Teenie, Tiny Team Yankee II – Getting into SHAPE.

Today, after theorising about the small world of 6mm Team Yankee Duncan looks at the getting his game face on and kicking the Warsaw Pact’s* booty.

*the Warsaw Pact you are looking for has not been recognised – to call and alternative Warsaw Pact please press one now*

Hi Duncan here and today I’m putting my 6mm Team Yankee Theory Dojo aside and stepping into the ring with my West Germans to face off against their most hated advisory – the British. Wait, what? I hear you cry – so let me explain…

So wanting to try and put my thoughts around Team Yankee on a 6mm scale into practice from the last article I arranged a game – my mate Leigh was going to bring his Soviets, my mate Luke his British and we’d have a good old ding-dong. And then real life happened and the Soviets went down before the first round had even started, so rather than hold off and wait we decided to press on with a SHAPE authorised training exercise with the West Germans and British going head-to-head.

Once we’d establish that this was going to be a blue on blue affair we also decide to establish some constraints around forces as this was our collective first play through of the rules. We agreed that for our first game:

• Rather than a full 100pts list we’d select only 64pts.
• There would be no air power used.
• Artillery could be used but should be kept to a minimum
• The rules suggest that you revise ranges for smaller scales replacing inches with centimeters – so a Leopard 2s tactical move would be 14cm – we said no. No, no, no and kept it as for the larger 15mm scale.

Other than those stipulations it was game on!

For the West Germans I decided to practice what I theorised (there’s a horribly mangled metaphor in there somewhere) and opted to take a Panzeraufklarungs Kompanie from the 83^rd Panzer Battalion of the 3^rd Panzer Division. The issue with the Panzeraufklarungs in 15mm is that the Leopard 1 is currently only available in a non-plastic format and considering that you need a fair few for the formation it could be seen as prohibitively costly.

My list was:

• Panzeraufklarungs Kompanie HQ – 1 x Leopard 1
• Luchs Spah Troop (2 x Luchs)
• Luchs Spah Troop (2 x Luchs)
• Luchs Spah Troop (2 x Luchs)
• Leopard 1 Panzer Zug (2 x Leopard 1)
• Leopard 1 Panzer Zug (2 x Leopard 1)
• Leopard 2 Panzer Zug (3 x Leopard 2)
• Fuchs Panzer-Aufklarungs Zug (3 x Fuch, 3 x MG3 teams and 1 x Milan team)
• Fuchs Panzer-Aufklarungs Zug (3 x Fuch, 3 x MG3 teams and 1 x Milan team)
• Gepard Flakpanzer Batterie (2 x Gepards)

83rd Panzer line up ready to recon by force.

That is a whole tonne of stuff for 64pts but remember that the 3 x Leopard 2 Panzers cost around half my points so the rest of my units I was not expecting tremendous things from.

My friend Luke took his 17^th/21^st Lancers battlegroup Chieftain Armoured Squadron:

• Chieftain Armoured Squadron HQ (1 x Chieftain)
• Chieftain Armoured Troop (3 x Chieftains)
• Chieftain Armoured Troop (3 x Chieftains)
• Swingfire Guided Weapons Troop (3 x Swingfire)
• Scorpion Recce Troop (4 x Scorpions)
• Scorpion Recce Troop (4 x Scimitars)
• FV432 Mechanised Platoon (3 x GPMG, 2 x Carl Gustavs, 1 x Light Mortar, 2 x additional Milan’s and 5 x FV432)

The 17th/21st Lancers and support prepare for the SHAPE approved exercise.

Luke had already set up some cool looking terrain so we rolled up a scenario ready to crack on. I rolled a 2 which meant we were playing an encounter mission – oh goody two of my favourite modifiers to the word reserves: scattered AND delayed! We’d already establish I was attacking so I selected half of my platoons to start on the table – 2 x Luchs, 1 x Leopard 1 and my Leopard 2s, Luke opting for 1 x Chieftain Platoon, the Scorpions and the FV432 mechanised infantry – so we started to alternate deployment.

Initial deployment and terrain set up. British on the left of the image and West Germans on the right.

I choose to load up my left hand flank with both the Leopards and a Luchs platoon and screen the right hand side with just 2 Luchs. Luke ended up with the infantry in the town in the centre of his deployment with the Scorpions and Chieftains taking up positions on his right.

I won the roll to see who got the first turn and so the West German Panzers to take the fight to the Brits. And it didn’t take too long for things to go a wee bit wonky…

Firstly my left-hand Leopard 1s and Luch platoons all bogged down in the wood area that they had deployed in with 4 (FOUR) consecutive rolls of 1. Not brilliant. On the right hand side my other Luch platoon skipped forward and opened up on the FV432 transports contesting the objective in Luke’s deployment area on that side and bailed out 3 of the 5 vehicles without killing a single one. Finally the Leopard 2s move up and took some long ranged pot-shots at the Chieftains and missed. Great.

There are words for this… none of which can be printed in polite society.

And with that spate of awfulness it was over to the Brits. It turns out that Scorpions move really, really quickly and shot across the board 30” to grab the objective in my deployment area – this took me utterly by surprise and was an ongoing theme of the game. Next the Chieftains took aim and knocked out a Leopard 2 and bailed another forcing a morale test which the Leopards squeaked past. This was going from bad to worse quickly. The British infantry took aim and shot at the Luchs bothering the FV432s but missed badly with their Milan’s but the first turn was definitely the Brits.

Leopard 2s feel the fury of the British 120 mm L11A5 rifled tank gun.

