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Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

So I just invested in an American force for Team Yankee, along with a buttload of terrain.

I've played Flames of War for a while so I am reasonably familiar with the basic system(yet to actually study the Team Yankee rulebook).

What I bought was,

Ryan's Leathernecks, Bannon's Boys, Rifle Platoon, and an M113 platoon. Plus basically one of each type of terrain.

Any recommendations for a beginning army to make out of these things?

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Executing Exarch




You'll need Stripes, if you don't have it. It has the rules for the M60s and the rifle platoon.

I've heard that Ryan's Leathernecks only includes sprue options for the M60A1. If true, that's the USMC version. The US Army uses the M60A3. So I'm not sure that the two boxed starters are compatible. Then again, I'm also not sure that you can run M60A3s and M1s in the same list. So they might not be compatible even if Leathernecks allows you to build the M60A3.
   
Made in re
Focused Dark Angels Land Raider Pilot






The sprues include both options, mostly the gun (sleeved and not), and you can mix M60 with M1s, if you pick two different formations.
Stripes is a must-have either way.

Virtus in extremis 
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

Yeah I picked up Stripes.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut



Maryland

Did you get the mech infantry platoon or the UH-1/Marine rifle platoon? You have picked units that are difficult to mix together in one army.

IMO, you need to decide if you are going to play M1s or M60s and Mech Infantry or Rifle Infantry.

If M1s, you won't have a lot of other support but you need another box of tanks, if M60s, you need to buy a few more Ryans (1+4+4) and possibly a M60 platoon box (for a company of 14) when it's available.

Three Ryans boxes will also get you 18 HMMWVs, which is enough for a 14 hull Light Cavalry Formation and 4 Stinger hummers.

An 85pt M60 force can be built from 3 Ryans boxes and a M60 platoon box. Add in a Mech platoon, a M106 platoon (3), and 4 VADS. Runs you around $300 total.

For M1s (well, the M1IP version)
7 M1IPs and a 3 hull M106 plt, 14 HMMWVs in a Light Cav formation, and 4 Stingers, UH-1 rifle platoon, 3 M109s and an Observer in support runs you 100pts.

You can also do M1s in an 85pt ACAV formation
HQ, 2 scout sections, 2x 3 M1IP platoons, Cav Mortars, UH-1, M109 btty, with 4 stingers and 4 VADS in support.

Stock M1s will get you 6 more pts to spend, but I like the extra armor on the IPs.

   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

I got the basic rifle platoon, but it looks like i could use the stands as a Mech Platoon if needed. MM was out of mech platoons.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut



Maryland

You'd be short a Dragon team, but you could substitute a SMAW team to stand in for the time being.

Every US force can take a UH-1 rifle platoon as support so you'll always be able to use it.

   
Made in us
Fate-Controlling Farseer





Fort Campbell

I just bought into the US forces as well. Went with an M60 heavy army, supplemented by a platoon of M1's, and some Mech Infantry. I've also found HWMMV's with TOW missiles are money. They tend to be ignored, but pack a hell of a punch. All three games I've played so far, they've punched way above their weight.

Full Frontal Nerdity 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Is there any free version of the rules to look at, or army building rules for complete beginners before they make their first purchases?

I, for example, don't even know the typical point size for a tournament game, nor, in broad strokes how armies play... so I can't even confidently place an initial order.

11527pts Total (7400pts painted)

4980pts Total (4980pts painted)

3730 Total (210pts painted) 
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

Battlefront does have an army builder, but it doesn't seem to have Team Yankee on it at all.

From what I have seen, tournaments seem to vary between 50 and 100 points. Though from the games I have played, I always feel stifled in list building with US. Especially if going for any quantity of Abrams.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Well, the wife and I just arbitrarily each picked up the Brit and Russian "starter" (IE those $60-70 sets with a few tanks and two helicopters).

How close does that get to a "real" game?

Do the armies have multiple ways to play or are nations really funneled into one style? For example I love the look of the British plans and helicopters, but are they awful?

Also, what do we need book-wise?

11527pts Total (7400pts painted)

4980pts Total (4980pts painted)

3730 Total (210pts painted) 
   
Made in re
Focused Dark Angels Land Raider Pilot






I'd say the rulebook, though you might already have a couple from the starters. The respective army books, british and russian would be good too, though you should be able to get by with just the unit cards for a bit as well.

Virtus in extremis 
   
Made in us
Major




In a van down by the river

There's the fan-made list builder at: http://tylists.blogspot.com.au/ but I don't think it includes Stripes yet and he's stated he's only doing it until BF gets their act together on an army builder (which I believe they said they're working on in interviews at the end of 2017).

