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.

1:100 Master Modell Avions Marcel Dassault "Mercure"

A closer look at the 1:100 Avions Marcel Dassault "Mercure" made by the German modelkit manufacturer Master Modell.

Initially released in 1975 by the East German Plasticart Zschopau, this kit was re-released from 1989 to 1991 by Master Modell. These and many more informations about this long gone manufacturer can be found on this homepage.

This is not the usual stuff on which I take a closer look, but when I saw a picture* of a scenery piece with a crashed passenger jet, I felt pretty inspired. I checked various sources to get the cheapest 1:100 civil airliner kit which I could find, to build a scenery piece for "TANKS The Modern Age".

I found this kit, even when I did find almost no informations about it. The linked homepage was the highlight from the search but the rest I got was pretty bad. This is a good reason for this mini review. 

Let us take a look at the parts which are included:

The main parts are moulded in white plastic, which is pretty sturdy and hard. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you may know that I am absolutely no aviation expert, but even I see the simplicity of this kit.

There are not much details, only some raised panel lines. I did not expect the quality of a modern Dragon or Revell kit, but building this as desired will take more efford than I tought.

The next sprue comes in a silverish grey plastic, not as hard as the white parts. It contains more parts to finish this model, among some others, the landing gear and the engines can be found. The grade of detail is low and most of the panel lines are raised just as on the other parts.

The next sprue comes in black plastic and contains all wheels for the landing gear. The detail is simple but at least they are round.

The final sprue includes all clear parts for the model. I am positively surprised by its quality, they are pretty clear, especially since today I unboxed another kit with many clear parts which are pretty milky.

Seems that there are some more closer looks incoming.

Beside the plastic there is a big decal sheet included. According to the Wikipedia article about the Dassault Mercure, it was used by only one airline (Air Inter) for which this sheet is included.

I can not say anything about the quality of East German decals, but to be honest, I do not expect much from them but I will see.

All in all, this is an old kit, compared to "west" modelkits from this time, I think this was never a great kit. On the other side, it is a relict from the past, made from a company in a country who both do not exist anymore.

I think with some work it will make a great scenery piece, combined with the planned new battlefield, this will not only be a fun to make but also an impressing piece of decoration.

This weekend I will continue my closer looking at French tank expansions for "TANKS The Modern Age", it took a little longer to prepare, I had to resupply my French forces, but there will be some "bonuscontent" included.

(* The picture which inspired me can be found in this video at Youtube at 15:30 right after the Boxer.)

First Planes Playtest for TANKS

Finally I had the chance to make a first playtest of my custom (work in progress) planes expansion for TANKS by Galeforce 9. After I wrote the last post, I had a friend for visit and invited him to a small game of TANKS.

Luckily he has some experiences with the modern variant of TANKS, having been part of the battle at the Easter front.

I built 2 small platoons and set up an improvised playfield in my hobbyroom, made from a blanket and some pieces of styrofoam. Not the prettiest battlefield, but it is ok for this quick test. We decided against any crew or equipment cards to keep it simple.

My friend played the attacking forces. The German platoon included one Panther (A) and two Panzer IV, all made by the Plastic Soldier Company.

As new custom units he had a Ju 87 in 1:144 scale and a 3D printed SdKfz 7/1 for air defense. I think I did not show the halftrack in any post, the only thing I added after printing were some figures from the bitsbox.

The defending British platoon was played by me and included a Sherman Firefly from an old "Flames Of War" starterbox, and the Comet and Achilles tanks from the game expansions.

My new additional units were a Hawker Tempest in 1:144 scale and an 3D printed M17 halftrack for air defense.

A look at the battlefield before the game started. It looks pretty simply but I may build some snow covered scenery pieces (and wash the blanket) because I like this winter look.

By the way, today I won an ebay auction, when the thing arrives, a new battlefield for "TANKS The Modern Age" will be build soon, maybe usable for ww2 TANKS too.

Having only sightblocking elements and no cover pieces, the game would have a touch of an arena fight. The first two rounds were pretty unspectacular but it seemed that at least the movement rules for the planes would work as supposed.

Would work as supposed in future games. Experiences from this first game showed that a special movement template and its own movement arrow is needed for games using these new rules. Wish I would have built them before, following some older drawings in my notebook.

The selfmade bases were impractical, I already replaced them with bases matching to the standard "Flames Of War" flyerbases.

That the halftracked AA vehicles would work was pretty clear from the start of the game, Actually the only new thing to them was that they got an ability known from ww3 TANKS.

