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lilljonas
May 6, 2007

We got crabs? We got crabs!

Cessna posted:

Beautiful work!! Those look amazing.

Thanks! At first it was really intimidating to paint camo, but once I got started it's pretty fun. I'm already painting up most of what I didn't paint in the first go, mainly extra SMGs and FG42's that I didn't need for the full platoon.

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Edgar Allen Ho
Apr 3, 2017

by sebmojo

Class Warcraft posted:

Great job on the camo! By the way I highly recommend the Warlord Fallshirmjager Afrika Korp metal models. They've very dynamic and kinda nice because most of them just have an undershirt on so you don't have to paint the camo smock on all of them.

--

Ok, so I ordered that huge Sarissa Alamo set, but now I need models. I don't want to spend a billion dollars on metal models so my plan is buy a handful of metal models but bulk out the majority of my armies with plastic substitutes.

For the Mexicans I'm thinking maybe Napleonic Peninsular French?

For the Texians I was thinking of using this Perry Civil War kit:


If I use the broad-brimmed hats and a couple different colors they'll look decently ragged.

Thoughts?

The tex(i)ans at the Alamo included "regular" army dudes who could be decently represented by sprinkling in some forage caps and painting them in somewhat-uniform if you want to look more authentic. I think the official look was pale grey forage cap and jacket with pale blue trousers, with white straps, but like confederates the "real look" would probably be blue, grey, and beige mixed freely, with the grey hats as a unifying feature. The forage caps were more archaic, like something you'd see on napoleonic russians, but no one would ever know or care.

Also the mexicans are often depicted as a blue or red-on-blue tide but if you wanted, all white and green-on-red jackets were also there.

Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Apr 14, 2020

Class Warcraft
Apr 27, 2006


Edgar Allen Ho posted:

The tex(i)ans at the Alamo included "regular" army dudes who could be decently represented by sprinkling in some forage caps and painting them in somewhat-uniform if you want to look more authentic. I think the official look was pale grey forage cap and jacket with pale blue trousers, with white straps, but like confederates the "real look" would probably be blue, grey, and beige mixed freely, with the grey hats as a unifying feature. The forage caps were more archaic, like something you'd see on napoleonic russians, but no one would ever know or care.

Also the mexicans are often depicted as a blue or red-on-blue tide but if you wanted, all white and green-on-red jackets were also there.

Thanks for the info! Sounds like I can probably reuse some of them as Confederates when I inevitably get sucked into ACW stuff.

Class Warcraft
Apr 27, 2006


Sorry for the doublepost but I figured out how to speedpaint my Zulus and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.



Literally just primered Vallejo Beasty Brown, details colored, then washed in Agrax Earthshade. I painted this whole unit in like two hours which is incredible for me since I paint slow as hell.

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




Class Warcraft posted:

Sorry for the doublepost but I figured out how to speedpaint my Zulus and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

Literally just primered Vallejo Beasty Brown, details colored, then washed in Agrax Earthshade. I painted this whole unit in like two hours which is incredible for me since I paint slow as hell.

That's a good looking warband !

Zuul the Cat
Dec 24, 2006

Grimey Drawer

Class Warcraft posted:

Sorry for the doublepost but I figured out how to speedpaint my Zulus and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.



Literally just primered Vallejo Beasty Brown, details colored, then washed in Agrax Earthshade. I painted this whole unit in like two hours which is incredible for me since I paint slow as hell.

Someone wake those two guys up, a battle is about to begin.

Class Warcraft
Apr 27, 2006


Zzzulus

ADudeWhoAbides
Mar 30, 2010
Anybody have a lead on somewhere that has L’Art de la Guerre in stock? That ships to the US?

I’d like to use some of this downtime (just got furloughed) to work on some ancients. I’d like to get two armies that are compatible with both DBA and LAG. Seems like the latter just adds a few units to the former, but I’d love to be able to read the book before I start a project.

long-ass nips Diane
Dec 13, 2010

Breathe.

ADudeWhoAbides posted:

Anybody have a lead on somewhere that has L’Art de la Guerre in stock? That ships to the US?

