GDW Team Yankee CRT w/Modifications!

 A simple "thought experiment" that started more than two years ago regarding "miniaturizing" the GDW Team Yankee "First Battle" system rules is wrapping up!  THis year's theme really has to be minis/boardgame crossover.

As some of you may remember, I tinkered around with the GDW boardgame to make it "feel" a little bit more like a miniatures game.  I added a "To Hit" roll and also tinkered with the QRS before deciding I needed to do alot more research into the topic.  The ultimate issue, though, was the 1D6 QRS which didnt feel like I was playing a minis game at all.  Even making it 2D6 never felt quite right.

Enter Fistful of TOWs, which is, if I may be so bold, the reincarnation of Team Yankee in miniatures form.  But what if I didn't want to reincarnate it?  What if I just wanted to play the game but make it feel a bit more like a minis game?  (with the option, of course, to translate it over to the tabletop). 

The Fistful of TOWs rules - which are great - but in this case not what I'm looking for

 After reading FFT3, which compares the attack and armor differences, I knew I was on to something.  (hats off to Darren, the "Duc de Gobin" also, who playtested these modifications and offered lots of friendly advice and thoughts along the way).  Adding a "To Hit" roll was solid, but I could wanted to unravel the CRT from Team Yankee to make it feel like a minis game.  FFT did this but changed the outcomes a bit (as well as the armor and attack values).

Updating the Combat Results Table

Instead of comparing the difference in attack to defense strength like FFT and other microarmor games, I kept the ratios from Team Yankee, but I was sneaky about it.  I laid everything out in a QRS so you dont have to compute ratios.  You just cross reference your attack strength with the defense strength and you arrive at the number of D6 you must roll for effects.

The effects from Team Yankee's original CRT are as follows:

No Effect / Pinned (infantry) / Damaged (AFV) / Destroyed

I kept those effects to remain aligned with the intent from the boardgame but, similar to FFT, you roll a number of D6 to get your effects - the worst result takes priority.  THe number of D6 you roll is based off of the ratio of attack strength to defense strength (so a 3:1 ratio you would roll 3D6.) looking for the following results (very similar, but not completely similar to FFT).  FFT has the target pass a quality check on a roll of 4 or 5, which, if failed results in the target's destruction.  Frank Chadwick's original CRT has a vehicle as damaged and infantry as pinned.

• 6: Destroyed 
• 5: Damaged/Pinned
• 4: Pinned (Infantry Only)
• 1-3: No effect

THis is all well and good but how does it work out?

Cross referencing a BMP2 firing its missile (Attack 22) at an M1 (Defense 10), you cross reference the 22 row with the 10 defense column.  The resulting number is "2".  So you roll 2D6, looking for "6" to destroy, or "5" to damage.  The QRS also contains the original vehicle and troop values from the game so you could, if you were familiar with the rules, play it all off of this QRS.

The Combat Results Table from my modified Team Yankee game

In many cases, you're still only going to be rolling 1D6, or 1D6 minus 1 which was the case in a recent game but it is alot of fun.  A T-72 shooting at an M113 is going to roll 6 dice and is most likely going to destroy it.  A T-72 shooting at an M1 is going to roll 2 dice up close (double attack strength), 1 die from standard range, and 1D6 minus 1 from long range.  Easy peasy!

If you'd like to check out my modified QRS for GDW's Team Yankee (and probably the entire First Battle series) click here.  My aim is to play a scenario from the Team Yankee board game and try these out.

Here are some pics of an experimental battle occurring at the "disgruntledfusilier academy of wargame sciences":

They came on in the same, old way....

TOW Missile destroys the Soviet reconnaissance BMP (6 result)

This T72 is damaged from a TOW strike at long range.  The TOW had to make a "To Hit" roll in this case of 4+.  The TOW attack value is 24 and the T72 defense value is 6.  THat is a "4" on the CRT so I roll 4 dice to see what happens.  In this case, "damaged" or a "5" was the best result I could get.

The valley of death!  Interestingly, playing this game made me want to play more Battlegroup: NORTHAG

American Battle Positions

Finally - Captain Bannon's Tank during the First Battle! 

So there you have it.  The end to what has been a very fun and thought provoking project.  I'm keen to give this a go using hexes and then again without hexes to see how it plays, but I will be honest - it plays very much like a miniatures game now but still holds true to the designer's intentions (in my humble opinion) by retaining the values of the original counters, and the results from the original CRT.

That's it for now.  A quick, light hearted game testing my modified QRS and CRT.  Putting some more Napoleonics on the table soon, and making some "progress" with painting the Epic figures but you'll have to wait until WIP Wednesday for more on that topic!