Hail To The Chief: Building a Team Yankee Force with the British Chieftain with Mitchell Landrum When Team Yankee was first released, I initially held off. But having now gotten into Team Yankee I have been exploring my options as far as armies are concerned. When I saw the release of the British forces in Iron Maiden, I was quite excited. As an American, the only thing that I would be more excited for is the M1A1. I figured that a Chieftain Armoured Squadron was the way to go. The Chieftain's big gun, combined with heavy frontal armour reminds me of one of my favourite World War Two tanks, the M4A1 Sherman! Not really, I meant the Jagdpanther. But the Chieftain does remind me of the legendary tank destroyers of the 1940s. Learn more about the Chieftain from Iron Maiden here...

The Chieftain is slow and heavy and can deal serious damage from a standstill. But the biggest weakness of the Chieftain is its drop in the rate of fire when on the move. The Chieftain has to pick a spot, sit there, and deal out its punishment. If properly deployed, Chieftains can create a killing zone that will destroy anything it faces. With an Anti-tank 22; Firepower 2+ gun, it is the literal Finger of Death, reliably killing anything it points at. Along with such a powerful gun, the Chieftain has an excellent frontal armour rating of 17 (18 with the Stillbrew armour package). This allows it to bounce a decent percentage of incoming shots from the T-72, and makes it invulnerable to portable anti-tank weapons and the guns of BMP-1 and BMP-2. AT-3s coming out of BMP-1s have a very low chance of hurting them, and AT-5s out of BMP-2s don’t do much better. Chieftains even have a chance of blocking AT-6s out of a Hind.

My gaming group likes to play games in the 50-point range. It saves us all some cash while still providing entertaining games. However, I am going to include a base 50-point army and then examine some different options with a 25-point and 50-point increase.

50 point Chieftain Armoured Squadron Chieftain Armoured Squadron HQ   with one Chieftain. 6 points Chieftain Armoured Troop   with two Chieftains. 12 points Chieftain Armoured Troop   with two Chieftains. 12 points FV432 Mechanised Platoon   with four GPMG teams with 66mm anti-tank; three Carl Gustav anti-tank teams; one 2" mortar team. 7 points with two Milan missile teams. 2 points Spartan Blowpipe SAM Section   with four Spartan (Blowpipe) 6 points Harrier Close Air Support Flight   with two Harriers 5 points Total Points: 50 points

The 50-point baseline is pretty limiting, considering 30 points must be spent of Chieftains. I chose to bring a full infantry platoon, because it packs a lot of punch, especially with those extra Milan anti-tank missile teams. The Blowpipes are a necessity due to the high level of air assets the Warsaw Pact forces bring. The list rounds off with two Harriers. These bad boys can deal a lot more damage than you would think. We all know that player who brings as many BMP-1s as he possibly can, and how hard it can be to stop them all. The Harrier solves this problem. Bringing cluster bombs with an anti-tank rating of 8 hitting a top armour of 1 means no saves, it's just like having a huge salvo bombardment, but if it hits it is guaranteed to hurt.

First 25 point Addition Lynx Airmobile Company HQ   with one SLR rifle team & two GPMG teams. 3 points Lynx Airmobile Platoon   with four GPMG teams with 66mm anti-tank; three Milan anti-tank teams; one 2" mortar team & three Lynx. 7 points Lynx Airmobile Platoon   with four GPMG teams with 66mm anti-tank; three Milan anti-tank teams; one 2" mortar team & three Lynx. 7 points Lynx Milan Platoon   with six Milan anti-tank teams & two Lynx. 8 points Total Points: 25 points

Next, I would add a good-sized Gordon Highlanders company. They are a fun and exciting new type of company for Team Yankee and pack a serious punch. Milan missiles for anti-tank; GPMG to lay down a serious amount of fire; very tough in assaults all combine to provide a solid base for a quick, hard-hitting anti-tank unit.

Second 25 point Addition Chieftain Armoured Troop   with two Chieftains. 12 points M109 Field Battery   with four M109s.                                                                                                                                   10 points Tracked Rapier SAM Section   with two Tracked Rapiers. 3 points Total Points: 25 points

Finally, I round out with more general support. Not much needs to be said here, as more tanks, artillery, and some anti-aircraft are pretty basic. Thanks for reading, I hope you can learn something from this, or at least get an idea of what some other people are doing. ~ Mitchell.