I’d like to use some of this downtime (just got furloughed) to work on some ancients. I’d like to get two armies that are compatible with both DBA and LAG. Seems like the latter just adds a few units to the former, but I’d love to be able to read the book before I start a project.

I can't find it at any of the usual places, but you can order a PDF directly from them: http://www.artdelaguerre.fr/adlg/v3/?/en/ordering

spectralent
Oct 1, 2014

Me and the boys poppin' down to the shops
Per some sneak peek material from the recent stream, it seems the T-80 is coming out as "The T-80 and not the T-80U" but also it's front armour 20. Confused but happy!

Springfield Fatts
May 24, 2010
Pillbug
Speaking of cold war it seems BG: Northag is out (kind of?) Based on some early looks at it I'm a bit concerned because it looks like they split the middle in a bad way concerning scale and scope.
Good:
Converting to infantry stands instead of individual units / casualties
Streamlined area fire for small arms and HE
The phased roll-on deployment scheme is...interesting
Kept the artillery and aircraft abstracted. Helicopters are unknown though.

Bad:
At 10mm why keep the granularity of spotting to hit, armor facing, and ammo counting? I felt this bogged down the 15mm game and will feel even more awkward at a smaller scale.
Still basically a platoon+ game if you want to finish in one night. Again, some abstraction would of made this easier to scale up.
There's a nuclear and chemical strike morale chit, seems weird to include these but I'm sure they're optional
It's firmly placed in 1983, so gen 3 armor is going to be rare or very expensive to field
First book is only Soviets and Brits, but US and Germans are apparently in the pipeline

I'm still looking forward to giving it a shot but I'm less excited given the odd choices by the designer.

Acebuckeye13
Nov 2, 2010
Ultra Carp

spectralent posted:

Per some sneak peek material from the recent stream, it seems the T-80 is coming out as "The T-80 and not the T-80U" but also it's front armour 20. Confused but happy!

Sadly IS-2s are apparently still garbage

Cessna
Feb 20, 2013

KHABAHBLOOOM

Springfield Fatts posted:

It's firmly placed in 1983, so gen 3 armor is going to be rare or very expensive to field

I'm okay with this. Once you add M-1A1s, Bradleys with TOWs, and AH-64s games get a bit frustrating for the Pact player. (I'm looking at you, TY.)

moths
Aug 25, 2004

I would also still appreciate some danger.



NBC chit seems kind of forced, but I like all those positives and I'm not really opposed to the other listed negatives.

Where is it out? I see they're doing a "no Salute" sale but couldn't find it on the PSC site or Ebay.

Springfield Fatts
May 24, 2010
Pillbug
Currently they are fulfilling the preorders which are I assume where these reviews are coming from. The very bare bare bones website says sometime in April for the full release, but with covid19 everything is up in the air (pun intended).

Geisladisk
Sep 15, 2007

Acebuckeye13 posted:

Sadly IS-2s are apparently still garbage

They will have a (small) niche against Americans until they get M18s and M36s next year because until then Americans are capped at AT 12, making armor 10 a nightmare.

Otherwise... absolute dumpster fire. 7 points for a tank that puts out only one shot, usually at a -1 to hít? Hard pass.

If that one shot literally blew Ferdinands and the inevitable Tiger IIs to pieces, as they historically did, they might be useful, but as is Ferdis and Tiger IIs remain frontally invulnurable, which is the single dumbest and least fun thing in FOW.

NTRabbit
Aug 15, 2012

i wear this armour to protect myself from the histrionics of hysterical women

bitches




PSC is having a Salute sale right now, 15 brexit dollars for the Battle of Britain boardgame and markdowns on a range of kits

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
Finally took the time to separate the wheat from thw fash, and these are all the 15mms that I'll use (lol) for Soviets:




I have basically everything I need and more to cover each infantry choice in Battlegroup (Kursk, at least), and CoC 1939-1941.

Well, not entirely everything - no medics, and VVS forward may need to play the role of arty spotters some times, and the engineers are ahistorically armored - but it's Close Enough.