Turn 2 saw the German get back into the fight a bit. The bogged down Leopard 1s sorted themselves out but the Luchs platoon with them remained stubbornly stuck. The Leopard 2s move 14” across a wooded area to flank the Scorpions on the objective – something that took Luke by surprise in turn – and proceeded to blow one to kingdom come. The Luchs on the right continued to ineffectively fire at the FV432s whilst contesting the objective on that flank. The British turn saw the Scorpions break off in the face of the oncoming Leopards and head towards some nearby woodland. The Milan’s of the infantry continued to wildly shoot at my right hand platoon of Luchs and the Chieftains without a meaningful target re-positioned slightly to counter the now operational Leopard 1s.

Scorpions move fast but really can’t repel fire power of this magnitude. 

Turn 3 and thank goodness for reserves! Not that the Germans received any but the psychological effect of them being available was a small boost. One of my left-hand Luchs platoon decided to un-bog this turn – the blitzkrieg that I had envisioned not materialising at all! The Leopard 2s swung round to engage the Chieftains whilst remaining within 4” of the objective just in case the Scorpions got frisky again and their fire bailed out a Chieftain. The Leopard 1s fired on the Chieftains too and managed to knock one out – so far the Leopard 1s were definitely ahead! More ineffective Luchs fire on FV432s rounded off the German turn 3 and I prepared myself for the oncoming British storm.

Luke rolled for reserves and managed to get a cheeky roll of six and so he opted to bring on his second platoon of Chieftains, rolling for their arrival point I was dismayed to see that they were rolling on in his left hand corner opposite my Luch platoon. I should definitely loss that platoon but what was more worrying was that they were the only German force on that half of the board! As expected the Luchs exploded in oily balls of flames, the rest of the British shooting passing without note, a combination of cover and poor rolling saving my Leopards.

And likewise Luchs are no match for the arriving Chieftains.

Turn 4 and I finally got some reserves – opting for the Leopard 1s I had held back and rolling for their entry point I was staggered that they were coming on just were I needed them on my right flank. I dashed them up to the raised autobahn to stabilise that flank and remain hidden from enemy fire. The Leopard 2s move off the objective daring the Scorpions out of their wooded hideaway and continued to duel with the Chieftains and the Leopard 1’s bailed out the British CiC but nothing more. The freed Luchs moved up alongside the Leopard 1’s in the wood ready to move out next turn. I made sure that I used the Follow me order this time and a 3+ is much more reliable that a 4+ – who knew!

The British turn and some more light tanks arrived this turn – Scimitars this time – the move on from my left flank to threaten the Luchs and Leopard 1s flank. Luke also reposition his reserve Chieftains by moving them through the town occupied by his infantry. His infantry had no targets so went gone to ground and his Chieftains remounted and continued missing the German panzers and the Scorpions continued loitering near the objective on the left-hand side of my deployment area.

Turn 5 and the German reserves failed to make an appearance this turn so I ploughed on with what I had on the table. My remaining Luchs finally un-bogged and was able to move up with its platoon commander. The Leopard 1s on my right popped up on to the autobahn to engage the Chieftains that were redeploying and the Leopards on my left moved so that their flanks were no longer exposed and gave the Scimitars a volley which knocked out 2 of the British speedsters and bailing another. The Leopard 2s knocked out a Chieftain sitting next to the CiC in the woods and also fired on the column of redeploying Chieftains but causing no damage. In the subsequent morale tests Luke failed both so one of his Chieftain platoons departed as did the newly arrived Scimitars.

The Leopard 1s on the left continue to outperform their bigger brothers by dispatching another British platoon.

The British turn 5 saw some more reserves arrive on the left hand side of the table to me, it was the Swingfires and they deployed in the centre near the objective that the Chieftains had been holding. Luke noted crossly that they had no moving rate of fire so opted to move them into the woodland to give them some cover against the inevitable incoming fire. The end Chieftain swung round to engage the Leopard 1s on the autobahn along with the infantry Milan teams and one Carl Gustav that was in range. The other 2 Chieftains deployed to engage the Leopard 2s sat in the middle of the table now. The firing phase saw the 2 Leopard 1s on the autobahn bailed out but pass their morale check and a Leopard 2 also bailed out, but again the staunch Germans stayed in the fight.

More Leopard 1s catch the British Chieftains re-positioning from the high point of the autobahn.

At the top of turn 6 and I knew that the Brits were now in trouble so I pushed my advantage. Rolling for reserves I got the mandatory platoon and brought on my Gepards. Arriving in the centre I was confident that they could apply some pressure to the Scorpions with their weight of fire alone. I moved the Leopard 1s and the Luch platoon on my left to eliminate the Swingfires before they could be brought into the fray, the Leopard 2s would continue to duel with the Chieftains and the Leopard 1s on my right having remounted decided not to dive back behind the protection of the autobahn bank and continue to slug it out with the re-positioning Chieftains.

The Leopards and Luchs stalk the Swingfire troop on the left.

The German firing phase was conclusive. The Swingfires took 1 kill and 2 bails and fled the table. The Leopard 2s destroyed the lead Chieftain in the town and the Leopard 1s destroyed the end Chieftain which caused a morale check that they promptly failed and fled the table too. The Gepards continued the slaughter gunning down 2 Scorpions and bailing another, again forcing a morale test that Luke failed. Looking back Luke failed every morale test that he was asked to take which greatly contributed to the German success.

Hiding in a wood is a good idea except against 35mm Oerlikon KDA autocannon hedge trimmers.

With a company morale at the start of his turn 6 Luke pensively picked up the dice and rolled. It was a 2, it was a full house of failed morale’s and the British were broken.

So there we have it the first game of Teeny Tiny Team Yankee ends with a glorious German victory. I have some thoughts on the game but I think I’ve rambled on long enough today so we’ll pick that train of thought up next time.

Thanks

Dunc