Great War US Brett's Brawlers (GUSAB01) Spotlight

Hello All

A few days ago we looked at the French Clavery's Chargers army deal, today we are going to look at the U.S. Brett's Brawlers (GUSAB01) box set.

The box set comes with 6 platoons with includes a HQ with 2x 37mm mle 1916 guns, French Flame-thrower Section with 3x Flame-throwers, 2x Rifle Platoons, Machine-gun Platoon with 4x Hotchkiss mle 1914 HMG teams, Light Tank Platoon with 2x Renault FT-17 (37mm) and 2x Renault FT-17 (MG) tanks, and a French Char d’Assault Platoon with 1x Schneider CA. Tank.

My set only came with enough bits for two Flame-thrower bases, this is a
mistake you will get three.

The first thing I noticed looking at the US and French army deals (and the rules to be fair) is that both armies look very similar. This is down to the fact the US were equipped and trained with French Doctrines and equipment having come late to the fight.

Options wise the army can either be Confident Trained or Confident Veteran, that means this box set is either around 1400pts to 1600pts. You will only have five platoons once the Flame-throwers are attached out so you will want to pick up another platoon as soon as possible. Unlike the French the Americans are better being aggressive as they re-roll failed test to unpin. for this reason I think you should look to add more tanks to get to the 6th platoon.

The infantry models are very nice, the detail is very crisp and there was minimal flash. I also think lessons were learnt from the British and German box sets as there are three officer models (instead of the two the previous sets got) and the Grenadier Rifle teams are a lot stronger at the join between the grenade and the rifle (you still need to be careful mind).

I painted them with US Drab which was then washed and re highlighted to finish it. I choose to use
khaki on the webbing to there was more of a contrast to the Drab. Finally the Helmets were Russian Uniform.

The tanks were a little bit of a mixed bag, while the experience was mostly positive I had issues with the join on the FT-17's between tracks and the hull. The join is very small and this caused issues with the strength of the join. So I ended up sticking the tanks to bases to add a lot of stability to the tank. The Schneider by contrast was a breeze, it just needed two half tracks added to the hull and a few MG's.

Painting wise I decided to paint the FT-17's as US tanks and after doing some research I found some were painted plain green. This makes it very easy to see they are US tanks and not french. Robin painted the Schneider for me and he did a full guide on this post about the French box set.

Overall if you are looking to collect Great War US this is a great value box set being only £65, but I feel the French set is a better starting point to an army. The FT-17's I fear might be a marmite unit and while I will be trying them out in my lists they are a lot of points. If you get the set you will want to get a few addition platoons depending on your play style, defensive I would look to add Trench Mortars and Heavy Artillery, aggressive maybe another Schneider or a Saint-Chamond Tank (probably the Saint-Chamond as a) it looks cool and b) i think you will need the higher AT in case you come across any German Tanks).

Thank for reading

Ben