Now to seperate the rest into sellable piles, then do Japanese and Hungarians.

spectralent
Oct 1, 2014

Me and the boys poppin' down to the shops

Cessna posted:

I'm okay with this. Once you add M-1A1s, Bradleys with TOWs, and AH-64s games get a bit frustrating for the Pact player. (I'm looking at you, TY.)

I would've been okay with them dragging prototype kit in if they'd also gone full airland battle with pact too, but instead you get stuff like "Sgt. York could've been made to work if they'd tried and ROMOR would've been pushed up in production, but not enough soviet tanks had ERA for us to represent it". Fortunately it seems like we're very clearly getting a T-80U if it's front armour 20 and has a better missile, but still...

Acebuckeye13 posted:

Sadly IS-2s are apparently still garbage

They seem proportionally cheaper, but they've also been nerfed, which was thoroughly unnecessary. BF have never seemed to understand how much slow firing fuckin' sucks.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Springfield Fatts posted:

At 10mm why keep the granularity of spotting to hit, armor facing, and ammo counting? I felt this bogged down the 15mm game and will feel even more awkward at a smaller scale.
Still basically a platoon+ game if you want to finish in one night. Again, some abstraction would of made this easier to scale up.
There's a nuclear and chemical strike morale chit, seems weird to include these but I'm sure they're optional
It's firmly placed in 1983, so gen 3 armor is going to be rare or very expensive to field

Don't seem like downsides to me.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
Lads, I finally did it:
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3920590

Acebuckeye13
Nov 2, 2010
Ultra Carp

Geisladisk posted:

They will have a (small) niche against Americans until they get M18s and M36s next year because until then Americans are capped at AT 12, making armor 10 a nightmare.

Otherwise... absolute dumpster fire. 7 points for a tank that puts out only one shot, usually at a -1 to hít? Hard pass.

If that one shot literally blew Ferdinands and the inevitable Tiger IIs to pieces, as they historically did, they might be useful, but as is Ferdis and Tiger IIs remain frontally invulnurable, which is the single dumbest and least fun thing in FOW.

Battlefront seems absolutely allergic to decent design decisions that benefit anyone other than Germans (And sometimes Americans), so it's not surprising.

Regarding heavy armor, something I've thought about testing for a while is a mechanic to increase the chance of a bail result on non-penetrating hits. Say, if you roll a successful firepower test on any hit you get a bail result, regardless of their armor save. Of course, you'd have to reduce the severity of bail results to be less punishing (Maybe change it to a "stunned" result where you can only shoot at moving RoF and can't move closer to enemy models, like pinned infantry), but it'd be a decent way to benefit big guns that might not be able to penetrate a tank's armor on paper but could historically turn the crew inside into pudding, and reduce the effectiveness of high-armor units to be less overpowering.

spectralent posted:

They seem proportionally cheaper, but they've also been nerfed, which was thoroughly unnecessary. BF have never seemed to understand how much slow firing fuckin' sucks.

It's absolutely bonkers. One of these days I really need to do a statistical analysis on the points effectiveness of a Panther, IS-2, Sherman, and T-34 so I can yell at Battlefront with math.

Notahippie
Feb 4, 2003

Kids, it's not cool to have Shane MacGowan teeth
Maybe a better question for the milhist thread but i can't find it: did 19th century ships paint their gun port lids the same color as the hull, or a contrasting color, as a general rule? Patrick O'Brien implies the latter in one of his books, but most of the models I've seen have the gunports painted the same color as the hull.

Edit: looking into it, it sounds like post-Nelson the standard became to paint gunports the same band as the stripe across the hull, to more easily distinguish closed vs open gunports at a distance.

Notahippie fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Apr 22, 2020

Cessna
Feb 20, 2013

KHABAHBLOOOM

It is my understanding that prior to Nelson most ship's paint-jobs were a matter of captain's preference and what paint the yards had available.

tallkidwithglasses
Feb 7, 2006
My local shops wargaming club had a challenge this week to paint the most useless model in your backlog while we wait out quarantine, and I ended up making a little diorama with a figure that came with one of the Black Powder rulebooks:






Ended up being a fun little use for the only 28mm American Civil War figure I own.

