Gaming

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

Alright, back at it, Team Yankee Americans. In this post, I am outlining my Desert MERDC camo M113 hulls.    MERDC camouflage was designed in the 70s to be a standardized pattern that could have 1 or two of the 4 colours repainted and thus transition from region or season.   In reality, apart from some White added for winter, the camo remained and was eventually replaced.   I like the look of it for my desert forces rather than the blander tan you see on most Desert Storm vehicles.   Since I am doing Texas National Guard units (with Texas-based regforce attached) I loved finding a pic of an M901ITV from Fort Hood at the NTC in this very camo!

Disregard the green M150 TOW in the foreground

By Tom Burgess

One of my major projects of 2019 was to complete an all plastic German East Front Mid-War army. I chose to focus on Gepanzert Panzer Grenadiers. To do this I had two boxes of Battlefront’s ‘s and two Boxes of Plastic Soldier Company’s ‘s. So I thought this provided a nice opportunity to review and compare what these two companies offer for the same model.

Both companies provide the SdKfz-251/C in unit boxes of five vehicles. The Plastic Soldier Company (PSC) boxed set cost $29.99 (US) with crews/passengers but only the machinegun armed transport option and no decals.

Battlefront (BF) box set cost $45.99 (US) and comes with parts to build all five models as the transport (with or without 3.7cm anti-tank gun), the 7.5cm short assault gun, or the 8cm armored mortar version. The BF set also the proprietary unit cards, for use in Flames of War, as well as a sheet of waterslide decals.

For our second article on Battlegroup NORTHAG we’re going to take a closer look at building your force for a game. NORTHAG uses a points-based scheme for force building your, which makes for a great scheme that you and a friend can agree to a number of points ahead of a game and show up at the tabletop with matched forces.

Game Size

There are 3 recommended sizes, 500 pts for a Platoon sized game on a 6×4, 750 pts for a Company sized game on a 6×6 or 6×8 and 1000 points for a Battalion sized game as a 6×10 or larger, but of course, you’re free to choose!

List Building Basics

When constructing a force you utilize the menu of options associated with the nation you’re building for. Currently, within this very first book, the options are limited to Soviet or British. We’ll see further books and unofficial lists via the Battlegroup: NORTHAG Facebook page in time.

This is the latest of my articles on painting and modeling the Canadian Forces for Team Yankee.

When 4 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group was moved from Westphalia to Lahr on the Rhine frontier with France, some policy-makers apparently sought to do away with Canada’s tanks entirely. For some years, the brigade continued to use their Centurion tanks, an excellent tank in its day but one that could not be used on long road moves.

In 1975, the Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, visited Germany to ask the Chancellor for his support for getting Canada special trade status with the European Common Market. He was told to come back to discuss the matter once Canada had replaced its antiquated tanks. The contract for the Leopard tank acquisition followed quickly.

by Dennis Jensen

On March 12th-15th I attended Cold Wars 2020 at the Lancaster Wyndham (formerly the Lancaster Host.)  As always, I had plans to teach at Hobby University.  At this show I was scheduled to teach one beginner’s painting class using Games Workshop Squigs, host four-speed paint competitions and take part in an interview panel about entering painting competitions.  My wife was scheduled to help with Paint and Take and my boys were going to play games, and paint figures.

There was some concern that the show would be canceled due to the threat of COVID-19 as other, larger events, were being canceled, however, the show went on.  As the weekend progressed more and more events around the country were canceled leading a few of us to refer to Cold Wars as “The Last Convention in America.”

By Tom Gall and NDNG Dane

The (PSC) will be releasing shortly* a much anticipated new set of rules covering World War III, while a “what if”, a conventional war has touched off and the forces of NATO and WARPAC are enjoined in battle across Europe, each in a desperate struggle to take/give ground before presumably, the nukes might fly.

Titled Battlegroup: NORTHAG, the book focuses on the Northern Army Group section of the front, thus NORTHAG. The setting is 1983 which Warwick Kinrade choose as it was a time of heightened tensions between the powers and was the dividing line before the introduction of a wide range of new equipment.

In this series of articles, we’ll be looking at the rules, the British and Soviet army lists that are included with the new book and finish up with a couple of BatReps.

By Paolo Paglianti

Time to complete our IDF force.  we saw the tanks and the armored vehicles, so now we will move to the Infantry, helos, and airplanes.

Having assembled and painted our Merkava 2s, the Perehs, the M113s, and some artillery/AA, we are still missing the infantry. IDF infantry is really good in defending an objective, and they can unleash a powerful volley of shots on any enemy moving to assault them. In our list, we chose to do a single infantry platoon, relying on a double Merkava 2 platoon to assault enemy positions.

From the creature comforts of the game-cave, it was time for a little , featuring 150pts of French Caribbean Militia vs a Pirate force.

Set near the local governor’s house, we marshaled our forces and rolled up a scenario from the No Peace Beyond the Line book. The dice picked our fate an escort mission and with the Pirate force no less doing the escorting. Obviously they’ve taken someone of import captive that the French must try and rescue from a grizzly fate.

By Chris Masucci

Looking to jump into a new game and a new time period is a tempting prospect for many gamers. With my local gaming group mostly focused on Bolt Action/Konflikt 47, a few of us recently made the decision to expand our gaming horizons and add a new game to our collection.

Team Yankee seemed like enough of change from our weird war 2 platoon scale endeavors. Jumping into a different time period and with a more zoomed out scope with company scale engagements brings with it the focus on armored warfare and large scale troop movements in a more epic feeling 15mm. With a new project at our heels, our game group quickly divided up what product we could get and all began to choose factions. Not wanting to go for any obvious choices, I decided to build a 1970’s era Egyptian tank company with a bit of support from a motor rifle platoon or two.

In the “old days” of the DBM, I met Simon Hall various times when I went to competition around UK and – boy – he is a really good player. It was around the end of the 90s. Two years ago, I began to play WW2 games, so imagine my surprise when I discovered Simon was developing a new ruleset for that period in collaboration with Mark Bevis and Plastic Soldier Company. Actually, two sets of rules, with similar structure and philosophy: Division of Steel, for 6mm-15mm Company level battles, and Man of Steel, for 20-28mm 1:1 skirmish battles.

Simon is a veteran in writing wargaming rules. He is the mind behind and he also covered the Renaissance and the Napoleonic ages. He invented the (CCC), already tested in his previous set of rules, and now he is using it in Division of Steel and Man of Steel. So, who better to ask, than Simon, about his new WW2 rules?