Morten from Kolding’s excellent Leopards.
For decades now, I’ve been making an annual trip to Denmark. I’ve gotten to know a fair number of players over there and I always try to get a game of some type in when I’m in country. The new Nordic Forces book has helped to grow World War Three -Team Yankee in Denmark, so I decided to arrange some opponents for my Canadians. In talking with a couple of players it was decided that I would bring an 80-point list. In North America, we tend to go with much bigger lists, but I was able to come up with what I thought would be a competitive list at 80 points.
My 80 points of Canadians with US support from the original book.
My first game was against Morten Peter Schmidt from Aarhus. He’s a very well-known Flames player in Denmark, a stalwart on the Danish ETC team every year and an all-around nice guy. We met up at Einherjerne’s Tabletop clubhouse in Aarhus. They have a building that they share with a role-playing club and a motorcycle club (not a gang). Most Danish clubs are fortunate in that they have a permanent clubhouse where they can leave scenery and have a fully stocked beer fridge.
Morten from Aarhus’ list.
Morten brought his 80 points of Amercians.
Every other year I’ve played games, I’ve forgotten what happened in the games when I got home to write the battle reports. This time I took notes.
I chose to defend, Morten chose to attack and we rolled Bridgehead. I put my Leopards in ambush and my M1s in reserve. I then placed my minefields to force him to go wide. Though with his Spearhead he got very close to my right flank and killed all of my TOW and half of my ADATS with his Sgt Yorks. I took out one Humvee, two M60s, then popped my ambush on the left flank and only killed two of his M60s.
Start of game set up. It’s hard to see Morten’s troops on the extreme right due to the other gaming table.
The carnage has started on turn one.
On turn two Morten’s infantry moved to take the houses in the centre of the table. They killed one of my M113s and bailed two more. His Humvee TOW killed a Leopard and bails another. I then lost another Leopard to an M60. The M60s on my right killed the M113s in front of them. My infantry platoon guarding the objective on my right lost three Carl Gustav stands as I couldn’t make any saves. This is mainly thanks to his M109s doing a repeat bombardment.
His Harriers also came in, 50 cal rounds from my M113s bouncing and then the Harriers wiff. On my half of the turn, the Leopards re-mount and my Reserves arrive. The Leopards kill the last of the M60s in front of them. This allows the M1s, who arrive on the left to concentrate on helping out the platoon on my right (once they get there). Unfortunately, all they do is kill a Humvee TOW and an M113 and bail another Humvee TOW.
The Harriers wiff.
By turn three the situation on the right-hand objective was getting precarious for me. My M1s were on the board but on the wrong side of the battlefield. Morten made all of his tests but his Harriers decided to stay away from the battlefield. His M60s and infantry got to within assault range of the objective. You can see below how I failed all of my saves for my infantry, leaving me with just one stand holding the objective.
His Humvee TOWs killed two Leopards and bail an M1. Fortunately for me, his M109s failed to range in. Due to the Danger Close rule, he had to move his ranged in marker off of the objective if he wanted to assault it. He then launched his assault on the objective. I bailed his M60, he failed his swings and I failed to counterattack. I dodged a bullet there. On my turn, my other platoon dug in and I pinned his infantry to keep them away from the threatened objective. I also kill all but one of his M60s.
On turn four his infantry unpins. His M60 made his last stand check and his Harriers arrived. His Sgt Yorks opened up on me again, but I made all my saves. His Humvees then wiff. His artillery also wiffed and his Harriers bail out one tank. All of his TOW missed and his assault fails. His dice went cold again just at the right time for me.
With the rest of my army closing in on the right-hand objective we decide to call the game. Morten’s Americans had lost most of their combat power and their momentum. Another fun game with Morten, but I got a bit lucky when he went for my objective. Pro tip. Bring a North American tape measure as it’s hard to find one in Europe with inches. Even though the game has metric measurements, I find it much easier to play in inches.
The game ends with me having one team on the objective and lots of firepower backing up that last team.
