2021 Team Yankee Masters

By Howard West

Team Yankee 2021 Masters was held at located on 8796 Michigan Rd, Indianapolis, IN 46268 on June 26th and 27th, 2021. Family Time Games is a really nice gaming store and has a nice stock of both Flames of War and Team Yankee products. They also stock many other Boardgames, RPG’s, Miniatures, Cards, and other Gaming supplies. Stop and visit the store if you are in the greater Indianapolis area.

Team Yankee Masters is an invitation-only event hosted by each year in June for the top sixteen players as ranked by Battle Rankings in the United States and Canada.  The rankings are based on players placements in various Team Yankee Tournaments across the country during that years season. The Team Yankee tournament season runs from May 1st previous year to April 31 of the current year.  Formal invitations where mailed out to the qualifiers in early May. The 2021 Team Yankee Masters Tournament was sponsored by , Family Time Games, and

Background Info for 2021 Masters

Joe Lewis was the TO (Tournament Organizer) for the tournament, Joe is a veteran participant of many Flames of War Masters tournaments and did a great job in running and organizing both the 2021 and 2020 Team Yankee Master Tournaments. Joe provided the entrants the following information for the tournament:

Format: Team Yankee V2, plus the current dated May 21, 2021, tournament will have 6 Rounds over 2-Days.

Source Books: Oil War, Fee Nations, Leopard, Panzertruppen, Volks Armee, British, American, Soviet, Czechoslovak People’s Army and Polish People’s Army. The new West German book was not allowed to be used since it was not available for the past tournament season.

Tournament Points: Everyone’s list will consist of two parts. First, the base list of 70-points.  The 70-points are to be used to purchase formation(s) and any support as normal.  The second part will be made up of 3 individual sideboard support lists of 10, 20 and 30 points each.  The sideboard lists cannot add to any formation or unit purchase with the base 70-points.  The points between the base and sideboards are to be separate.  You may use the sideboard points to purchase another formation, but even if this formation is the same nation as the base formation, the sideboard formation will still be treated as support.  When submitting your list, send 4 separate lists: the 70-point base list, a 10-point support list, a 20-point support list, and a 30-point support list.  By keeping the lists separate, it will make it easier to understand.

Special Rules:

A. After players and tables are assigned; and, before mission selection, the sideboard option to be used that round will be randomly drawn.  Each sideboard option will be used twice during the tournament, the amount and order will be random.

B.  Battle Plans: each player will be required to use each stance twice (2x Attack, 2x Maneuver, and 2x Defend) in the tournament.  When and the order of which stance to play is up the player.

C. If a mission calls for minefields, when that round is using support options of 10 or 20 points, will use three minefields.  For support option of 30, will use four minefields.

Match Up and Point Level Selection: The “” App will be used to assign pairings. For the first round only, an effort will made to avoid pairing two players from the same club/city.  After round one, straight Swiss Pairings.  You will not play the same player twice.

Mission Selection: Missions will be determined by using the Extended Battle Plans in the April 2021 Missions Pack.  Both players will secretly pick their Battle Plans, reveal, and roll on the Battle Plan Matrix.

Tournament Scoring: Determining a winner will be based on total of Victory Points, Strength of Schedule, then Number of Wins.

Players and Armies Entered

Below are a listing of the players and the armies played and what was the core formation and or a 2nd or Allied formation.

The listing below shows the same players and their army choices plus the type of Armor and Air support they had in their lists.

As you can see from the above two listings, we had a nice variation in armies being played and also a variety of armor and air support.

My Army for 2021 Team Yankee Masters

Below is a pic of my Bradley Company with its 3 options, this what I used at the 2021 Team Yankee Masters. During the 2020 – 2021 Team Yankee season, I had played East German BMP Infantry with various Soviet Allied Formations. For the 2021 Masters I decided to bring my recently completed Bradley Company. I had used it once before in April 2021 in a tournament and was overall pretty happy with its performance. Since I plan on playing my Bradley company, with various a US or NATO Allied formations for the next two years.  I felt this would be the perfect event to give it a baptism of tournament play against good players with different armies and to start learning how to play it and identify its strengths and weaknesses.

