closed, but there are no crewfigures included to put them in.

The second sprue contains the tracks and a lot of smaller parts, but only a bunch of them will be used, the leftovers will disappear in the bitsbox. This sprue is at least also included in the BFM SU-76 kit.

The roadwheel detail is good, just as the general grade of detail, the tracks are acceptable for its scale.

Beside the modelkit some upgrade cards for the game are included in this expansion. First we have  the cards for the unit itself:

The T-34/76 has a initiative of only 4 with an attack of 4, the T-34/85  has an initiative of 6 paired with 5 attack dice. Both tanks have a armour of 1 and 5 hitpoints, even when they may not be the best tanks in the game, they are solid units. Both T-34 have the "Fast" ability what makes them very flexible.

Also included are the following 5 upgrade cards:

First we have the cards for crewmembers, two Soviet-exclusive and a global usable crewmember come with this:

The Soviet driver "Mariya Oktyabrskaya" gives for 4 points an additional armour point when it has any speed token. The busted tracks critical hit gets automatically repaired when drawn.

This is a pretty useful card, since you almost move each round, then you would have 2 instead of 1 armourpoints. Or use her with an heavy tank, then you would have 3 when you have moved.

"Vasiliy Storozhenko", the Soviet tankcommander of this box, adds 2 additional initiative points to his tank, and, (best combine with "Coordinated Fire") Add the start of each game phase you may add an additional initiative point for each tank in close range. This is a good card, you could push your initative very much depending on that you keep your tanks closely together.

The "Agressive Loader" for only 1 point adds an additional initiative point for the shooting phase. If your tank has room for a gunner left, and you could spend a point,  just take it, since this is useful for every unit.

The last 2 cards are for equipment upgrades:

All all other nations, the Soviet have with the "Arrowhead Shot" their own special ammunition upgrade. Equipped for 1 point, this card grants you an additional attack die on close range when discarded. Even when this can only be used buy T34 and SU-76, it can be an useful upgrade if it fits in your playstyle.

"Liquid Courage" is a global upgrade for 1 point, which is at least also included in the starterbox of the game. When equipped, you can reroll failed repair rolls for critical damage that affects your crew.

This cards usefulness depends on the dice and what critical damages you draw. I remember a game, where a Panther of my mate Olli could neither shoot or move for 3 rounds because of failed repair rolls, a little "Liquid Courage" could have repaired that damage earlier.

Following the simple instructions on the inlet of the box, this tank was built pretty fast and nothing special happened while building the T-34, my finished model can be seen on the picture below:

This is a good expansion pack for the game, the T-34 was the maintank of the Red Army and should find a place in every players collection.

Combining its "Fast" ability with the Soviet "Coordinated Fire" ability, you could build up a lot of pressure on you opponent. The Soviet heroic commander supports this playstyle too, and the other upgrades given in this box can be useful in the right situation.
As usual, there are neither decals nor any figures included, a shared thing among all "TANKS" expansions, you will have to rely on your bitbox if you want to use them.

Ending this post with some comparing pictures. The Plastic Soldier Company T-34,  the Zvezda T-34, and this tank show some differences in their dimensions, just take a look for yourself:

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.

Zvezda 1:100 M1A1 Abrams

A closer look at the M1A1 Abrams tank produced by Russian manufacturer Zvezda for their game "Hot War - Battle for Oil". This kit comes in 1:100 scale as all Zvezda "Art of Tactic" and "Hot War" tank kits. But you may use this model for any 15mm cold war game which supports this unit.

I already read some lines about this kit and how bad it would be, and I wanted to see if this is true and ordered one of them for a (luckily) heavy discounted price.

Let us take a look at the kit from this expansion to see if it is as bad as some other reviewers say:

The kit comes in two sandcolored plastic sprues made from the usual material which is used by Zvezda. To me it feels minimal softer then kits from other makers but this opinion may be subjective. As usual there is no problem with using modelglue on this, it binds pretty fast. And as you will see on the last picture, it connects also with styrene parts from other kits.

The kit came without any flaws like mouldlines and sinkholes. My kit did not have any flash or other excess material. The detail on this kit is very shallow, I would say in part is is minimalistic.

The turret is made from only two pieces and misses some details (more on that below), especially the storage bin on the turret is badly reproduced.

The tracks are in the same style as on other 1:100 Zvezda kits, while the roadwheels are good, the tracks are very simplified.

A decal sheet with some generic numbers and tactical signs is included, and I guess it is in the same good quality as the decals from other Zvezda kits. You can use decal setting solution on them but if you use decal softer, they may get damaged by it, at least I made this experience with the decals from an Zvezda plane kit.

When I constructed the Abrams, following the well made instruction leaflet from the box, I had no issues. As usual you have the choice to use glue or build it without any glue, but to be on the safe side, I used my standard Revell modelglue.

The partly built tank looks like this, note that I did not install the bottom of the turret yet:

As you can see, the grade of detail is pretty low. In the foreground you see some leftover bits from the BFM Abrams, I tried to improve its look with them (see the last picture).

And while we are at the BFM M1A1, just look at these comparing pictures of the Zvezda and the BFM Abrams tank:

Just take a look at both tanks and you will see the low level of detail on the Zvezda Abrams. While the general proportions of both tanks are almost equal, the barrel of the "Hot War" model is way too short.

(it seems, now while I watch the pictures, that the unpainted tank hull is shorter)

To keep it short, if you need an Abrams tanks, this model kit should not be your choice. Like for the Tiger from the last review, I do not think that this kit is worth its price. Luckily I got this kit for 3.5 Euro, but its regular price is above 7 Euros. Just for comparison, if you spend one additional Euro you could get the Abrams expansion for the ww3 "TANKS" game, that is (do I repeat myself??) leagues above the Zvezda kit and it offers 3 different versions to build.

