Tournament Report: Team Yankee at Creative Pursuit Games
By Mitch Reed, Photos by Bill White
It has been a while since I played in any type of live gaming event and even longer since I played one for . Here in Northern Virginia, n Leesburg has sponsored two events since the COVID restrictions loosened up. The first was for Flames of War which I missed because of a mix-up and the second was on 15 August and was a 120-point Team Yankee brawl. Dane and Kaitlin who run the store made sure that the event was conducted with safety foremost in mind and pulled off yet another great event. Even before COVID, Team Yankee events were few and far between so I was excited to attend. I decided to play with my Polish force which for obvious reasons I am partial to. At 120-points I knew I could put a lot of models on the table and I also realized it would be my first time playing with the new V2 Team Yankee Rules.
Not too many events have used the V2 rules and adding the new British and US books into the mix I wondered what the new “meta” for the game would be. I felt I needed to now put artillery in my force and take a lot of anti-air assets to counter my expectations of seeing a lot of enemy aircraft flying above the table.
I decided to go for the T-72M tank swarm supported by a full unit of BMP-1 mounted infantry and I was glad to finally get my Diana battery on the table. As you can see, I took three AA units, which turned out to be too much.
I knew this list would be a parking lot on the table however when I saw the missions, we planned to play I figured that the list when used aggressively would fare very well. I have watched players like Pastor Pete Zerphy brilliantly handle a horde formation I felt I could emulate his tactical acumen.
Mission One “Dust Up”
In this mission, I played against Bill Balding who has recently escaped from Canada. Bill ran a US for from Stripes, built around an M-1 list. A few things worked against Bill, the game was played mostly at night and he did not get his reinforcements on the table quick enough. He was the only player who had tactical air on this list that I played all day and they never made it to the table. I dug my infantry in near the objectives (they never moved) and put one tank formation in reserves. It was too much firepower coming from too many directions and I was able to capture the object and walked away with a lucky 8-1.
Mission Two “Contact”
In this game I played one of the store’s regulars, Patrick who is a very talented player. He was the only West German player at the event and he had two formations made up of a lot of small units. I decided to be very aggressive again and dug my infantry in on my left and went all-in on the right. What a bloody game and with a few minutes left in the round we had a lot of dead units but in order to for me to break him I needed to keep my T-72M’s alive which was hard to do. I decided to give him the 6-3 win because playing “chase me” with my AA units would not be very sporting.
Mission Three “Counterattack”
In this game I played Bill White, someone whom I have never had a bad game with. Bill was playing is very well painted USMC force, augmented by a unit of M-1’s and he had a unit of the new RDF guns which I have never played against.
Once again, I went all-in and the table which had the topographical features of a game of billiards was soon littered with wrecked vehicles. This was the only game where my infantry moved and as they pressed to the objective, Bill rolled a 5 for reinforcements and they came right in on top of my mounted infantry. That was painful. I was able to grab an objective and I eked out a 6-3 win vs. a very good player.
As the event drew to a close, my second opponent won the tournament with John Holland coming in third and I held on for a second-place finish. Once again it was a lot of fun and I realized how much I missed playing against “people” in person.
Team Yankee V2
I was a bit surprised when it came to the lists I faced. I expected someone to bring a British list, more air, and some of those new but expensive M-1 tanks. Maybe the lack of opportunities to play with these new forces in V2 have yet to be experimented with due to the lack of opportunities to play. I did notice that artillery is now a mainstay of everyone’s list which is new, in the past, I never really felt the need to take it as a part of my list, now with V2 rules they are a must.
I also really felt comfortable with my list. Yes, it is a mini horde, but I played it as one which was aggressively and felt it did what I needed it to do. I would take the same list for another tournament at this level and I feel I may concentrate on just playing with Warsaw Pact forces instead of updating my West German, British, Canadian, and Israeli forces. I know what is coming in the next book of the Soviets and I think that sticking with reds is the way to go.