The left side of my tray is my base Bradley company, the center are my support choices and on the right is my West German M-113 allied formation.

Round #1 vs Charlie Clay and his Iraqis at 100 Points – Mission was Spearpoint – I Attacked

Charlie and I played earlier in the year and he was playing his East Germans at the time and for 2021 Masters he is playing a newly painted Iraqi army that is looking really nice. Our mission was Spearpoint and is one of the new missions in the from the April 2021 Missions Pack.

Opening move for the Iraqis, they are trying to burst thru my defensive line.

The game ended in a 2-2 with Charlies left flank Iraqi T-62 assault repulsed and his infantry stalled. And a 2nd T-62 formation arriving to save the day to hold his right flank objective. Another fun game with Charlie. I will face another Iraqi army later in the tournament.

Other Round #1 Pics

US Marines vs Iraqi BMP Infantry and US Lt Cav Troop Allies

US RFY/LT and West German M-113 Mech Company Allies vs Dutch Infantry and Leo-1’s.

Round #2 vs Jonathan Holland and his Mech M-113 at 80 Points – Mission was Spearpoint – I Defended

This is the fourth time that Jonathan and I have faced one another in the last twelve months. In the past John has used slight variations to what is displayed in the picture below. Our past games ended in a 2-3, 3-3 and a 6-3. This one ended in a 7-2 in Jonathans favor, I made a very aggressive dash to one of the objectives with my Bradley Transports, backed up by my VADS and artillery bombardments on his infantry holding the objective on the first turn.

During the assault I failed to counter attack and was repulsed and repeated this assault on the second turn and failed the counter attack again and was repulsed. On the third turn his M1-Abrams arrived and cleaned up my attacking troops and the following turns he drove his M-1 Abrams to my closest objective in my deployment area and cleared it of my defenders and held it at the end of his turn. I did not get any of my reinforcements till turn 5 and by then it was to late. 7-2 for Jonathan.

Sorry Jonathan no pictures of our game.

 

Other Round #2 Pics

Dutch LEO-1 Company/YPR-765 Infantry Company vs Israeli M-113 Infantry and West German Marder Infantry Allies.

Soviets BMP Infantry vs West German Panzeraufklarungs Company

Round #3 vs Alex Higganbotham and his Soviet Air Assault at 90 Points – Mission was Breakthrough – I Attacked

My opponent Alex played the famous Soviet Leaf Blower List or the Soviet Air Assault Battalion what ever way you would like to call it. I decided to use one of my attack choices for this game and try to put Alex into a defensive position. By putting Alex into a defensive mission the Special Soviet Air Assault Rules kick in that limits what Alex can have on board at the start of the game. Our game started with moving onto the center objective and digging in the following turn.

Alex was able to bring on his 3rd Hind company on the first turn from his reserves and with the other two Hind Companies they attacked deep into my rear positions and destroyed my M-109 Artillery and M-106 Mortar batteries. My AA caused a few casualties, during my turn I fired multiple ATGM’s at his Hinds and caused a great many casualties over a few turns. Since I was focused of removing the Hind threat, Alex’s Infantry based Spigot teams sniped at my vehicles and caused some casualties. Eventually my reserves came on and we moved onto the and held the 2nd objective. The game ended in a 6-3 for the US as we held both objectives.

US is moving into the center of the board to hold the center objective.

The Hinds have arrived in force and ready to wreak havoc on the US.

The lone remaining Hind is trying to stop the US Mech Infantry from holding the far right objective.

