Review: Battlefront Fast Food Restaurant.

Today I un-box one of Battlefronts new Battlefield in a Box (BiaB) Team Yankee buildings - The Fast Food Restaurant or McPizza King.

The building is available on the Battlefront website for US$40 or AU$59 from my local store.

The building comes in the now very familiar BiaB outer box. Like always, it is fully painted, fully assembled and ready to use.

Ironically, unlike your favourite 1980's burger, this packaging is without polystyrene. The packaging is limited to a cardboard wrap and a lot of bubble wrap. A minor quibble but I like to store my buildings in their original box and this building doesn't really have one.

The building is simple enough, a whitewashed exterior with a white-lined red roof. The building is an amalgam of iconic US fast food joints. 

It is great that Battlefront are supporting Team Yankee with more modern buildings and terrain. This certainly fits the bill. I like that this can stand alone or be part of a series of other buildings. It wont work on a WW2 board but will look fine on a Team Yankee board with WW2 buildings.

Who remembers those hideous orange tiles?

As an extra, Battlefront have released a PDF to add window and other details to the building. The PDF is here.

This is a large building and will certainly draw attention on the table. It is nicely detailed and would look even better with a parking lot. However, at sixty dollars, it is a fairly large investment and the price is in line with the large building catagory. I think this is a good option for a Team Yankee regular. For a FOW regular who plays the occasional game of Team Yankee, I think the warehouse is probably a better place to start as it can be used on the WW2 table.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed the review. Feel free to leave feedback.

V4 Launch and Sabre Tournament - Mega Games Penrith

Last weekend at Mega-Games Penrith, the Panzer Angriff club and the store offered a V4 launch event. The club setup a desert table with fully painted forces to demonstrate the game to anyone who wanted to play. Every time I checked there was a game going. What a great way to learn the new game!

British demo army

DAK demo army.

The Panzer Angriff guys organised for a copy of the new DAK and Brit books to be signed by the BF design team. Everyone that purchased something went into the draw to win one. I was lucky enough to win the British book! Lucky me!

New V4 books and cards ready on the demo table.

The new MW rules, the new free books, some of the new accessories and the box sets were on offer for those keen to get into the V4 desert stuff early.

Demo table

The store also hosted the annual Sabre Late War event. 18 players turned out for 5 games of LW to say goodbye to V3.

Mega Games playing area.

After 2 days of play, Scott lifted the perpetual plaque.

Swashbuckling Scott.

Canadian Rams

Mike and Geoff dancing during a quiet moment.

Ross and Nathan

Mitch's cool fortified Germans.

One of several very nice snow tables.

6 pounders

AVREs. No they didn't get to fire their main gun.

Brits advancing

Volksturm on the defense.

I hope you enjoyed coverage of the event.

Review: Battlefront Large Desert Building (BB134)

Today I review the Battlefront (BF) Battlefield in a Box Large Desert Building.

You will recall from my Not a News Years Resolution post and my Previous Mosque Posts 1 and Post 2, that I am working on my first desert table. I want to have it ready in time to throw myself headlong into some MW gaming as part of the v4 reboot.

With that in mind, I recently picked up some more desert buildings. I am pretty sure that this building has been around for a while and has simply been reproduced. However, I might have this completely wrong. What I can confirm is that these are available on the Battlefront website for US$26.

The packaging is the usual BF standard. The cardboard box has a picture of the contents. Inside is a foam box with a cut out for the building and the well. The building is in 3 pieces and the well 1. All pieces made it to me free of damage.

The pieces are the usual resin. The finish of the outside of the building is reminiscent of the other pieces in the desert range. Again, like the Mosque pieces, there are battle scars on the outside. 2 sets of roof pieces can be removed to allow stands to be placed inside and on top of the building. The building is covered in little touches that really set the piece off such as stair cases, barrels, cases and battle damage. Taking off the roof pieces, the interior is all brown. There is no finishing to the interior walls or floor. No big deal for a wargaming piece.

The well is a nice little vignette. It could go virtually anywhere on the table. Just like similarly sized European fountains in the walls box, this piece will add some colour to the table.

From a gaming point of view, this set will be great. The ability to put troops inside is to be the 1^st criteria for a building. After that it needs to look good and it does. Finally, this came out of the box table ready. What is not to like? Well done Battlefront – another winner.

I hope you enjoyed this review!

Team Yankee - Hall of Heroes Battle Day

Today, the Hall of Heroes store in Sydney played host to the Team Yankee battle day. This was to be a 3 player-per-side total war game to showcase the new rules. For those interested, the player pack is here.

Daddy day care meant I aimed to get there after the deployment, watch a few turns and head back. Given it was to be 37 degrees Celsius today in Sydney - that is 99 degrees Fahrenheit yanks, it seemed a good day for a gaming store visit.

I don't have an army but was offered a command when it turned out the guys were a player short. This was to be my first game of Team Yankee! I was lucky enough to run some Soviets. The game was to be 2 Soviet armies (Afgansty and Motor Rifles) against an Australian and West German force.

Here is the table set up for the game. It is 12 foot by 6 foot.

The 12x6 foot table with forces being assembled.

12 Hinds.

Spoilers, it is going to be a 18 Hind day! Above are the first 12 ready to fly.

Hospital.

Above is a nice hospital. A massive terrain piece that doesn't seem so big on a 12x6 foot table!

Of course, you cannot have a hospital without the inevitable overpriced hospital packing. As usual, all spots are taken.

Hospital Parking.

The road bisecting the table.

More air options.

T72s ready to roll out.

Soviet motor rifles.

I was given command of the above soviet motor rifles as part of my force. I also had 6 hinds and 2 units of T72s.

West Germans.

And with that, the game was underway.

Motor Rifles on the objective.

The soviets spearhead down the road. Well, until it was realised the scenario rules disallowed spearhead.

Spearhead!

Nicely painted soviets

The table was scattered with vehicles and nicely constructed vignettes. Below is a truck dragging some wire or cable.

Logistics stops for no war!

In turn 2 and my first dice roll of the game, I took 2 BMP shots at some distant Leopard IIs. Result, dead Leopard. I like this game!

Boom - Brewed up Leopard II.

On the left flank, with the 12 hinds arriving from reserve, the lurking 6 hinds decided to also hit the table. The target, 4 Marders. A brave Hind was lost in the AA fire!

Flight of the Hinds.

Close up

Result -Four destroyed Marders.

Meanwhile on the right flank, The shilkas advance to take some shots on enemy choppers. However they are quickly dealt with by Leopard Is. Despite the early loss of a Leopard II, the T72 are staying in cover for the moment.

Destroyed Shilkas.

Afgansty infantry advancing in the center of the table.

With that, real life called and I had to head home. Hopefully someone will post the result of the game and I will share it here.

I enjoyed my introduction to Team Yankee. From the little I played, the game flowed smoothly, this will encourage me even more to get my force assembled. Thanks to Lachlan, Ralph, Brian, Colin and Victor for allowing me to play.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and coverage of the game day.