Thursday 7 January 2016

Team Yankee playtest with 6mm GHQ minis.


Chris and I  rocked up to Simon's pad for my first gaming in ages. (Woot!) Simon had planned a Frostgrave dust up and it looks as cool as it reads. Very reminiscent of 1st edition D&D (white box) in look, but with a faster, more modern, and opposed resolution system. I will have to rewrite my list and give it a go with some suspiciously, Bulgar, Slav and Viking looking characters...

This was to be my first try at the new rules. Played 1" equals 1cm on a 4x6' table.
These rules are very familiar to any Flames player of course. The point buying is quite different in numbers but the scheme is the same, one core unit then pick from available supports.
We chatted about when the other armies would become available. My opponent Che was keen for Dutch, others are waiting on Brits and Germans of course.

The lists were as follows, Che got 100pts of Yanks
2 M1 command team
4 M1 platoon
4 M1 platoon
4 M163 Vulcan AAA platoon
2 M901 ITV ATGM platoon
2 A10's

I got 100 pts of Soviet Guards
1 T72 command
8 T72 platoon
7 T72 platoon
4 BMP2 Recce platoon
4 ZSU 23/4 AAA platoon
3 2S1 SP howitzers and an observer BMP
4 Mi24 Hind D flight

No infantry. Which is a bummer for Che as we roll No Retreat for a scenario.
Che must leave a M1 platoon off table, the other is in ambush. Which leaves a thin line of M113 variants and two M1's defending Germany from the horde.

I use Spearhead from my Recce platoon to push up our tank battalions past the halfway mark. Very cool rule, reminiscent of the Chain of Command patrolling phase. IMHO a good way to represent the work of reconnaissance units.
I open up with four Hinds, provoking defensive AAA from the Vulcan's. He bags two Hinds.
Our return fire kills an M1. Then our lead tank company takes out a single track and bails another. My recce BMP's fail to hit with their two AT5 shots.
Che retaliates by trying to get his reinforcements or air on station, both refuse. Settles for shooting down another Hind! Pops his ambush M1 tank platoon behind my second tank company on my right flank, 8 shots to the flank of my T72's, kills three!
Not enough to make us blink yet. They wheel around to blast the M1's off of OUR objective.
Remember who is rolling here, I also use two recce BMPs, my CO's T72 as well as moving my Hind over, away from those nasty M163's! After all of the shooting we have killed one and bailed one...


M1 ambush pops in our wood. BMP2 Recce bogs on a hedge.
Che gets air finally! It rolls in on the lead T72's after they had finished feasting on his M163 platoon. We have no AAA nearby, they were all looking fearfully at the M1 behind the hedge that everybody had been shooting at and somehow surviving.
The A10's roll in and get one kill and one bail after using Mavericks and 3cm GAU. Lucky me!

A10 Warthogs bounce the lead tank company, killing one with a Maverick.
Now facing the front of my second T72 company three M1's only get a single kill.

Sole surviving Krokodil after M163 Vulcan party on it's flight.
Again concentrating everything on this bloody M1 platoon we eventually finish them off.

Objective scrubbed clear of Yankee Imperialists
Krokodil, Grozdikas and Shilka supporting the attack
Fun game Che! Che could really have used some dismounted infantry in that central wood. We were both pretty rusty and relied on Pooch to referee. We both got our reminders of FoW's coarse die rolling with some weird results here and there. Of course the assumption in this game as well as our EPIC games in the past the Soviet vehicles actually ran and were assembled to spec. (Unlike many examples in real life!) Also ranges seemed short from what I was used to, we will tweak perhaps as we just went with a 1cm = 1" conversion. I will play again and for the moment can't afford to invest in BF 15mm vehicles so my small collection of GHQ will stand in nicely.
Sorry for the few crummy pictures.
Here is a link to our modern games from a few years ago using EPIC as a base.

12 comments:

  1. I remember hearing about FrostGrave some months back. Smaller, skirmish level play? Saw some cool FG wizard minis. How about some kind of Slavic Lich Lord conversion? (http://www.northstarfigures.com/prod.php?prod=7732) :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Very cool mini Keane. How are you doing bro?
      Yep small skirmish bands supporting a Wizard and his apprentice. You can afford a couple bricks or several less capable followers initially. There is a campaign system as part of it and spells reminiscent of Tunnels and Trolls or white box D&D!
      I haven't played yet but was watching out of the corner of my eye.
      The benefit is you can use a few historicals and a couple old RPG mini's and you're done!
      That's my plan anyway.

      Delete
    2. I'd totally forgotten you guys had 6mm moderns forces. They make more sense than 15mm. Hmmm, I think John, Andy and Jason had them too?

      You'll like Frostgrave. I think the designer had the right idea. We started out using house rules from the web. However after playing it I've decided the only thing I'd personally change from RAW is limiting/randomising the contents of stores,

      Delete
    3. Thirded - Frostgrave is awesome fun :)

      Delete
    4. Cheers Jamie good to hear from you. Good tip on FG that I may have heard before.

      Delete
  2. Nice! I'll have to look up Team Yankee. I've got enough stuff to do Israelis with a Jordanian OpFor if they will ever do the Middle East??

    Or can run Germans vs Andy's Russians when ze Germans arrive.

    Looks like a fun game and great to see 6mm Moderns. Nice Batrep

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Jas, no need to repaint yet. They don't even have rules for the M60's yet, though you could extrapolate easily.Number of forces for each side are back to FoW nunmbers, you will need less than ten usually, perhaps twenty if you're running Soviets. Though I guess when they come out with T55 units we could see close to thirty tanks running around!

      Delete
  3. Awesome ;) gotta get another excuse to get the Israeli or Syria/iraqi hordes out again

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's pretty fun mate. Sounds like Jason has volunteered as well.

      Delete
  4. Do they have the stats for the AFVs and such in the rule book, or to I have to plunk down $100+ to buy the box sets? I have a huge collection of 6mm and have no desire to start up moderns in 15mm.

    Chris

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In the core book are the stats for most of the US and Soviet vehicles. The cards that everyone is talking about are just for quick reference. That said there are a ton of things that I want to use that have no stats yet. We will extrapolate anything else we need, easy enough.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for the info! I'm tempted to break my vow of no new rule purchases and get it.

      Delete