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Today on Breakthrough Assault​ we have a preview of Team Yankee, including details on how it plays, the rulebook and much much more.

Check it out here

Thanks Ben

Nice one. Cheers.

I'm not sure if I'll get into this (I'm waiting on the Great War stuff) but if it's good, who knows?

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Nice one. Cheers.

I'm not sure if I'll get into this (I'm waiting on the Great War stuff) but if it's good, who knows?

Great War should hopefully start hitting shelves in the next few weeks. So you should hopefully have an idea of how much you want to spend on Great War by the the time Team Yankee is released.

^_^



What I find most interesting about all of this is that BF went to the trouble of licensing a thirty year old novel instead of just coming up with their own storyline. And by virtue of the fact that they're licensing TY, it also ties this in with Sir John Hackett's books.

I'm looking forward to the issue of WI that previews it.

Eumerin wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Nice one. Cheers.

I'm not sure if I'll get into this (I'm waiting on the Great War stuff) but if it's good, who knows?

Great War should hopefully start hitting shelves in the next few weeks. So you should hopefully have an idea of how much you want to spend on Great War by the the time Team Yankee is released.

^_^



What I find most interesting about all of this is that BF went to the trouble of licensing a thirty year old novel instead of just coming up with their own storyline. And by virtue of the fact that they're licensing TY, it also ties this in with Sir John Hackett's books.

I'm looking forward to the issue of WI that previews it.

Will WI be providing a free supplement like they did with fate of a nation, great war etc?

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Nice one. Cheers.

I'm not sure if I'll get into this (I'm waiting on the Great War stuff) but if it's good, who knows?

Great War should hopefully start hitting shelves in the next few weeks. So you should hopefully have an idea of how much you want to spend on Great War by the the time Team Yankee is released.

^_^



What I find most interesting about all of this is that BF went to the trouble of licensing a thirty year old novel instead of just coming up with their own storyline. And by virtue of the fact that they're licensing TY, it also ties this in with Sir John Hackett's books.

I'm looking forward to the issue of WI that previews it.

Will WI be providing a free supplement like they did with fate of a nation, great war etc?

It doesn't look like it. The free supplements rely on owning the regular FoW rulebook. We've been told that TY will have it's own rulebook, which will be roughly half the length of the regular rulebook. So there won't be room for it in WI.



Edit - Also, BF no longer owns WI (though it appears that they still have a good relationship, based on content in the magazine). And that might complicate matters when free inserts are involved.

New update today. On Monday, Breakthrough Assault showed us the front of two of the unit cards (T-72 and M1 Abrams). Today they show us the backs of the cards.

http://www.breakthroughassault.co.uk/2015/09/team-yankee-unit-cards-extra.html#more

And there's some interesting stuff there.

Not only do the card backs contain all of the special rules associated with each vehicle, but they also contain unit costs (with variations) and, in the case of the respective company HQs, they also contain a basic force org chart. Further, the HQ card backs list the product numbers for every unit that's in the company.

Or in other words, it appears that Team Yankee is going to use a Warmahordes model. i.e. you'll buy your figures as full-strength platoons (or possibly half-strength in the case of WarPact tank companies). And you'll be able to use the cards included in the box to build a full-size NATO company or Warsaw Pact battalion without the need to use book-based force org charts.


Edit: Fixed the link

It looks intriguing with a lil more depth than fow
Just not sure how much of a hit it will be.
It will need more than two sides I think but maybe they will have plans for that in the future.

Not sure why the t72 only fires once compared to the Abrams but that could be more a balance for the game. I do like the unit card idea.

When is this meant to be out? And I hope they release a starter set

10penceman wrote:
It looks intriguing with a lil more depth than fow
Just not sure how much of a hit it will be.
It will need more than two sides I think but maybe they will have plans for that in the future.

Not sure why the t72 only fires once compared to the Abrams but that could be more a balance for the game. I do like the unit card idea.

When is this meant to be out? And I hope they release a starter set

It's next after Great War. Great War is currently scheduled to release in October and November.

The difference in the Rate of Fire is due to the auto-loader on the T-72 (and all modern Soviet tanks). Most Western tanks - including all US tanks - require manual loading of the gun. And a decent crew can load a new round much faster than the autoloader.

Other nations are planned. But as was the case with Vietnam, they have to start small.

Autoloaders don't get tired though... but tiredness is a longterm event, irrelevant in a 'firefight' to a degree.