 

Other Round #3 Pics

Soviet BMP vs Iraqi BMP with Bradley Cav Troop Allies

Israeli Mech Infantry and West German Allies vs Israeli Mech Infantry and West German Allies

Round #4 vs John Meir and his Israeli’s with West German Allies at 80 Points – Mission was Encirclement – I Defended

Encirclement is another of the new missions in the from the April 2021 Missions Pack. John has been playing his Israeli’s for several years now and plays then really well. John spearheaded along the table edge of his deployment area and placed a Luchs and Mortar unit in the center area. John focused his attack on the objective on my right flank. I had a light screen on my right side and tired to reinforce it starting on turn one.

During turn one, I placed my on board Bradley transports that I had in ambush in the center of my deployment area up to the boards center line. I moved the Bradley’s out to the take on his Luchs and Mortars and during his turn John failed morale checks on both of them. John kept pushing towards the objective on my right flank, my first reserve unit did not come on till turn three and at the wrong end of the board. John took the right flank objective on Turn four and our game ended with John getting a 7-2 win.

 

Other Round #4 Pics

British Mech Infantry with Dutch Leo-1 Allies vs Soviet BMP Infantry

Israelis M-113 Infantry with West German Marder-1Allies vs Iraqi BMP Infantry

 

Round #5 vs David Vigor and his Iraqi with US Bradley Cav Troop Allies at 90 Points – Mission was No Retreat – I Defended

I have played against David and different variations of his Iraqi Army over the last several years. From prior experience vs David and his Iraqis, I needed to have a plan to stop his US Allied formation his Bradley Cav Troop.  If I can stop or remove it I would have a really good chance of winning the game.

 

The pic above is of David’s first move of the game, on turn one he moved across the board in his transports and moved his Bradley Cav troop up into the middle of the board to avoid the minefields. I started my turn by placing my ambush in the center of the board and moved my on Board Bradley transports into shooting range of his Bradley Scouts and shot up one of his scout platoons. Now he is down to 2 units plus the formation commander.

I next dropped my Minelets onto his M1-Abrams. David continued driving up his infantry on the left and started walking over the hills and thru the minefield and we where able to keep him from getting near the forward objective. His Bradley CAV Troop eventually cleared the Minelets with the loss of one M1 Abrams, but did not play a factor in the game. As time ran out we held the forward objective and the game ended in a 6-3 win for the US.

Other Round#5 Pictures

US M-113 Mech Infantry vs Dutch

BTR-60 Soviet Infantry vs US RDF/LT

Round #6 vs Chris Fretts and his Dutch at 100 Points – Mission was Contact – I Defended

My sixth and final game was vs Chris Fretts and his Dutch Army. Chris has been playing his Dutch army for several years now and usually does pretty well with it.  Enclosed is a to Chris’s posting on the Team Yankee Facebook Group of his 6 rounds at this years Team Yankee Masters. Below is a picture of his force with its 3 options for this tournament.

 

Pic was taken after Chris did his first move. I deployed my West German M-113 Mech Company from my Center of the board to my Right Flank and my Bradley Company Left Flank to Center of the board. Chris attacked on my left and I attacked on my right. After quite of bit of movement by both sides Chris assaulted my left flank objective and I held as the game ended.  My right flank attack got close to his objective as his reinforcements arrived to stop my momentum.  The game ended in a 3-3 tie.

Other Round #6 Pics

US M-113 Mech Infantry vs Iraqi T-62

Israelis with West German Allies vs Soviet BMP Infantry

Final Standings and Comments

After Six rounds the final standings are below, overall is it was a good weekend playing Team Yankee against really good players. I got to use my new Bradley Company and learned a lot on how to play it or more importantly how not to play it. Thanks to Joe and Ann Lewis for hosting another great Masters Weekend.

Group Photo of the 2021 Masters Participants (Photo Provided by Joe Lewis)

Additional Information on the Team Yankee Masters Tournament can be found on the Battle Rankings Facebook Page. All of the lists that where used are posted, videos of several of the games and discussions on multiple posts.