Thoughts on the Warsaw Pact lists for Team Yankee

Now that the new Czech and Polish lists have been published for Team Yankee, I thought I would take a look through the four Warsaw Pact nationalities that are now available. On the surface they are all very similar, but there are some differences that will affect the way they play on the table.

Infantry

The easiest comparison between the lists is on a BMP1 company, being an option in all four . All four nations have the same unit structure and a To Hit stat of 3+. All have a different combination of skill/motivation stats, and there are a couple of minor weapons stat differences as well.

Warsaw Pact Infantry Unit Stats

	Soviet	East German	Czechoslovak	Polish
Courage	4+	4+	5+	3+
Morale	3+	3+	4+	4+
Rally	3+	4+	5+	3+
Skill	5+	4+	4+	4+
Assault	5+	5+	5+	5+
Counterattack	3+	4+	5+	3+
Weapons Difference	FP5+ AK-74 teams	-	-	FP 5+ AKM teams, No RPG-18s or AGS-17
Mid Size Price	14pts	14pts	10pts	16pts

To summarise what this means on the table, we have:

• Soviets: hard to break, rally easily, good at clearing out entrenched infantry due to their ROF3 FP5+ AK teams and good counterattack rating, but poor at skill-based orders.
• East Germans: hard to break, but otherwise average.
• Czechs: poor in assaults, don't rally well, but are significantly cheaper.
• Poles: Aggressive due to passing Follow Me orders on a 3+ and having FP 5+. Hard to keep pinned, reasonable in assaults, but expensive and lacking the AT14 RPGs and AGS-17 grenade launchers of the other nations.

In all cases, you need numbers due to the poor To Hit and Assault ratings. A minimum sized company only gives you four teams with Assault 5, and the rest either Assault 6 or Heavy Weapons teams. Full size companies seem quite unwieldy, particularly as they result in units of  12 BMPs running around, so the mid-size two platoon option seems optimal.

Looking at the transport for the infantry companies, the Soviets are the only nation that can take a battalion of BMP2. The others get the option of a company of BMP2s as part of a BMP1 battalion. The Soviets also have the most flexibility for transporting the infantry supporting their tank battalions.

Warsaw Pact Tank Battalion Infantry Support

	Soviet	East German	Czechoslovak	Polish
T-64	Any	-	-	-
T-72/T-72M	Any	BMP1	BMP1/BMP2	BMP1/BMP2
T-55	-	BTR	BTR/OT-64	BTR/OT-64
T-62M	Any	-	-	-

My favourite infantry option is still the Afgantsy, with Assault 4+ and a consistent 3+ across all motivation stats. If running a BMP company, the choice between nations will be influenced by game size: I would only run Czechs in larger games where I can make the most of their lower price, while probably favouring the Soviets in smaller games due to their Firepower and motivation.


Still the best Warsaw Pact infantry, limited only by Formation size

Tanks
A major difference between the Soviet and other lists is the tank technology. The Soviets have the better equipment, while the others have the lower-quality T-72M and T-55AM2. This has changed slightly with the release of T-62M cards, giving the Soviets a cheaper option (six for the price of four T-72, or seven for the price of four T-64). It's an interesting call: a few extra dice that are almost as effective as those of the more expensive tanks, but vulnerable to AT19. I'm not yet sure what my opinion on it is.

Warsaw Pact Tank Stats

	T-64	T-72	T-72M	T-55	T-62M
Front	17	16	15	14	14
Side	9	8	8	9	9
Top	2	2	2	2	2
AT	22	22	21	17	21
Tactical	14"	10"	10"	10"	10"
Terrain Dash	16"	16"	16"	14"	14"
Crosscountry Dash	24"	24"	24"	20"	20"
Cross	3+	3+	3+	4+	4+
HEAT Protection	BDD Armour	BDD Armour	Bazooka Skirts	Bazooka Skirts	Bazooka Skirts
Point of Difference	Advanced Stabiliser, Brutal	Brutal	Brutal	Slow Firing	No Stabiliser
Optional Extra	AT-8 Songster	-	-	-	AT-10 Stabber

The T-64 is much more effective while only being slightly more expensive than the T-72, so would be my preference for Soviet lists. I haven't used them, but on paper I don't rate the T-55. Sure you can get huge numbers, but unless your fighting Leopard 1s or AMX-30s, they need to get into the flanks to do any damage, and Slow Firing really hampers them there. My pick of the bunch is probably the Volksarmee T-72M for the overall package of armour, gun, price, and motivation stats.