In general most of the nations can be built a variety of ways, though there's certain themes where they work better than others. The recent addition of Allied Formations in Stripes (which was then extended to all nationalities as shown at https://www.team-yankee.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=5872 ) means you can get up to all sorts of builds. Worth noting in an Allied list that Support options come from the primary formation's nationality only.

I'm not much of a list-building guru though, so other than pointing out the obvious of there's a lot of formations to choose from I'm not much help.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Sorry to take over the thread from the OP, but we're very much in the same boat.

We're waiting for our starters to arrive. My wife got Petocknov's Bears, and I Charlies Champions. As a supplement I just ordered the Iron Maiden and Red Thunder books, which I assume will help us guide further purchases.

I have to say, I find the list-building of Flames/Yankee somewhat confusing, as (and I know this sounds weird), somehow simultaneously greatly restricting in what/how many of a thing you can take, but also wide-open enough that I don't know what we need to be buying next.

Does Team Yankee reward combined arms, TAC list building, or is it more about leaning hard into one or two types of units?

11527pts Total (7400pts painted)

4980pts Total (4980pts painted)

3730 Total (210pts painted) 
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

No problem.

This list building seems confusing at first, but its a little more straightforward in the newer books.

Basically, you choose an initial country and then you can run formations from that country as desired.

So for example, this is a single formation for Soviets.
[img]
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vWPudsmo31g/VfAcz2461aI/AAAAAAAAKK8/_VUbhHv2JaQ/s1600/T-72%2Bformation.png[/img]

A T-72 Tank Battalion has a minimum of 1 HQ T-72 and 2 T-72 Battalions of between 3 and 10 T-72 tanks. You then may optionally add 1 additional T-72 company(of 3-10 tanks), 1 BMP-1 OR BMP-2 Rifle Company, 1 BMP-1 OR BMP-2 Recon company, 1 Shilka Platoon, 1 Carnation battery, and 1 Gopher platoon. You may then also add any number of support platoons which are designated as Divisional Support platoons for Red Banner tank companies, but you may only have one of each type. Examples from that are things like a Hind Assault Helicopter Company.

You can also have multiple Battalions if you want.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/03/28 18:30:41


Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





I assume you mean multiple formations on that last point?

Thanks for the great explanation. I feel awful being a wargaming veteran, and yet asking to be explained to as a child, but the Battlefront games really do feel like reverse-40k in a lot of ways (what is YOUR to-be-hit-on stat?) which makes me feel like i'm slow on the pick-up.

Do the boxes product is sold in tend to meet minimum battalion sizes, etc?

11527pts Total (7400pts painted)

4980pts Total (4980pts painted)

3730 Total (210pts painted) 
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

Yes, multiple formations.

The boxes do all meet minimum size requirements, and many meet the maximums as well, but some may require additional boxes on a technical basis. Like my US Rifle Platoon has all the pieces to make a full rifle platoon with all the additional Missiles and Mortar teams, but you have to buy the AAVP-7 transports in a separate box. So you have to buy their transport boxes separately.

So to run a BMP-1 Rifle Platoon, you will need to buy both the Rifle Platoon box AND a BMP-1 box. A Carnation Box contains 3 Carnation pieces, which is a minimum unit size. A T-72 Tank box contains 5 T-72s, which is a legal unit size, but you could add more.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/03/28 21:29:42


Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in re
Focused Dark Angels Land Raider Pilot






NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
I assume you mean multiple formations on that last point?

Thanks for the great explanation. I feel awful being a wargaming veteran, and yet asking to be explained to as a child, but the Battlefront games really do feel like reverse-40k in a lot of ways (what is YOUR to-be-hit-on stat?) which makes me feel like i'm slow on the pick-up.

Do the boxes product is sold in tend to meet minimum battalion sizes, etc?


If anything, V4/TY is quite simpler, once you get past the initial surprise
First, with V4/TY, they went with a universal nomenclature for things, with 4 levels of organization :
The smallest game piece is a "team". It can be an infantry base, a gun base, or a vehicle, they all count as "team".
Teams are grouped in "units", lead by a "unit leader".
Units themselves are grouped in a "formation", lead by a formation HQ.
The important bit there being that, depending on army, units and formations have different actual names. Your formation could be a squadron, a company, a battalion, etc... For rules purposes, they're all a "formation". Makes things a lot simpler when your US company is facing a URSS batallion that fields whole companies as units...
Lastly, your formations and support units make up your "Force", which is what people would call an "army" in most wargames.