But an M1 TC I spoke with feels it's pretty irrelevant in the greater scheme of things back in the 80s. He felt situational awareness was the key. To him it don't matter how fast you load if you ain't aware of your target. It's also dependant on skill of the loader. He had some that just never got the job right and others who loaded in zero seconds. The 2A46M loader on the T72 can do 8 rounds a minute, fractionally slower than the T64. I was given a ROF per minute of 6 to 10 rounds for the M1 dependent on crew ability and fatigue.

Not sure the comparative rates of fire are that clean cut in reality, but it's a game.

Still not convinced basing a game on a fictional book that made alot of mistakes about equipment and doctrine is the way to go, but hey... its all fictional with regards Cold War.

Nice models too.

They're trading in nostalgia by using the 'Team Yankee' name. Not only was it a novel, it was also a comic book, a board game and a computer game as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Yankee#Other_adaptations

Some of the guys discussing Team Yankee over at TMP are former Abrams tankers, and their comments have been along the following lines -

1.) Based on participation in drills that essentially involved "shooting" at a large unit of Soviet vehicles moving into sight (in the open, mind you), the concensus is that the loader isn't likely to get tired before the ammunition runs out. If nothing else, adrenaline will keep him active.
2.) The typical US loader averaged one round somewhere between five to ten seconds, and tended to trend toward the faster end of the scale.
3.) The Abrams included additional target location tools that weren't present in earlier tanks that made it easier for platoon commanders to rapidly assign targets to other tanks in the platoon, and these tools helped significantly in cutting down the amount of time that it took to pick a target to aim and shoot at.


Given those items, they don't feel that the difference in RoF is an issue.

It would seem to me the big target audience for this game is current FOW gamers, so I'm not sure that changing the rules was a good choice. If it is easier that's nice, but everyone I know who has expressed any interest in TY is already a FOW WWII player and knows the FOW rules. Now they have to learn the new rules for TY.

If we have to approach it as a "new game" why not just look at other cold-war era games (Modern Spearhead, Cold War Commander, Fist Full of TOW, SabreSquadron, etc.)?

Yeah, seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot with this one, unless they intend to move FOW v4 to the same ruleset down the line.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yeah, seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot with this one, unless they intend to move FOW v4 to the same ruleset down the line.

That's a possibility, I suppose. I had not considered that.

I feel like theyd be shooting themselves in the foot going to a v4 as well though, with how many lists they would need to upgrade... unless they just made generic early/mid/late period lists for each faction instead of specific units? Even still they would still be shooting themselves in the foot unless they continued support for v3 for those who want a bit more historical flavor to their game?

chaos0xomega wrote:
I feel like theyd be shooting themselves in the foot going to a v4 as well though, with how many lists they would need to upgrade... unless they just made generic early/mid/late period lists for each faction instead of specific units? Even still they would still be shooting themselves in the foot unless they continued support for v3 for those who want a bit more historical flavor to their game?

Some day they will release v4 and following that release all new army books with minor tweaks to the army list. That's their buisness model, just like GW. Keep rereleasing the same thing over and over with minor revisions.

 mdauben wrote:
It would seem to me the big target audience for this game is current FOW gamers, so I'm not sure that changing the rules was a good choice. If it is easier that's nice, but everyone I know who has expressed any interest in TY is already a FOW WWII player and knows the FOW rules. Now they have to learn the new rules for TY.

If we have to approach it as a "new game" why not just look at other cold-war era games (Modern Spearhead, Cold War Commander, Fist Full of TOW, SabreSquadron, etc.)?

Based on what I've read and heard, with the exception of the brand new Sabre Squadron, none of those rules are the same organizational scale. They're all at least one level up - i.e. one vehicle figure equals one vehicle platoon. Or at least that's what I was told when I asked around a few years ago.

And Sabre Squadron is brand new. Given the similarity in release dates, Sabre Squadron likely hadn't been announced when BF started working on Team Yankee.

Team Yankee Formation Cards

So if I understand correctly, the bottom pic is representative of one of the Red Banner T-72 Tank Battalion 'formations' indicated at the top of the 1st pic. So you could, theoretically take up to 3 formations organized per the bottom pic - or - 3 Battalion HQs and 6 T-72 Companies + other support options...

what scale is this game supposed to be played at (not model wise, but organizationally speaking)???

chaos0xomega wrote:
what scale is this game supposed to be played at (not model wise, but organizationally speaking)???

