Team Yankee: New Year, New Rules, New Army?

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

With the new version of Team Yankee now out, I can finally put some thought into Team Yankee again!    Last year I had vowed to simply stop playing V1 Team Yankee until the new rules came out, after playing my Syrians and getting confused at and 2 local events in the spring between V1 TY rules and V4 Flames rules.  My Syrians did decently despite the list being garbage and me not taking the french gear that I should (Gazelles, Milans), winning probably through weight of numbers alone and not skill or anything.

However late 2019, I acquired a US Team Yankee force in a trade and what a perfect way to get into the new army, with some new rules!   Tristan, the previous owner, had wanted a Desert Storm army, to be different than all the NATO West Germany-based MERDC forces you saw back when V1 Team Yankee first came out.    So what is more iconic than the might of America, charging across the Desert?

He painted a few of the vehicles himself and then had Scott ‘Obsidian23’ Roach paint the rest on commission.     It was a cool idea,  to do the Texas National Guard, but now it means I have to consolidate two different paint jobs and add my own flair.    The obvious and easiest course of action is to first work on an M1 Tank company, as they are expensive per model, and thus 100pts can easily be made ready so I can get playing ASAP.    I would look to the Combat Team Yankee (from the rulebook) for numbering and what to get:

If you look at just the tanks before  Yankee and Bravo swapped platoons, I need 14 tanks and 2 ITVs which works out to 115points (stock M1’s)    I have the mech platoons kicking around, so that will be a second project, but lets first pare down to 2x M1 platoons, 2x HQ M1s and the ITVs for a more reasonable 83 points.    I’ll future proof and make 4 M1A1’s for the third tank platoon, here is some WIP shots of the conversions:

New turret with 120mm gun, bigger bustle racks and I added extra armour plates to the front turret and mantlet..

Had to rip out the rear trackguard and added the correct M1A1 track guard, added spare road wheel, welded ammunition tins  (from this excellent article: ) and recognition tarp on the rear deck.  With the spare greenstuff, made some duffle bags for the stowage area.  I have placed an order for way more US Stowage packs (as well as the sexy new decals) from Battlefront, so will complete the M1A1’s once those arrive.

For my HQ tanks, I took out the rear track guard and sprocket guide (as was done in the field, see main picture at head of article) and added these IR panels made from textured plasticard.   I am told by Rob Kelly that these look darker through an Infra Red sight, and helped prevent blue-on-blues

I noticed that some vehicles had large panel welded to the turret rear with numbers on it, so I added these to my HQ tanks to further differentiate them.  Greenstuff tarp on the rear deck and I added an open crew hatch.

After fixing the numbering on the tanks, painting the mudflaps and adding a Vallejo Pale Sand drybrush all over, the basic tank (on left) is tabletop ready, while the 2 HQ tanks on the right have added detailing such as periscopes, headlights and taillights and the gunner scopes done.

my CO tank, ’66’ has the US flag on the rear deck

while the 2IC tank, ’55’ has the Texas flag.   The other platoon leader tanks will have just the orange tarps.

Of course, while I was messing around with bits and conversions, I couldn’t resist completing my Team Bravo component, which is Mech platoons, ITVs and a FISTV.  The regular M113s are just a repaint and fixing the track guards on some of them, I did need an HQ M113 though, and I used the same IR panels as the HQ tanks, plus spare figures and stowage and the larger front vane:

I added extra radio antenna points on the rear deck as well

Smoke launchers, gas tank and ammo box to the front.

I also needed a FIST vehicle, and these were typically just an M113 in West Germany, but by the time of Desert Storm, the FISTV had a modified ITV Hammerhead turret (TOW tubes removed, more lasers and rangefinders added) and extra radios in the back plus the armoured fuel cells.

I decided to try and tackle this vehicle plus all the extra doodads on it as follows:

As I was building the HQ 113, I built the M981 FISTV the same way: larger front panel, smoke launchers, gas tank and ammo crate.  I filed down then covered up the TOW tubes on the ‘Hammerhead’ turret and added the extra sensor box

The armoured fuel tanks on the back proved a challenge.. I made a rough guide then cut 4 copies of it out of 1mm plasticard. I had to file off the rear M113 jerry cans, and used a lot of trial and error to get the centers of the tanks to go flush. A LOT of filing and sanding later, and it looks decent.   As I am only building one of these, I’ve given my plastic guides to Rob Kelly for his..

Profile shot, I’ve added the extra antenna masts like the HQ m113.    These are made from the M113 mortar bits that come with the kit, they are plentiful if you kept all your bits!

I have yet to play more than a token game with this army, but its been fun so far making the custom vehicles and researching how they should look.   For some reason, I always tend to work on Cold War stuff during the winter, so should be able to finish this army off before spring.  Next follow-up article should have painted pics of the desert MERDC for these M113’s!   After that, its repainting A-10’s and Cobras…

Matt Varnish, AKA Dennis Campbell, plays Team Yankee, Flames of War, and Black Powder and now Ancients in the frozen wastes of Canadia. Check out my youtube channel for hundreds of :