Anyway. You start with picking a Force (so far, in TY, there's a single Force for each country), and that tells you what formations and support units you can field. You must field at least one formation.
That's the Iron Maiden Force chart :
Spoiler:

So you must field at least one of the 4 formations listed, and as many additional formations as you want. (Yeah, there's a limit of how many times you can field the same formation, shown by the amount of boxes stacked, but that's not going to matter in most games). For "what's in a formation, Templar's post is spot-on.

Finally, the boxes sold on BF are "unit boxes", and usually make up for a legal unit by themselves, though rarely at full strength, and sometimes enough for a min-sized formation. The T-64 box includes 5 tanks, while T-64s come in units of 3-10. A box of 5 Chieftain tanks is enough for an HQ tank, and 2 units of two, which is a legal (and terrible) formation by itself.

Virtus in extremis 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Thanks so much guys! I really appreciate the hand holding.

Spent the evening with a friend's copy of the core rules, and am coming to grips really quickly, as you all anticipated. It seems like a good clean ruleset once you get over differences to more common systems.

I very quickly realized that the current starters really can be quite awful. My wife's Potecknov's Bears box comes with five T72s and two Hinds... which means the T72s can't even make a single legal unit (as you'd need an HQ, and two groups of three).

Because our venue is still clearing some stock at a deeper discount, I had them set aside the following to at least get us closer to fuller-size games. I'll worry about "good" units/sizes later... right now i'll settle for legal.

I got my wife one of the BIGGEr Potecknov's Bears boxes (so 9 more T72s and two more Hinds), and got my Brits a Motorized Rifle Company and a set of Milans. I don't know that i'll be able to combine what I bought with my Charlies Chieftans starter, but its a start of a collection.

11527pts Total (7400pts painted)

4980pts Total (4980pts painted)

3730 Total (210pts painted) 
   
Made in us
Major




In a van down by the river

Technically you'd want 2 boxes of FV432s for your infantry + Milans as a platoon can have up to 4 and the Milans add another 1. IIRC though, you don't have to deploy them on the table if you don't want to, but you do obviously sacrifice their MGs and the mobility if you don't have the models. Honestly, I love the FV432 and buying 3 boxes would let you do a full mech company allotment with squad milan upgrade and then a few FV432 mortar carriers (or 2 mortars and the Mech Company Milan Group).

In terms of using them with Charlie's Chieftains, you can take 1 infantry platoon in an armored formation (with the tanks being 1 HQ+2x2 platoons) and the other infantry platoon as a support choice. If you'd like to cut down on the number of FV432s, you could also build your Lynxes as transports and use them as the choice for the "smaller" platoon option. My opinion would be that TOW Lynxes would be more "fun" though. The other major option would be to take the mechanized company formation and take the Chieftains as the 1 formation platoon + 1 support option where you split the tanks 3/2.

I personally think that the mech company option would be better, as that would make your primary formation the larger one by team-count and thus a bit more resilient to casualties, but I'm willing to defer to more experienced folks on that one.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Thanks to Krinsath, and a little extra homework, I realized we really do need transports. I don't know why but wrongly assumed like other games, infantry transports were an option, not inherently part of the unit.

Since we've spent so much money this week purely to start up, I went as cheap as I could for the models we own already. That meant two boxes of FV432s (with our infantry + Milan blisters that would let me make the minimum mechanized rifle formation. I also got my with one box of BMP1/2's since we'd only picked up a stray Platoon of Russian infantry, and one Platoon can be taken in her T72 formation.

And just like that, we have not well-rounded, but legal lists. My British are coming in at 58 pts, and her Russians are at 82pts, meaning we'll just pull some stuff out until we can equalize our collections, and add some diversity.

This has been very much appreciated guys!

Now I just need good sources of video battle-reports!

11527pts Total (7400pts painted)

4980pts Total (4980pts painted)

3730 Total (210pts painted) 
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

The rules do allow for transports to be omitted from the table, so you aren't breaking rules by not having them. You're just losing out on any utility of the transports themselves.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Major




In a van down by the river

And Soviet transports in particular are quite powerful when you start getting tons of them on the table. Lots of little guns add up.

It's worth noting that the BMP1/2 are really just hull top and turret swaps, and the models stay together pretty well without the top being glued down. That does give the option to use them as either, though obviously it makes painting mildly more complicated if you do more than the "everything green" scheme to make patterns line up right.

Also your UK models can get your list up to 64 points; mech HQ, 2xmech platoons plus milan, milan group (no transports), 5 stillbrew chieftains, 2 TOW Lynx. Your wife still has the points advantage, but nothing another box of Chieftains couldn't square away. That said, depending on the scenarios played you may actually have a sufficient force for a good match-up; ones with your force defending would be close to the source material at any rate.