Tias
May 25, 2008

Pictured: the patron saint of internet political arguments (probably)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund
So me and two other milhist goons are testing new systems to wargame WW1 with - if you want in our test battles of Contemptible Little Armies (3. ed), let me know in pm and I'll invite you to the discord.

Cessna
Feb 20, 2013

KHABAHBLOOOM

Tias posted:

So me and two other milhist goons are testing new systems to wargame WW1 with - if you want in our test battles of Contemptible Little Armies (3. ed), let me know in pm and I'll invite you to the discord.

Is this miniatures or hex-and-counter?

I've got a few 28mm WWI guys if it's miniatures:



Tias
May 25, 2008

Pictured: the patron saint of internet political arguments (probably)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund
Beautiful stuff, Cessna :allears:

CLA is a miniature game for all scales, and, for the time being, just simulated - unfortunately I have no models.

E: on the subject, if anyone has a good idea for a program to simulate minigaming on, preferably with layers, let me know. I will capitulate in advance and say I think Vassal is too complicated :shrug:

Tias fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Apr 23, 2020

Strobe
Jun 30, 2014
GW BRAINWORMS CREW
Is there a good writeup for Team Yankee in the thead somewhere? I grabbed some minis because tiny tanks own, but I have little idea how it actually plays or what to get if I want to expand into playing it properly later.

Geisladisk
Sep 15, 2007

Strobe posted:

Is there a good writeup for Team Yankee in the thead somewhere? I grabbed some minis because tiny tanks own, but I have little idea how it actually plays or what to get if I want to expand into playing it properly later.

I've played a bunch of TY, any specific questions?

If you've played FOW it is basically just FOW but all the tanks are crazy, there are helicopters and the airplanes are an existential terror instead of a nuisance.

Some people in this thread *really* hate TY but it's pretty good imo.

moths
Aug 25, 2004

I would also still appreciate some danger.



I just picked up the pretty excellent TY British box for NORTHAG, but it probably won't be enough and it turns out my group is going to 12mm anyway.

:retrogames:

How different is 2nd edition WWIII:Team Yankee from 1e Team Yankee: WWIII?

Geisladisk
Sep 15, 2007

moths posted:

I just picked up the pretty excellent TY British box for NORTHAG, but it probably won't be enough and it turns out my group is going to 12mm anyway.

:retrogames:

How different is 2nd edition WWIII:Team Yankee from 1e Team Yankee: WWIII?

Not much at all. TY v2 is identical to FOW v4. FOW v4 is identical to TY v1 except for a few tiny details.

So... TY v2 is identical to v1 except for some details.

IIRC the biggest differences are how formation commanders and formation last stand works. In v2 commanders give morale check rerolls to all units in range, in v1 they join units and improve their soft stats.

moths
Aug 25, 2004

I would also still appreciate some danger.



Oh that's not bad at all. Hopefully I can get through all these rulebooks by the time quarantine ends.

Plus I still have 6mm moderns from last time we tried Blitzkrieg Commander, so we've got the option of trying TY in that scale.

Acebuckeye13
Nov 2, 2010
Ultra Carp

Strobe posted:

Is there a good writeup for Team Yankee in the thead somewhere? I grabbed some minis because tiny tanks own, but I have little idea how it actually plays or what to get if I want to expand into playing it properly later.

I don't know if there's one in the thread, and I haven't played as much TY as I'd like, but I can try and give it a whirl. Some stuff might be wrong, so other folks feel free to correct me:

Team Yankee is a Cold-War extension of the World War II game Flames of War, a 15mm company-sized game. Though a significant departure in many ways from the 3rd Edition ruleset of Flames, Team Yankee 2nd Edition and Flames of War 4th edition now have relatively few differences between them, other then setting and some special rules.

Team Yankee is a very lethal game, as one can expect from the Cold War setting. Artillery and aircraft can both deal devastating blows, while tanks are typically highly mobile and carry extremely high-powered weapons. Though often outclassed, infantry are important as well for holding and taking objectives, as well as for fielding deadly ATGM teams that can threaten all but the most heavily armored (and fantastically expensive) tanks.