Giving them "Rapid Fire" was an easy solution for their arnament, a thing I had issues with from the beginning.

I think, at this point I should state out that most of the rules were written before "TANKS The Modern Age" hit the market, and even when I took some elements from the TANKS followup, most of the planes rules were written at least one year ago.

While the battle on the ground went as usual, we started to attack with our planes. Not only the equipped weapons were used, we also made some theoretical dice throws to test several variants of bombs and other stuff.

And this also worked almost as supposed.

The planes landed some hits and the AA halftracks gave their best to shoot them down. Since there are no effects for planes in the critical hits cards, we found a simple solution for this. A conversion list will be included in the actual rules addon.

And I think that we have found some good equipment pieces for planes, even some pilots and doctrines will be available. I do not want to spoiler this stuff but after my mate Olli and I discussed the pointcosts for the new stuff, it seems that a big part of this project is already done.

The game took about 2 hours, ending with a victory for the German troops. I decided that when all enemies ground units are lost, the game is over, no matter if there are enemy planes left or not.

Having planes available adds some new tactics and advantages to the game, even when this was a very first test it made fun.

And I learned a lot of things that will have to be included in the rules to make this whole as easy to understand as possible.

 

At the moment I think I am going to create units (for this expansion) only for plane models which I have in my collection, what means, the first edition of the planes expansion for TANKS will include 5 to 6 planes and other units, that at least each nation will get one new type of AA unit and plane available. There will be different planetypes available, but I will keep this for a future post.

Maybe some readers will allow me to use pictures of their plane models for new cards.

But since the expansion is just a fun project, it takes some time. Some more playtests will have to happen, the final costs for all the new cards will have fo be found, and than I can start to write the actual expansion.

Maybe some more units may find their way in future revisions, once all the digital work is done, it will be no big issue to create new cards for them.

Faces Of War (6)

More pictures from the African campain during ww2. My Grandfather made these pictures but I had no oportunity to speak with him about these pictures and the memories he had.

I do not exactly know where the signpost from the picture above was standing, but I found at least two more pictures of it while browsing through the net.

Update:
Seems like this was the signpost which stood at the Lybian Marble Arch, found on this picture, near Ra's Lanuf. AKG images has this picture from the signpost.

All of the pictures come from the first two posts of this series, the remaining pictures in these posts were digitalized in better quality, as also the pictures from the third "Faces Of War" post were.

I do not know if he was in the Luftwaffe, but a lot of the pictures show planes and stuff which belongs to them. It seems there is a repair crane or something like that on the pictures above, either the plane was scavenged for spareparts or it was repaired, who knows.

Dieses Werk ist lizenziert unter einer Creative Commons Namensnennung

 - Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitungen 4.0 International Lizenz. -

In the next post I will take a closer look at the French AMX10 expansion for "Tanks The Modern Age". It is possible that a playtest of the new custom rules for planes will happen tonight. Than that review will be the after next post, aehh, I mean that closer look.

While I ordered some more AMX 30 tanks, all French forces on my desk, including a new custom unit, got their basecoat of Army Painter Skeleton Bones, I think it is a nice basecolor for a desert scheme.

Actually I wanted to use some 3D printed stencils from Thingiverse for their camouflage pattern, but I decided against it, a quick test showed that they did not work as supposed at least in 15mm scale.

Gazelle Helicopter Expansion For TANKS The Modern Age

A closer look at the Gazelle helicopter expansion for "TANKS The Modern Age" by Galeforce 9. It is a remake of TANKS with an advanced ruleset and additional air units, and a spinoff of Team Yankee (based on this book). I did not read it, but I have this one in my library and the scenario seems equal to me.

As all other "TANKS The Modern Age" expansions, this pack contains an 1:100 model kit, taken from the "Team Yankee" range, the matching unit card(s), additional equipment/crew/doctrines cards, and a flyerbase for the model.

First let us take a look at the kit from this expansion:

The kit comes in one green sprue which contains all parts to build the Gazelle. The casting quality is good, there is minimal flash to remove, but there are annoying ejectormarks on the bottom of the rotorblades and the HOT launchers.

But except for that, the kit comes in the usual good quality as the other 1:100 kits for the game. I think, that building this kit would go fast and without any issues.

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. This are not the actual parts included in the box, they are identical to them.