A good all-round performer, at three for 7pts, then 4pts each.

Support

The Soviets have the most complete range of support, with the Storm, Acacia, and BMP2 scouts, plus the option of having tank and infantry companies as support units. The East Germans are hardest done by, not having the Gecko or Acacia due to the order of product releases, despite having used both.

The support unit most obviously missing is the towed mortar battery of eight 120mm tubes that each Motor Rifle Battalion included. For some inexplicable reason Team Yankee occurs in a universe where mortars do not exist unless they're bolted to an M113. This lack of cheap and historically plentiful indirect fire support is a fundamental flaw in the lists.

Looking at the artillery options that they do have, all of the lists have access to a regimental battery of 2S1 Carnations, plus support from a battery of heavy artillery (except the poor East Germans), and a battery of rocket launchers.

Warsaw Pact Artillery Stats

	2S1 Carnation	2S3 Acacia	DANA	BM-21 Hail	RM-70
Front	2	2	1	-	1
Side	1	1	1	-	1
Top	1	1	1	-	0
Artillery AT	4	4	4	3	3
Artillery FP	3+	2+	2+	4+	4+
Direct Range	24"	16"	24"	-	-
Direct AT	21	14	14	-	-
Direct FP	2+	1+	1+	-	-
Point of Difference	No AA MG	Optional Krasnopol	Autoloader	Salvo template, No AA MG	Salvo template

In the small 45pt games we are playing a the moment, I wouldn't take any of these. Dual-purpose everything is absolutely the name of the game there, and artillery is too specialized and sinks too many points to be viable. Far better to take an extra tank or two. I've tried a trio of Carnations in a small game before, but I lost them to infantry due to their lack of a self-defence MG. At 80pts I would look to take a full battery of six of something. Infantry hasn't been a huge part of the local meta so far, but it will come, and at that point I'll need to consider whether a second battery can be justified.

The most intriguing artillery option is the DANA. The Autoloader rule gives them a -1 to hit, which, combined with Skill 4, FP2+, and a further -1 for being in a unit of six, makes them a great antidote to Milan spam: veterans are being hit on 2s, at best 3s if they are gone to ground. The DANA's performance will be even better, edging ahead of the French AuF1 and British eight-gun M109 batteries, with the expected changes for next year's 2nd Edition. Rocket batteries will also become better, and it will be an interesting decision between a 10" template with FP4+, or a 6" template with FP 2+. Compared to how ineffective I see it as being now, artillery will become a thing to fear and will jump up the list of priority targets to be second only to air defence assets.

Arguably the best artillery in the game

For anti-aircraft, the Gecko is potent at ROF 3 and FP 3+, but with the advent of the French 'Gun Slinger' Gazelle they're terribly vulnerable, and the points are probably better spent on twice the number of Gophers.

Gun Slinger: Shoots before AA.

All of the other support options are pretty similar: Hinds, Frogfeet, Spandrels, and BMP1 or BRDM scouts, with the same variations in skill and motivation as discussed earlier. It would have been nice for the other nations to have the option of MiG23s or SU22s rather than being limited to Soviet SU-25s, but that's really just cosmetic. The only really differences would be worse save and a slightly less effective cannon, for a small points break.

Summary

I couldn't quite understand why the internet seemed so keen on more Warsaw Pact lists, given how similar the equipment was going to be. But now that the books are out, I appreciate the new models that have come with them, and the way that we have been given variety in the unit stats to create a number of distinct choices:

• Do I want the better tech options? Then I have to go with the Soviets.
• Do I want to build a list around the most effective (and best looking) artillery piece? It's a choice between the Czechs and Poles.
• Do I want to pay a premium for an aggressive list? Then it's the Poles.
• Do I want numbers, on the understanding that they won't hang around once they start to take damage? That would be the Czechs.
• Or if I am happy with middle of the road stats and prices, at the cost of a reduced variety of units to choose from, then it's East Germans.

I can seriously see myself playing lists from all of these nations from time to time. I definitely plan to get a couple of boxes of DANAs in the near future, but don't think I'll go down the path of T-55s, T-62s, or BTRs. A little way further over the horizon is 2nd Edition, which is likely to move the timeline along and open up an even wider range of options than we currently have, and I am looking forward to that.