Let us know how it goes!
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Krinsath wrote:
And Soviet transports in particular are quite powerful when you start getting tons of them on the table. Lots of little guns add up.

It's worth noting that the BMP1/2 are really just hull top and turret swaps, and the models stay together pretty well without the top being glued down. That does give the option to use them as either, though obviously it makes painting mildly more complicated if you do more than the "everything green" scheme to make patterns line up right.

Also your UK models can get your list up to 64 points; mech HQ, 2xmech platoons plus milan, milan group (no transports), 5 stillbrew chieftains, 2 TOW Lynx. Your wife still has the points advantage, but nothing another box of Chieftains couldn't square away. That said, depending on the scenarios played you may actually have a sufficient force for a good match-up; ones with your force defending would be close to the source material at any rate.

Let us know how it goes!


Thanks! I knew I had the extra Milan models for the unit, but since I thought you HAD to have transports, I figured they would be stuck as extras until I could get more FVs (which someday i'll get anyway, i'm sure).

11527pts Total (7400pts painted)

4980pts Total (4980pts painted)

3730 Total (210pts painted) 
   
Made in no
Longtime Dakkanaut






another new collector here whit a question:

i have a ww2 late war german army of approx 1500 points, what would be the points equivalent of that in yankee since it seems they use a different point scale?

darkswordminiatures.com
gamersgrass.com
Collects: Wild West Exodus, SW Armada/Legion. Adeptus Titanicus, Dust1947. 
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
another new collector here whit a question:

i have a ww2 late war german army of approx 1500 points, what would be the points equivalent of that in yankee since it seems they use a different point scale?


100 pts ish. Team Yankee is weird. Tanks are priced significantly more than infantry too. Two Abrams are 16 pts while a max sized mechanized infantry platoon is 6 pts.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Fate-Controlling Farseer





Fort Campbell

 Grey Templar wrote:
 FrozenDwarf wrote:
another new collector here whit a question:

i have a ww2 late war german army of approx 1500 points, what would be the points equivalent of that in yankee since it seems they use a different point scale?


100 pts ish. Team Yankee is weird. Tanks are priced significantly more than infantry too. Two Abrams are 16 pts while a max sized mechanized infantry platoon is 6 pts.


Yeah, Abrams prices are a bit much IMO. It's why I'm much happier with the M60's.

Full Frontal Nerdity 
   
Made in no
Longtime Dakkanaut






so i have the west german book now, but there is only 3 lists in it.
am i limited to fielding only thouse 3 lists or can i mix and match units as i see fit?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/05/11 18:03:55


darkswordminiatures.com
gamersgrass.com
Collects: Wild West Exodus, SW Armada/Legion. Adeptus Titanicus, Dust1947. 
   
Made in us
Executing Exarch




 FrozenDwarf wrote:
so i have the west german book now, but there is only 3 lists in it.
am i limited to fielding only thouse 3 lists or can i mix and match units as i see fit?


You can also get the Panzertruppen expansion set that contains three additional lists - a Leopard I company (instead of Leopard 2), troops carried in M113 APCs, and a Fuchs Panzeraufklarungs company.

https://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=5316


Finally, keep in mind that prior to the release of Stripes, the US only had *two* lists available. The game doesn't have lots of permutations of lists like Flames of War does.
   
Made in no
Longtime Dakkanaut






Eumerin wrote:
 FrozenDwarf wrote:
so i have the west german book now, but there is only 3 lists in it.
am i limited to fielding only thouse 3 lists or can i mix and match units as i see fit?


You can also get the Panzertruppen expansion set that contains three additional lists - a Leopard I company (instead of Leopard 2), troops carried in M113 APCs, and a Fuchs Panzeraufklarungs company.

https://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=5316


Finally, keep in mind that prior to the release of Stripes, the US only had *two* lists available. The game doesn't have lots of permutations of lists like Flames of War does.


this imo realy bad, atleast in ww2 FoW, you have lists that includes more or less all units so you can freely mix and match the army you want...

so in yankee, i cant have an army of 50p that has leo 2s, luchs, gepard, lars and tornado planes in it cuz none of the 3 lists have that spesific unit selection?
and that allso means that there is no way legaly to play the starter box in low point games as it comes whit choppers, as none of the 3 lists has choppers included, only the big grand division list has it.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2018/05/12 07:23:51


darkswordminiatures.com
gamersgrass.com
Collects: Wild West Exodus, SW Armada/Legion. Adeptus Titanicus, Dust1947. 
   
 
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