The system is D6 based, with individual models/'teams' rolling various checks based on their stat cards. Take, for instance, an standard M1 Abrams below:



Most of these checks are exactly what it says on the tin. Need to pass a morale check? Roll a 4+. Need your dudes to get back in their tank? Remount on a 2+. The exception is the "Hit On" check, which is what enemy models use (plus modifiers) to shoot at your dude.

How the game generally works is that you'll assemble a force built from ~100 points. Unlike the strict force org boxes of past editions of Flames of War, to build a force in Team Yankee all you have to do is select a base formation, typically a tank or infantry company, and then individual support formations can be added to it. So you could go for a balanced force of an infantry formation backed by tanks, artillery, and helicopters, or you could go all-in on heavy tanks and simply try to steamroll your opponents.

On the table, most games will have objectives that one or both sides need to take. The gametype will determine where the objective goes, who's attacking or defending, and when reserves come in. In most games, you won't start with your entire force on the board—instead, you'll have to set aside 40% of your dudes to come on the board later, which will assuredly be far too late thanks to bad reserve rolls.

Moving around and shooting dudes is pretty simple. Each unit has a speed they can go, and can forgo shooting for a "dash" movement that can zip them across the table very quickly. Platoons can also issue themselves orders, which is typically a skill or courage test to do a thing like "move across terrain some extra inches" or "scoot around before/after shooting". Most units halve their rate of fire when moving, so these orders can be very important.

For shooting, you'll pick out an enemy unit in your line of sight, determine what bonuses they're getting from range and/or terrain, add that to the "to hit" value and then roll. Most (Though not all) NATO units are hit on a 4+ base, while Pact units are typically hit on 3+. (Battlefront will tell you it's because "oh the NATO troops were better trained, and furthermore-" but it's really just so Pact can get more units on the board for cheaper to simulate ~russian hordes~) Tank teams get a save based on the difference between their armor and the weapon's AT—so against a T-72 at close range (AT 22 versus armor 18), a base Abrams has to roll a 4 to glance, and 5 to bounce. On a glance, the T-72 gets to roll a firepower test for their weapon (In this case a 2+), and if they succeed the tank is "bailed out," unable to move or shoot unless the Abrams passes a remount test at the start of their turn. If the Abrams fails the armor save completely, same firepower test—but now, a success kills the Abrams completely, while a failure results in a bailed tank. For infantry, it's much simpler—most infantry just get a flat 3+ save, and if they're "Dug in" (in trenches or foxholes, which they can roll a skill test to create instead of moving), the unit shooting at them also has to pass a firepower test. Dug in infantry are thus, unsurprisingly, extremely tough nuts to crack... until you get artillery involved, or run them down in assault. Infantry can also suffer from being pinned, which reduces their movement and ability to shoot back.

Assault is pretty deadly. After shooting, you can move to assault any unit that's close enough, and roll your assault die. Make it, they're dead, no saves, tough poo poo. After you roll their swings, the opponent gets to roll a morale test to see if their unit stays in the fight, and if they do they get to do the same to you. Repeat until someone fails to counterattack, or everyone's straight-up dead. Only caveats are that tanks don't get to assault tanks, and opposing units can fire an overwatch attack into charging enemies, making it a potentially very risky proposition.

If a unit is reduced to less than 2 healthy tanks or... an amount of healthy infantry, they roll their morale stat at the end of the turn. If they fail, the platoon disappears from the board as your troops decide to cheese it. If your entire formation is reduced below a certain number of active platoons, you have to start rolling company morale tests, and if you fail (Or your formation commander has been killed), then your army breaks and you lose the game.

As you can imagine, it's a pretty tank-focused game. It's also, and this is important, not historical. It has a Cold War flavor to it, but Battlefront is not above adding prototype or preproduction units to the game (Like the infamous M247 Sergeant York), as well as fudging real-world statistics and training to suite how they want certain armies to play.

On the whole, it's a fun game, and while I haven't played it as much as I'd like I would like to play it more. It's also one of the most popular Cold War minis games out there, so there's a chance you may be able to find games with a local group in your area. It does have some drawbacks, though, and there are a number of very common complaints about the game (Such as unit spacing rules requiring larger tank units to bunch up into literal parking lots). So, it's not for everyone—but it might be for you! I'd definitely at least try and give it a whirl, see how it goes, and whether you're willing to accept the more game-y aspects of the game, or if you'd rather go full grognard and dive into the recently-released Battlegroup: NORTHAG.