Next up was a game against Morten Vang Alrø from Kolding, Denmark. Kolding is only about an hour away from Aarhus and Morten from Kolding said he would be in Aarhus for a few days to attend a bachelor party. Morten from Aarhus was out of town, so we couldn’t get access to the clubhouse. I then remembered that we had a games room with a ping pong table in our hotel. Morten brought scenery with him and we set up a game, again at 80 points. We rolled Dust Up.
Morten’s Danish force from the new Nordic book. Most of these models have since been painted.
My opening deployment. Morten’s objective is the white van from KFUM. My objective is shining in the crop field.
I deployed in a tight box due to the restrictions of the mission. One platoon covered the KFUM van, the rest of the army guarding against a flank manoeuvre with ADATS as far back as possible. I put my Lynx out to my left front to stop a Spearhead. Not much to report on turn one. He killed one of my TOWs. I can’t wait for the new lists with Tow Under Amour (TUA). He would have had to roll a six to kill that TOW. My TOW then made a Leopard kill. I also bailed two tanks and he made his remounts.
The farm buildings in the middle of the table were modelled after actual buildings in the training area in Oksbøl, Denmark.
Morten’s excellent 3d printed scouts. My camera doesn’t do them justice.
Morten’s Tornados come in on turn 2. He used Danish F16s as proxies and they look great. His tanks advanced and shot at their Canadian Leopard cousins, killing one. His TOW miss. His Tornados went for my big target-rich location as seen in the photo. Morten had never gone up against ADATS before. He lost three aircraft with the fourth one bouncing my 50 cal hits. I lost an M113. On my half of the turn, I only killed one Leopard. My TOW fail to blitz and my Leopards Shoot and Scoot only to bog most of them.
On turn three Morten passed his morale checks. This is crucial when you have only three tanks in your platoons. My opponents always passed their morale checks and I always failed mine. Fortunately for me, he receives no aircraft or reserves, nor do his mortars range in. All of his Leopards miss their targets, but a TOW bails an M113. A very lucky turn for me.
In my half, my reserves arrived from the right in the form of my IPM1 Abrams. They made their presence felt by killing all of his TOW along with his commander. The rest of my army misses.
On turn four, surprisingly, his aircraft and one platoon of Leopards failed their morale checks and fled from the battle. His reserves of three more Leopards arrived. His tanks killed one of my ADATS and a Leopard. Everyone else shot at my infantry and missed.
I always make sure to maintain my Gone to Ground until the very last moment. Somehow my Leopard passed his Last Man check to stay in the fight. My TOW and ADATS pass Blitz Moves and the ADATS bail a Leopard. The TOW fired and missed. My Leopard also missed, but my M1s moved towards his objective.
Turn five saw one of his Leopards in the centre of the table pass a Last Man check. He then received two more platoons of Leopards from reserves. One platoon engaged my M1s the other moved to support the painted Leopards at the bottom of the table. They killed five of my M113s.
His mortars then pinned my infantry. Unfortunately for me, the Leopard that made the Last Man check moved to the side of my M1s and killed one of them. My last Leopard was hit and bailed, I lost another TOW and he killed one ADATS and bailed another.
When it was my turn to bat in the fifth, my last Leopard remounted but, of course, failed the Last Man check. My ADATS failed the remount but stay anyway. My TOW failed his Last Man check.
Finally, I am able to kill that Last Man Leopard in an act of revenge for the death of my Abrams.
Some of Morten’s Leopards moving towards my objective. Photo taken moments before their destruction.
My Lynx have moved to contest the objective.
The last of Morten’s reserves arrived on turn six in the form of another platoon of Leopards. Again my infantry were pinned by his mortars. He killed an ADATS and bailed the other one. He then finished off the last of my M113s. Not a wise move, as my infantry have no choice but to stay and fight. My M1s reversed to get some distance from his Leopards and kill only two of them. However, they are far away enough that they can’t be hit with side shots next turn.