In standard FOW each player controls a reinforced company (reinforced because they tent to be heavy on the divisional support in most lists). I'm not an expert on the WWII Russian lists, but IIRC in the WWII version that Russians field larger formations than the other nationalities, due to poorer quality individual units. Maybe that's the case here, too? I'd like to the same diagrams for the American forces.

Right, but my point is that that T-72 Tank Battalion, of which you can take up to 3, is itself the size of a single FoW list. I.E. - Team Yankee seems to be structured to allow you to play with forces equivalent to 3x what you would have had access to in FOW.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Right, but my point is that that T-72 Tank Battalion, of which you can take up to 3, is itself the size of a single FoW list. I.E. - Team Yankee seems to be structured to allow you to play with forces equivalent to 3x what you would have had access to in FOW.

It does look like that may be the case, but how they could design a game with a force of potentially nine tank companies (90 or more tanks?) and three motor rifle companies (30 or more APCs?) on each side meant to be played on a typical 4x6 or even 4x8 gaming table. Even if NATO forces are smaller, I can't help but wonder if we are interpereting this correctly?

If this is correct... well I think its time to switch to micro armor!

Eumerin wrote:
Some of the guys discussing Team Yankee over at TMP are former Abrams tankers, and their comments have been along the following lines -

1.) Based on participation in drills that essentially involved "shooting" at a large unit of Soviet vehicles moving into sight (in the open, mind you), the concensus is that the loader isn't likely to get tired before the ammunition runs out. If nothing else, adrenaline will keep him active.
2.) The typical US loader averaged one round somewhere between five to ten seconds, and tended to trend toward the faster end of the scale.
3.) The Abrams included additional target location tools that weren't present in earlier tanks that made it easier for platoon commanders to rapidly assign targets to other tanks in the platoon, and these tools helped significantly in cutting down the amount of time that it took to pick a target to aim and shoot at.


Given those items, they don't feel that the difference in RoF is an issue.

I have a tiny bit of experience in Abrams series tanks (and a VERY tiny bit in a couple of t-72s).

Target acquisition times and engagement times (time to fire once a target is identified) are a LOT more important to rate of fire than loading times. And even on the old M1 and M1IPs you could acquire and fire more quickly than on a t-72.

 mdauben wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
what scale is this game supposed to be played at (not model wise, but organizationally speaking)???

In standard FOW each player controls a reinforced company (reinforced because they tent to be heavy on the divisional support in most lists). I'm not an expert on the WWII Russian lists, but IIRC in the WWII version that Russians field larger formations than the other nationalities, due to poorer quality individual units. Maybe that's the case here, too? I'd like to the same diagrams for the American forces.

The Soviet thing is also because the Soviets organized their forces differently than nearly everyone else. They used (and the Russians still use) three tank platoons, for instance. And Battlefront is far from being the only company that prefers to represent a ten tank Soviet company as the counterpart to the more standard-sized platoons used by everyone else.

It's possible that the game plays faster, and that putting three US companies or three Soviet battalions on the table is feasible. But given the general logistical issues that start to kick in (it gets time consuming moving all those models around the table...), I'm inclined to believe that the multiple battalion thing shown there is for people who want to run large battles with multiple players on each side.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ghaz displayed the Soviet cards. The US cards are up as well, and refer to the "25th Armored Division". There is no US 25th Armored Division, and never has been (the only time it "existed" historically was as a phantom division during the lead-up to Normandy). I'm not sure if it's referenced as the fictional parent unit for Team Yankee in the novel, but Wikipedia mentions that it features in another (unrelated) book by Harold Coyle.

One interesting thing that I didn't notice about the cards right off the bat. The set-up discourages one problematic aspect of multi-company battles. Namely, it removes the possibility that each company gets access to the division's entire allotment of support. Instead, they have to share certain elements with other companies/battalions that they're fighting alongside.

Yeah, I noticed that too, its a nice 'fix' but only really comes into play if you are playing a multiplayer battle.

I think that may be one of the things they're going for, more support for balanced 3+ player games. It's sorely lacking in the industry these days.

My local WW2 FoW group plays big multi-player battles once a month. And in a recent one, they belatedly realized after the fact that air power restrictions (like, maybe, one plane *total* per side - if that) are a good idea. Something like the setup on these cards would be perfect.



On another note, the mech infantry cards are up. Boy, does the Dragon suck!

(but you were no doubt expecting that)

The LAW should be pretty pants too... Heard they tend to glance clean off BMP1s when fired head on. Flank is a different matter...

Team Yankee Infantry Unit Cards.

Beyond The Foxholes Episode 41 - Interview with Phil - Team Yankee Special