Monday 12 October 2015

Team Yankee - Airpower Stat Cards

Hello All

After a little break for Great War and a couple of podcast with Phil Yates about Team Yankee we have another stat card post and it's one that will be popular, Air Power!
Now we only have two of the four options (the A-10 and Hind) but these should give you a good idea of what the Cobra and Frogfoot will look like.

We will start with the A-10 and I think you will be surprised by a few things on the stat card.
The first thing to note is the A-10 hits like a normal unit, with a moving ROF (of course as it would crash if it didn't move), Oh and AT 27... AT 27!!! T-72's be afraid, very afraid. 

Also it has a hit on value, this would make you think Air is shot at like any other unit in the game and not your skill rating.
The other thing to note is the air support is you now buy it in strength and not priority, combined with shooting as a normal unit it looks a lot more reliable.

Also the Strike Aircraft rule means it turns up on a 4+ instead of the old dice pool.

Now the Helicopters in the form of the much wanted Hinds.
This looks very similar to what you see in Vietnam. The Hind also has a nasty missile, only AT 23  but thats enough to keep M1's honest.
The Hind also has the option to take a company of infantry with it, also interesting to see that like the A-10 it has a one shot weapon, something we are not use to seeing.

6 for 15 points is going to be a mandatory platoon in all my Soviet lists!

Thanks for reading and come back next week for more Team Yankee goodness.

Ben

16 comments:

  1. Thanks Ben, great to see these. At first glance the range seems short at 8 inches on the gatlings, but I guess that's more to do with there attack profile....

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  3. (sorry for the deleted post)

    Interesting stats. I wonder what the different mechanics are after seeing these stats.
    And the Hind stats just beg me to go to the d......... eeeh Red side.

    By the way, nice previews the last few weeks. I really looking forwards to the monday TY info.

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  4. Why no frogger? The comparison would be nice. I got informations from Essen: You pay for six SU25 the same Price as for 4 A-10, but to hit his 3+ and save is only 4+. I don´t know the strike aircraft value.

    It seems that there will be no air to air combat between fighters, because they leave at the end of the round.

    What me wonders: AH-1 Cobra has fire stats for halted and moving. And the hind has no stats for halted!? By the way- the AH-1 has a higher AT-Value against helicoper. But the hint has a better save.

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    1. There are no hover stats for the Hind because to quote a rotor-head friend of mine "It ____ing hovers slightly better than a loaded Transit Van!" Ithink all of the western pilots who got to evaluate one were shocked by it's poor hover.

      Faman

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  5. Thanks for these previews very helpful!

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  6. Along with the infantry stats, this was probably the preview I wanted to see most.

    There's a few things that I definitely didn't see coming. I'm surprised that the rocket pods are one-use only, it seems odd to me that they are while the anti-tank missiles, which the Hind carries less of, have an unlimited ammunition capacity. Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not complaining about being able to fire anti-tank missiles all game long, it just seems weird to me that one wing-mounted rocket weapon is unlimited use while the other is one-shot only.

    I'm also surprised at the fixed weapons loads. Given the nature of modern combat aircraft I was expecting a largely blank basic armament with a whole bunch of options for different ordinance (a little bit like how crisis suits work in Warhammer 40,000 I suppose), rather than a fixed loadout. Perhaps later on when the game is further developed we'll see options for alternate payloads like 80mm rockets for the Hind, gun-pods, free-fall bombs and air-to-air missiles?

    At any rate the actual profiles are about what I was expecting, the classic loadouts for each one that are most common in popular culture, and the unit profiles are a good continuation of what we've already seen, with the Warthog having better training and more raw anti-tank firepower, while the Hind has better morale and more versatility with its better salvo attack and transport capacity.

    Now I just need to wait for Battlefront to release some rules for VDV air-assault lists so that I can field more than 6 Hinds at a time...

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  7. Also, I forgot to mention this in the previous comment, but I believe celebrations are in order, because this marks the historical appearance of the first American unit that DOESN'T have Thermal Imaging.

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  8. Panther-Fan - Hinds don't make pop-up / hovering attacks like most western gunships - loaded, their ability to hover is marginal at best, and they pretty much need forward movement to stay airborne. Soviet doctrine was always to make attack runs with them - they only started firing from the hover when they got the Havoc and Hokum.

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  9. The fixed weapon loads are surely because of the goal of simlifying the rules. It would also be harder to balance at these low points cost I guess.

    In reality I think you wouldnt know what target you would have beforehand most of the times, not in a support role anyway. In game I assume this forces a balance? And a multi purpose use for your heli's and planes can come in handy.

    That the rocket pods are one-use only, again balance I suppose. Otherwise, what would I take arty for when I can have a flying bombardment squadron?

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    1. Can't shoot back at well positioned arty. Helicopters and jets are subject to a lot of .50 cal and VADS and the Soviets have a definite advantage with AA. Also points can be a factor as well.

      We'll have to wait and see how the artillery cards look. And what the rules are for firing them.

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    2. Not to mention that artillery would presumably hit harder (it makes sense that a salvo of 122mm or 155mm projectiles would be more destructive than a salvo of 57mm ones) and be able to fire specialist munitions like smoke or possibly chemical shells, making it better able to crack open hardened targets and support the rest of the army in more ways. So there would still be reasons to take artillery over air support.

      Of course, in the case of the Soviets at least, it seems like it's a perfectly valid option to take both, since artillery units can be integrated with each formation to free up divisional support options for air cover.

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  10. I do have a question about the planes, is the weapon usage of the plane the same as in v3 where you have to pick which weapon to use each turn ? or will it be like helicopters in Vietnam where you can shoot everything?

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  11. Interested to know the benefit of buying multiple aircraft - does 4 A10's, in effect give you 4 'attacks' per game, with each attack being a choice of 1 weapon system, but only ever being allowed to use CBUs once?

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  12. Beautiful and ballanced , thanks for the update guys. When about models are expected to be in production line????

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