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.

Revell 1:100 Mil Mi-24D Hind

A closer look at the 1:100 MIL Mi-24D Hind model kit by Revell. Looking at the informations from Scalemates, it seems that this kit was published by Revell for the first time in 1993, this kit is the 2016 version with a full color instruction manual. It was one of the first helicopter kits I bought, and when "TANKS The Modern Age" was published, it seemed pretty clear what I would do with it.

Included in this kit are 4 sprues full of parts, including one sprue with clear parts, and a nice decalsheet with a lot of decals for just one version.

The kit looks good at the first look, no flash or visible ejectormarks. But there are some minor sinkholes which I found when I basecoated the model. Also, when built, there are some small gaps which could need some filling with putty.

But except for that, the overall impression of this model kit is good and building this kit went on without any big issues, more on that later.

The clear parts for the cockpit canopy and the side windows are relatively thick and distort the view slightly. Since I built this as a gamepiece, I painted the clearparts black from the inside and masked them before I painted the kit. This way they will keep their shiny look.

The pretty extensive decalsheet is produced in the usual good Revell quality and offers one version, from this kit you can build a Mi-24D of the 335th Aviation Regiment stationed in Kundus/Afganistan in 1980.

When I built this kit, I had some smaller issues building the main rotor, the way it is shown in the instuctions is not the easiest way to build it, but beside that the kit is nice. Also, a little bit annoying is the plastic which is used for this kit. Smaller parts get pretty soft when glue is attached and need some time for drying.

With its minor faults, this is a nice model kit, especially for its price. I got three of them and paid an average price of 5 Euro. Two are already built, the third will be kept for later.

Both are used for "TANKS The Modern Age", and they are accompanied by the Battlefront Miniatures (Team Yankee) kit from the game expansion.

As you can see, I made new base pieces for the clear rods of the flightbases, the reasons are that there are 2 clear rods but only one base piece included (what a waste), and the the included base pieces were a little uneven. The new bases are very simple, a plastic disc with some grass mat attached, but they blend in nice on our battlefield.

Their first deployment will be "OP Easter Front" next weekend, when we will have another 4 player game.

Cards Usable For Both GF9 "TANKS" Games

This is a list of cards which can be used for both "TANKS" games of GF9. While a lot of the crew cards got lower point costs in "TANKS The Modern Age", the cards listed below have in both games the same costs and effects.

Crew:

Agressive Commander

Altruistic Commander

Cunning Commander

Superb Commander

Daring Driver

Determined Driver

Racing Driver

Assassin

Bloodthirsty Gunner

Resourceful Gunner

Agressive Loader

Clever Loader

Hasty Loader

Resourceful Loader

Artillery Observer

Upgrades:

Fire Extinguisher

Improvised Armour

Liquid Courage

Medical Kit

Supercharger

This list may be incomplete, if I will find more (on both games usable) cards, they will be added. The reviews from this blog and the official website of the games were pretty helpful to make this list.

The picture in this post shows one of my mate Ollis Leopard 2 tanks, in "TANKS The Modern Age" these beast costs 32 points per unit. We will see if they are worth their price. Maybe I should work on a Hind only list to beat them with pure air advantage.
In the closer look at the Hind expansion for the game you will see, that these things are very strong.

Blog Update March

This will be my last posting for March. I need some time after some very sad news. The death of a friend is always a devastating loss and I need some time to overcome this.

The closer looks at the Revell 1:100 Hind and at the "TANKS The Modern Age" Hind will have to wait some more time.

This is for you friend, whereever you are.

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.