TY V2- Expanding your Team Yankee V1 British army

It’s cold war – again! The new British army book for Team Yankee V2 will be available very soon. We already had some ideas on the content thanks to what , and .

Now we will look in detail on what we would like to buy to upgrade and expand an existing V1 British army. Not only new troops previously unavailable but also thinking of what the Team Yankee V2 ruleset changed. So, let’s go shopping and think about what we can place in our cart!

The army so far

After two years of tournaments and club campaigns, I think I’ve got pretty everything I need for my British army. I have a full company of Chieftains (part of them with the BAOR camo scheme), two infantry companies with all add-ons and their FV432, some FV432 mortars, and a full scout company with the HQ and a Scimitar troop, a Scorpion troop and the awesome Strikers.

As support, a couple of Helos, the Abbot artillery as well as the M109s, and the must-have Harriers – a good and wise Team Yankee British player will never leave home without a full wing of four Harriers.

The new troops

As James has already written in his article, in the new WW3 British book we’ve got plenty of new entries and all British players are lingering on what to buy to improve their rooster. The first entry is the glorious Challenger: the first of the “new” mighty tanks with an almost unbreakable front armor of 21, if ROMOR. Almost no weapon can frontally kill it, with few exceptions – the very rare AT 23 missiles, like the Russian Storm Antitank. Even with AT 23, they have only 1 chance on 6 to penetrate the armor.

I am the Challenger, I’m the Tiger of the Cold War era and nobody can kill me – at least if he doesn’t get on my flanks!

All this goodness comes with a cost: the Challenger costs twice what a Chieftain costs. The Uparmoured version – you won’t buy or use the other for just two points less – is 13 points. Considering we normally play tournaments with a total of 75 or 100 army points, it’s really difficult to fit a full Troop (91 points) in this budget. With the new V2 rules, you won’t also use troops of only two tanks, since losing one will likely lose the full platoon, sooner or later, with the British Morale of 4+ (now you test *every turn* if your tank troop is reduced to one tank only).

However, I think I’ll definitively buy, assemble and paint a single troop of Challengers for my army. I really like the “look” of these tanks, and a troop could be a really good addition to my rooster. It can be taken as an entry inside the Irish Foot company, so it will be part of my core troops and a nasty hard nut to crack for the enemy.

Park those FV432 in the hangar, John! Now we have the Warriors and I fell much more secure inside them

The second new entry is the Warrior Mech Company. Basically, it’s really similar to the “old” (and still available) Irish Foot Company, but they replace with Warriors transports the almost inoffensive FV432. The “basic” Warrior is a very good transport with the armor stats of an M113 and the deadly gun from the Scimitar. Don’t be fooled by the movement stat: it still has a tactical 10″ movement like almost everything moving in Team Yankee, you need to stop at 6″ only if you want to shoot (for the Sneak and Peak trait, as other scouts like Scorpion and Scimitars).

Very sad for you, Tovarich Yuri: your RPG 18 is now harmless, and even the RPG 7 can be stopped by our brand new Appliqué armors!

The up-armored version of the Warrior is even better. For a single point, you get the frontal armor upgraded to 5, and the Appliqué Armour trait means the armor becomes an all-around 13 vs HEAT weapons, very good against the vast majority of handheld missiles and rockets.

However, the foot troop will cost an arm and a leg with the Upgraded Warrior. An HQ section and two full foot Platoons with 2 additional Milan bases each will cost 35 points, while the same configuration on FV432 costs 19. Also, note that the Warriors must be kept in reserve if you are fighting as Defender in a Deep Reserve scenario.

Phil Yates already cleared on Facebook that Warriors are affected by Deep Reserves Rule, and you can’t deploy the Infantry on the table keeping the transports in Reserve. 

Whichever foot Company you’ll choose, get a full Mortar FV432 troop: 8 tanks will cost only 4 points, and they will be one of the best weapons against dug in infantries. You reroll the failed to hit die, and the enemy will be forced to repeat save rolls from the second turn you repeat the bombardment.

Since I already have the Infantry on FV432, I think I’ll buy a five-Warriors box, just in case I’d like to deploy a Tank company and use an infantry attachment to attack.

It’s difficult to steal the show to such good scout units like Scorpions and Scimitars; however, Fox Recce are so cute and so cheap you’ll probably add one Troop to your army

Speaking of Companies, the last new addition is the Wheeled Recce, with a rolling swarm of a maximum of five Fox troops. They have – again – the same Scimitar gun, same Scout/Spearhead trait, but cost a point less the tracked scouts cousins – 4 tanks for 3 points. On the other side of the medal, the morale is worse: 5+ against 4+, so bad news if you need to test their willingness to stay on the battlefield.

The worst news is their company doesn’t include any high AT unit, like Swingers or Strikers, and I still prefer to field a tracked scout full company to be able to deploy the killer Striker squad. However, the models are really “cute”, so I’ll buy four models to have a team to be used to fill up those “last 3 points” when I do my lists, including them as support. Together with the other British scouts, they will be very good to flank the enemy and jump on unprotected artilleries or AA units.

The Support section

First good news: unlike what happened in the first British Army book, now you can field an M109 Battery of only 3 tanks. This is very good since you can save some points from the fourth tank and shoot with the same rate of fire – if you don’t have an M109 battery, it’s time to recruit one: now artillery is so good against infantry.

Eventually, we British have a good barrage salvo artillery. Too sad for the 5+ Firepower, but we have already written to the Queen to ask for an upgrade

Speaking of good news for the artillery, the first new entry in the Support is the mighty MLRS Medium Rocket Battery. These iconic Cold War guys shot a Salvo and can hit a good portion of the enemy deployment with a single strike. They also have a very delicious trait: every tank counts double. So, you just need to have three of them to reroll failed to hit die, since 3 MLRS count as 6 “ordinary” artilleries.

Also, they can have Minelets: so, if you buy 3 MLRS upgraded to Minelets, you will be able, once per game, to “shoot” two minefields on top of your enemies, and still re-roll any failed to hit roll for just 10 points in total. The bad thing is the Firepower: 5+ is a bit low, especially if count on your artillery for dealing with dug-in enemy infantry. Still, 3 MLRS are definitively coming to my army!

The skies over Team Yankee’s tables will be surely full of planes and helos, since V2 rules are so good for flying objects: better take two AA units to cover your precious tanks, or they will be vaporized in no time

Finally, we have the Chieftain Marksman AA Battery. Basically, it’s a Gepard turret on a Chieftain chassis, and this means the British AA has better frontal armour than the German one. Also, it has a better remount and assault value, and costs less! However, the British version of this AA tank moves slower, so you can’t rely on it to move too fast from one side of the battlefiled to the other.

For 6-points you’ll get three tanks – alas, no option to field more. You’re going to need these: with the new Team Yankee V2 rules, we will see a lot of flying objects in future battles, and you’ll need to protect the flanks of your expensive tanks from Airplanes and Helos. Just remember, with Armour 6 they suffer the Deep Reserve rule, like the Warriors. The solution? Choose to attack!