Turn seven sees Morten get close to the objective at the bottom of the screen. His mortars failed to range in, and he missed my Lynx and my infantry. On my turn, my M1s dashed to get into a better position to shoot at the objective. My infantry platoon bravely jumped out of their fire trenches and moved to his Leopards, killing two of them.
Morten made all of his tests at the beginning of turn eight. His mortars hit my M1s, but did no damage. I lost a Lynx and two infantry stands.
During my last turn, the Lynx failed his test (I failed four of five tests). I then bailed his last Leopard near the objective and captured the tank. We called the game there. Morten was running out of combat power and my M1s were now in a position to cut down anything that moved towards one of the objectives.
Morten said, “Only two things I wish I had done differently in that game. I wasted a couple of turns, not knowing what to do with my scouts, and I should have held back my F-16s for a few turns, till I had cleared out the ADAT’s, so I could have saved them for your Abrams”. Luckily my strategy of holding onto the objectives with my Canadians until the Abrams saved the day worked. Both times I got lucky with some dice rolling. And knowing my ability with dice it won’t always work out in my favour.
Here is one of Morten’s objective markers. Its a van from the Danish KFUM Soldaterhjem. That translates to the YMCA Soldier’s Home. According to their website, the YMCA Soldier Mission is a nationwide volunteer organization with the goal of being something for the individual soldier. A central purpose from the beginning of the Soldiers’ Mission’s history has been “to be where the soldiers are” – and therefore there are soldiers’ homes at the barracks and preferably also where Danes are deployed. It provides spiritual and recreational services to soldiers. Morten told me that they have an upcoming Team Yankee game at their local KFUM.
YMCA Soldier Mission (kfums-soldatermission.dk)
The last Morten that I met up with was my friend from Aalborg. Aalborg is just an hour north of Aarhus, so I borrowed my mother-in-law’s three-cylinder Suzuki Celerio and headed north. I’ve been visiting Morten for years now and we always manage some type of game. This year I suggested we play Team Yankee since the Danish Army was now represented. Morten is a former soldier as well. Our first stop was at the Front page – Aalborg Defence- and Garrison Museum (forsvarsmuseum.dk) Aalborg Defence and Garrison Museum (see photo) where we were joined by Palle, another former soldier. If there is interest I can do another one of my museum reports.
One problem we had was that none of the boys in Aalborg had a 15mm Team Yankee army. I would have borrowed one from Morten in Aarhus, but he was off to play in the European Team Championships at the time. Morten from Aalborg saved the day when he told me that they had a bunch of 10mm models. He sent photos of what they had and I made up some 85-point lists. I chose 85 points as I found out that there would be a tournament in Copenhagen in October using 85 points. Team Yankee turnering i KBH | Facebook I kept the list fairly basic, so it was a bunch of T72s with some recce, artillery and anti-tank against American M1s and some TOW.
The museum in Aalborg.
As I was teaching the game and playing I forgot to take further photos. I paired with Claus commanding the Russians and Morten and Palle played the Americans. In this game, the Russians managed to win the day. Everyone agreed that they liked the idea of playing with the smaller models and didn’t experience the parking lots that they had heard so much about.
They also liked the mechanics of the game and how fast they picked it up. Their only complaint was the lack of an “Overwatch” rule. Like myself, they don’t like the idea that someone can be in a perfect ambush position but has to wait till the other person drives around to your flank to get a shot in.
If you survive, you then get a shot. I think they could do an overwatch rule similar to the Air Defence rule where you can choose to shoot right away or wait until your turn. I left everyone a copy of the rulebook. Hopefully, when I return next year we can have another game, though I suspect it will be in 10mm again.
Here is the table just before set up.
It was great to be able to bring my troops overseas again. Those Battlefront bags are great at transporting armies and as usual, nothing was broken or damaged. The Mortens are now familiar with my hold and counterattack strategy, so with the new Nato Book out, I will have to come up with another game-winning Canadian list. The smaller European point totals make the list-building a little tougher, but I think I prefer the faster-moving games.
Vi ses næste år.
(That's Danish for see you next year)
By Paolo Paglianti
By Paolo Paglianti