After a look at the included modelkit, now let us take a look at the cards which are included in this expansion. First there are the cards for the unit itself:

The French Gazelle 20mm has a initiative of 10 what makes it the last to move but first to fire what is a clear advantage. Beside that it shares its Armour of 0 and only 3 Hitpoins with all other helis except for the Hind. Its "Rapid Fire" ability offers 5 dice against unarmoured vehicles and helicopters, but that is needed with an base Attack of only 2. For 21 points you would get a basic helicopter hunter for the French.

The Gazelle HOT version shares its Initiative of 7 and its Armour of 3 with all other helicopters from the game, except for its 20mm version. With 3 hitpoints it is pretty weak and except for its 5 dice missile attack it is unarmed. This restricts its attack abilities because of the special rules for missiles but for 23 points this is a strong unit for every French platoon.

After a look at the unit cards, now let us take a look at the equipment/crew/doctrines cards which are included in the Gazelle expansion.

7 crewcards are included in this expansion. As in the other helicopter expansions there are 2 heroic crewmembers for this specific nation and some crewcards usable for all nations.

The French pilot "Baptiste Deschamp" offers for the cost of 6 points not only 2 additional initiative points, also you may change the elevation of the chopper at the end of the movement phase without to add a speed token. This sounds very useful.

"Clement Martin", the French (helicopter only) gunner changes every attack into a Sideshot what is a high advantage, reducing the opponents defence dice by 1. With 8 points this card is pretty expensive, I will see how useful it is.

Then there are the cards which can be used by all nations.

First there is the "Defensive Pilot" which lets you reroll one defense dice for the cost of 4 points,  the "Risky Pilot" gives you a bonus if you attack at close range for the cost of 3 points. Both are good alternatives if you play more than 1 Gazelle helicopter in a game.

The remaining 3 crewmembers are not limited to helicopters. The "Inspired Commander" offers 2 additional initiative points for the cost of 4 points, but I would prefer "Baptiste Deschamp", who offers for 2 additional points and a very good advantage.

Two gunners are included,  the "Bloodthirsty Gunner" adds 1 attack dice at close range. For 3 points this may be useful for a tanks, but in comparison to the fragility of helicopters the only helicopter which may have use for this card is the Soviet Hind.

The "Sharpshooter Gunner" could be a pretty powerful addition, its cost of 5 gives you the advantage that your enemy has to draw 2 cards at the first critical hit and you have to decide which card counts and which would be discarded.

Last, there are 3 equipment/doctrines cards included.

"Extra Ammunition" lets you reroll your attack dice when discarded, for 2 points this card is useful for every unit in the game.

As also included in the HIND, the PAH, and the Cobra expansions, "Countermeasures" and "Defense Maneuvres" cards are included in this box, both are very useful for defending attacks, worth 2 and 3 points this equipment may save your helicopter in critical situations.

This expansion is a nice addition for each French platoon. The kit is almost without any faults, and the cards included offers some nice options to customize your Gazelle.

The only negative point on this and all other TANKS games expansions is that there are no decals included in this box and this sucks. I am still looking for a cheap kit to loot for some French decals.

But except for that an additional air unit is always welcome. Based on experiences from earlier games, helicopters are strong units and the Gazelle is no exception.

I will build the Gazelle equipped with HOT launchers, since the French main battletank has the "Rapid Fire" ability, what you may see in one of the nexts posts when I will take a closer look at the next French unit for "TANKS The Modern Age".

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Beside that, I continued some work on new custom stuff for "TANKS The Modern Age". As I mentioned in earlier posts, I would like to try to write a plane expansion for the game.

Originally this was planned for the ww2 version of TANKS but there is no reason why the planned rules would not fit in a ww2 setting with the matching models and cards.

Just for fun as the other custom units which were made before, but containing not only attack planes, but also new units and some additional equipment like new air-to-air missiles for helicopters and matching new rules for all of the new stuff.

But that means that I would have to think about new game mechanics, for helicopters, you may choose not move, but a plane has always to move, and I think it would have to move in the attack phase too. As also in the command phase.

And it should have only maximal 45 degree turning abilities, since it is a plane and not an UFO. I do not want to make it too complicated because this is just a fun project. Maybe it turns out stupid or it may be a big fun. When it is finished, you will find it in this blog.

The other thing I would have to find a solution for are the pointcosts for the unit itself and all its armament, pilots and equipment. As I wrote in the SU-25 post, a potential game unit, the point costs for this stuff have to be well balanced.

This would be powerful units, that is why I decided so set the costs for ground attack fighter higher then the costs for a well equipped Hind, in other words, would you rather take 2 M1A1 or would you take an A-10.