The IDF in Oil War: These Guys are Israeli Great

Some of you may have read my where I reviewed the Magach and Pereh releases for the new Oil War book from . In this article I will talk about most of the remaining products from this release; the Merkava, M-113, Recce Jeeps, TOW Jeeps, and the Mechanized Rifle Platoon. With these new forces I feel I have a fun IDF force to play with in the near future.

Whenever I decide to get a new force for Team Yankee I always look to collect around 100 points of models since that is where the points level for this game seems to be played at most of the time. Knowing that I was still short in making a force at this level I also decided to paint up a box of Shilka’s I had laying around as IDF and do the same for a spare platoon of a West German Redeye’s and re-purpose my M-109 guns for this project. I have been meaning to paint my M-109 guns in solid green for some time so I can also use them for my Canadian force.

\The Merkava comes with enough sprues for five tanks and the M-113 gives you the ability to build four models which can be troop carriers, two types of mortars, recce vehicles, or TOW missile shooters. The jeeps come in blisters and the recce jeeps have three models and the TOW jeeps have four. At first, I thought they gave me too many crewmen for the TOW jeeps, however, after looking at the Battlefront website I saw that the IDF jeeps come with Iranian crewmen, I decided to use these extra models as IDF and added them to both the jeeps and M-113 models. The infantry blister gives you a full platoon and a company command team. Each box and blister comes with the cards needed to play with them on your table.

When I opened up the Merkava box I saw that each model has two sprues and I immediately had flashbacks to those tough builds with past tanks. This fear was unfounded since the Merkava was simple to build. I would recommend putting in the rear of the tank piece after you attack the treads and top to the chassis. The side skirts of the Merkava fit into a groove on the chassis, so you long have to hope that your skirts line up correctly. I won’t go into the painting details for the vehicles since I covered that in my and I used the same method for these models.

The M-113’s are the same models found in other kits and I decided to build them as for troop carriers and I found four other M-113’s in my collection and built them as 3 M-106 mortars and an artillery spotter. One thing I also had in my collection and re-purposed here is an old blister of IDF half-track stowage and placed them on some of the M-113’s, I also used some stuff from my “bits box” to make these models look unique.

For the jeeps all I had to do is add the crewmen and the TOW launchers, I really had to work to get the TOW gunner to sit correctly on the jeep.

Now for the infantry

I have not been painting 15mm infantry very much and dreaded this project. While the sculpts are excellent I found that the models themselves are a bit thinner than some of the older Team Yankee models. The picture below has a stand of the IDF models next to the German Redeye figures, you can see they are a bit skinnier.

I planned to follow the painting instructions in the Oil War book and noticed that the main color used on the model was Yellow-Green and based on my past uses of that color I know its a tricky one to work with. I decided to give the models a gray primer and then block painted the models.

The Yellow-Green color was a perfect match for the IDF uniform. I also painted black bands on the helmets to replicate the IDF use of putting a cut tire inner tube around the base of the helmet. The sculpts even have this band around the helmets so I decided to paint that black grey.

After block painting, I used Agrax Earthshade on the models then painted the details on the model. The webbing uses Olive Grey, another color I haven’t worked with very much, however it was no problem and I like how the model turned out.

For the bases, I decided to use a sand base and just used a light khaki paint to detail the sand. Then I put some shrubs on the model. I am not 100% sold on how these come out, I may just throw some shade on the bases to give them some added color.

My Force

In the last article, I included a proposed list that I may plan to run with the models I had. That picture got so many comments on what was wrong with it. While I never take list advice from the masses I decided to re-do the list as a 100-point IDF stand-alone force with the models I had on hand.

One day I may get another box of tanks and make the force equipped with either all  Merkava or Magach tanks, however, right now I plan to try this out with what I have already built and painted.

Oil War Thoughts

I was excited for this book to come out despite the fact I never really planned to play a force from it. When it comes to Team Yankee I have British, West German, Canadian, East German, Polish and Soviets to play with and I didn’t think that I needed to expand my collection until the new books that add the T-80, Challenger, and Leopard 2A6 come out. When Battlefront offered the models to do the review I really gave fielding an IDF force a shot.

I will admit I was hooked by the Pereh since its such a new weapon for the game. Overall I am glad I added this force to my collection and I know it will be a lot of fun. After giving the book a close study I realized that the Arab/Persian lists are the key forces in Oil Wars. It’s not that the IDF forces in the book are bad, in fact, they are very good, it is because the equipment options for the other forces are so varied and interesting. Many players have said that Oil War’s is a meta changer for the game and maybe like every new book it is, however, the expansion of the Team Yankee universe to the Middle East is a step in the right direction.

I also want to give a plug for force he created to play along with the forces in the Oil War book.