Sorry Zvezda, but I say: Thumbs down, do not buy this kit.

But I got this kit and after I added some of the bits shown, I improved its look a lot, just as you can see on the picture below (I used Revell Aquacolor Bronze Green on it):

I wrote in the November blog update that I would review Zvezda planes on Saturdays, but since I left out the missing Semovente Expansion for "TANKS", next Saturday I will show this.

For this you will not have to wait till 22:30, on weekends my posts will come at 17:00 and maybe I will find some time to write a non reviewing post.

KV-2 Custom Unit Card For "TANKS"

After the SU-76 and the BM-13 custom expansions for "TANKS" now comes the third new custom unit for the game. This time it is the Soviet heavy KV-2 tank. This was not playtested yet, but feel free to use it for your future "TANKS" games, it should work as supposed.

Also included is a new doctrine for Germany, "Beutepanzer" offers the choice to use foreign tanks for German platoons. You can only use global upgrades on that tank, this enlarges the range of tanks to choose from if you are playing the German forces.

The minis on the picture are the dismounted Soviet tank crewmen from the "Flames Of War" range, when the plane expansion is finally done, I may add another rules expansion.

While I was playing with a friend and one of his tanks was destroyed, he mentioned if he could save his crewmembers to another tank. What an interesting idea.

Today I did not reach the copyshop in time, but the KV-2 card was made in the same session as the SU-76 and the BM-13 cards were made. Since the printouts of these cards are ok, I think this new card should also be good enough for games.

You can find the new cards in my googledrive at

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15Y-7nXBeclLKGVn2Uwa5sUxWNWVC_K1I/view?usp=sharing

At the moment the 3Dprinter is printing the second of two Semovente 75/18. I had written about it in the last post but I decided against combining the M41/14 with printed parts. Instead, I will use the Semovente structures to build two new hybrids.

I think I will dedicate tomorrows post to some finished and w.i.p. 28mm figures.

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.

The First Custom Units For WW2 "TANKS"

Here they are, the first two custom units for ww2 "TANKS". Both of them are Soviet artillery units, and I decided to publish them together in one file. Next to the new units I also created a new crewmember and a new ammocard.

The "Guards Artillerist" will fit next to the other (official) Guards crewmen, and I think he will serve his duty pretty well.

The new ammocard "Rain Of Fire" was influenced by a card of "TANKS The Modern Age", it gives the Katyusha a devastating ground attack.

You can download this expansion (PDF) from my googledrive at

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11R3ZrSEnL9aYxZosBn0B_24uLPFH-8FP/view

Just to give you a small preview, what will come next, in the next posts I am going to take a closer look at the SU-76s by Zvezda and the Plastic Soldier Company, and they will be compared in a third post. There is also the Katyusha left, which also will get a closer look, and in another post you will see, which modification were done on it.

And it seems, that in the next week I will turn the focus to some cold war stuff, reviews, battlereports, finished models, custom units, all that crap, stay tuned for that.

The next custom units will show up at the weekend, the KV-2 on which I took a closer look in the past (this post), and a first German custom unit, who would not like to use a Panzerkampfwagen VI or VIII (reviews coming soon) in the game.
And maybe I will add an addition to the rules containing all model abilities since not all of them are included in the rulebook (update: Done and can be found here).

Closing this post with a classic from my youth, in the clip you can see some BM-13 in action.

Another Planes Playtest for TANKS

Pictures of the third playtest for my upcoming planes expansion for "TANKS". Once again Germany vs the UK, once again my forces were crushed by their enemy, and my opponents plane did some serious damage, just as my plane did.

Even when I had the air superiority after the destruction of the German flak, it did not help, I shot down the Stuka right after it destroyed the second tank of mine.

You will have to choose from 7 planes and  6 AA vehicles in the first version of this expansion, plus various new crewmembers, equipment, and doctrine cards, but feel free to use whatever you want to use for the new ruleset, for this case I will include some generic unit cards to use.

This time we used new movement templates. Those things work fine, just as supposed, but I may resize the round piece. Sometimes you will have to improvise to reach your target but the new rules for the movement phase are completely finished, at least in a bunch of handwritten notes.

The use of new custom doctrines for special air manouvers can make their movement unpredictable, maybe barrel roll and looping may be over the top, but these two were pretty useful. 

You may notice a black die on some of the pictures, which determines the height the plane, in the final version these will be replaced by custom paper counters. You can fly in 2 different heights, if you are on high altitude you will get an additional defense die.

The attack phase addon rules also work as supposed, there is one thing left unclear, it is where the plane has to be to drop a bomb and how to decide which tank will get hit, but I think we found a reasonable solution.

A final playtest will have to follow, but almost everything is finished and only needs to get tested a final time, maybe on a bigger scale, but after that I am going to compile the rules and make them downloadable. I started with this task, but I can not say when it is done.

Maybe new units will be added in further revisions of the ruleset, when it is finally done. I do not want to give out a release date, but at least I want it finished several weeks before halloween depending on the time I can spend for this.
Luckily I am able to write this blog without the need for a translator, and sometimes my grammar could be crappy, but for me writing the plane expansion is something different than my casual blogging, I want it filled with less creepy English than the usual stuff I write.
And then there is all this copyright stuff, I will use loyality free stuff, but I do not have to forget to credit their creators, and all this stuff.

While the picture above is already bad, it is getting worse. I close this post with some pretty bad pictures from that game, there may even be some dublicates.