Strobe
Jun 30, 2014
GW BRAINWORMS CREW
I played a tank aces campaign in FOW once, and that's the extent of my playing experience.

Specific questions:
1) what do I need to build a 'basic' army? I picked up Bannon's Boys and a box of LAVs because they're cool, not initially realizing they were parts of two different subgroups. I'd like to stay in the plastic range if possible.

2) what size table should one of these games be played on? I'm primarily a 40K player, so I've got up to 6' x 4' available if I need to.

3) are there any serious balance issues/gotcha matchups to be aware of before diving deeper? My Warmahordes experience consisted of getting brutally murdered by lists that outclassed mine in every way (This was somehow supposed to be a positive experience) until I learned that game wasn't for me; is something similar likely to happen here?

spectralent
Oct 1, 2014

Me and the boys poppin' down to the shops

Strobe posted:

I played a tank aces campaign in FOW once, and that's the extent of my playing experience.

Specific questions:
1) what do I need to build a 'basic' army? I picked up Bannon's Boys and a box of LAVs because they're cool, not initially realizing they were parts of two different subgroups. I'd like to stay in the plastic range if possible.

2) what size table should one of these games be played on? I'm primarily a 40K player, so I've got up to 6' x 4' available if I need to.

3) are there any serious balance issues/gotcha matchups to be aware of before diving deeper? My Warmahordes experience consisted of getting brutally murdered by lists that outclassed mine in every way (This was somehow supposed to be a positive experience) until I learned that game wasn't for me; is something similar likely to happen here?

1) One perk of how TY works is you can mix-and-match formation units to form up a combat group; you can absolutely have an M1 Abrams company and a LAV company and this is actually one of the more mechanically realistic combos because the entire LAV company comes out at, like, 20 points. A more traditional list is going to be a formation of something like 1 HQ platoon, 2 platoons of IPM1s, a mechanised infantry platoon, their integral recce and mortars, and some formation support like the VADS and Cobras. You want the rulebook or Forces, the web app, to explore list building.

2) 6x4 is fine, there are "quick missions" for armies of around 50 points played on 4x4 boards, and if anything like Bocage ever gets added that'll probably also be 4x4 since BF seem to like those for their scenario games.

3) Eeeeh... There are a few imbalance issues, but generally the "meta" isn't really there that leans on them too hard, unlike with Flames of War, at least in my experience. The M1 Abrams is widely considered a bit overcosted, but the IPM1 sits pretty well with it's slightly more rugged profile that makes it largely immune to the BMP-2 (the base M1 is vulnerable to mass missile fire to the front or cannons to the side, but the IPM1 has to be pretty unlucky to worry about either).

Acebuckeye13
Nov 2, 2010
Ultra Carp

Strobe posted:

I played a tank aces campaign in FOW once, and that's the extent of my playing experience.

Specific questions:
1) what do I need to build a 'basic' army? I picked up Bannon's Boys and a box of LAVs because they're cool, not initially realizing they were parts of two different subgroups. I'd like to stay in the plastic range if possible.

Well, first you'll need a book. The main book for American forces is Stripes, though there is a new American book coming out in the near-ish future that will include rules for top-line units like Apaches and M1A1s. A basic American force list also come in the core Team Yankee rulebook, so that's worth picking up as well (As well as to, you know, have the rules)

It is worth mentioning that Battlefront has an online listbuilder, called Flames of War Forces. It makes you pay for all the individual formations though and is kinda bad, so instead let's use this free (Though imperfect) listbuilder here:

https://tylists.blogspot.com/2018/03/stripes-team-yankee.html

And this force diagram from Stripes here:



So right now with Bannon's Boys you already have the bare minimum core of an army, with 1 HQ tank and two two-tank platoons. That fulfills the requirement for an M1 Abrams Combat Team, so you've got a formation and, technically, a legal 40 point army. Pat yourself on the back for your intelligent spending. Halfway through writing this I remembered that this isn't true anymore, and they reduced the number of tanks that came with Bannon's Boys from 5 to 3. So, you've got a tank platoon, but not enough for a full formation—yet.

Next up, we'll add the support you already have. If you look over in the grey "Support" selections, these aren't formations, but platoons that can be added to any army. In your case, you've got one platoon of Cobras that came with Bannon's Boys that qualify, so now your army consists of 1 M1 Abrams Combat Team Formation, with a supporting AH-1 Cobra Attack Helicopter Platoon.

LAV is where it gets slightly tricky. Unlike the Cobras, you can't field an individual platoon of LAVs—you have to take them as part of a formation. Fortunately for you, there is a LAV Formation that you can take alongside your Abrams Formation. Unfortunately, it requires 6 LAVs minimum to field, and the set only comes with 5. Thanks, Battlefront! :thumbsup:

So at this point you almost have a legal army, though you're not there yet. Easiest thing to do at this point would be to buy another box of LAVs and a box of Abrams. That'll give you 8 Abrams (Enough for two 3 tank platoons and 2 HQ tanks, a decently hefty formation) and 10 LAVs, some of which can be built in a number of different ways to support the Abrams, such as mortar carriers and ITVs. From there, you've got a number of different ways you can build your army, perhaps by adding an infantry formation or by splurging on support assets like aircraft and artillery. But with those two formations, you should be set.

quote:

2) what size table should one of these games be played on? I'm primarily a 40K player, so I've got up to 6' x 4' available if I need to.

Typical table is 6x4, same as 40K. Smaller games can be played on smaller tables.

quote:

3) are there any serious balance issues/gotcha matchups to be aware of before diving deeper? My Warmahordes experience consisted of getting brutally murdered by lists that outclassed mine in every way (This was somehow supposed to be a positive experience) until I learned that game wasn't for me; is something similar likely to happen here?

The only real trap options I can think of off the top of my head are going big into NATO heavy tanks, like German Leopard 2s, British Challengers, and the forthcoming M1A1s. These units are impressive stat-wise, but they're way too expensive and can't hold enough ground to be able to carry an army on their own.

Meta-wise my understanding is that a lot of games come down to ATGMs and infantry, so you'll want to be careful about committing too much into tanks, and make sure you've got at least some way of dealing with enemy infantry (Either via your own infantry or through artillery). TY is at least somewhat reasonably balanced, though, so chances are you're probably not going to get dunked on any more than a typical new player learning a new wargame will.

spectralent
Oct 1, 2014

Me and the boys poppin' down to the shops

Acebuckeye13 posted:

The only real trap options I can think of off the top of my head are going big into NATO heavy tanks, like German Leopard 2s, British Challengers, and the forthcoming M1A1s. These units are impressive stat-wise, but they're way too expensive and can't hold enough ground to be able to carry an army on their own.

Meta-wise my understanding is that a lot of games come down to ATGMs and infantry, so you'll want to be careful about committing too much into tanks, and make sure you've got at least some way of dealing with enemy infantry (Either via your own infantry or through artillery). TY is at least somewhat reasonably balanced, though, so chances are you're probably not going to get dunked on any more than a typical new player learning a new wargame will.

My experience has been the big tanks are good but really need the work put in to make them get their points back; if you do bad with them you lose 10% of your army. My best experiences have been when they're support to infantry; infantry are good at holding flanks so the tanks can rely on their front armour.

Strobe
Jun 30, 2014
GW BRAINWORMS CREW
These posts have been very helpful!

So, if I did end up getting another box of LAVs and a box of Abrams down the line, that puts me at... 81 points according to that list builder linked.


... is a pair of Harriers really only three points? :wtc:

For the other 19 points, would it be better to grab an infantry company, or some air support and AA?

Fond memories of Wargame make me want to answer 'air support', but also ew resin.

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Acebuckeye13
Nov 2, 2010
Ultra Carp
I haven't used them myself but harriers are some of the best air support in the game, not just because they're cheap but because the "Jump Jet" rule means they come in on a 3+ instead of the usual aircraft 4+, which is crucial towards them Actually Contributing instead of saying off the board all game like most air support ends up doing.

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