ing cool tbh … yeah, could do with some dusting up (however, considering we spent most of our time cleaning and P&O'ing them …).
I know the game's been out for a while and we're getting a late start, but TMP is putting together some starter forces for Team Yankee.
We're starting with the Banner's Boys boxed set, which Battlefront was kind enough to send us. As the online catalog states:
TUSAB1 Bannon’s Boys (Army Deal)
Contains five plastic M1 Abrams Tanks, two plastic AH-1 Cobra Attack Helicopters, one Special Objective, 2x decal sheets, five unit cards and one template.
Captain Bannon was the lead character in the original Team Yankee novel. In the novel, he commands a team comprising two platoons of armor and some infantry. In this boxed set, he gets tanks and helicopters!
We asked our good friends at Old Guard Painters to assemble and paint the models for us. So we mailed the package off to Ukraine, and now the finished models are ready for battle.
Helicopters
One of our decalsheets got lost somewhere along the line, so I'm showing you the decaled model – the other one looks fine too, just less colorful.
The kit comes with magnets, allowing the rotor and flight base to be detached from the model.
Having the rotor be attached by magnet works excellently. If the delicate rotor gets bumped on the tabletop, it should either spin out of the way or detach itself. You can pose the rotor any way you want. And when you need to put the model away, detaching the rotor makes storage a lot easier.
The flight stand works similarly, except that in addition to the magnet, the stand has tabs which fit into the model to prevent the helicopter from spinning on the stand.
For one of our two models, the flight stand fits perfectly. The other model fits too tightly on the stand, and could use some "improvement."
Tanks
There are five identical tank kits in this set.
I asked the painting service to build one tank with an exposed commander (representing Bannon), and the other tanks with closed hatches.
The turret slides into place on top of the hull, and can be rotated and posed.
I haven't had enough experience to tell if the turret pin is strong enough to take wargaming abuse.
In the novel, Bannon has tank 66. On my tabletop, he'll have to make do with 12.
Objective Marker
The Objective Marker is a one-piece resin model which is unique to this boxed set.
It is intended to take no role in the game, other than being something for the Soviet player to capture.
Bannon has several M113s in his team (in the novel), but I don't remember this variant being one of them.
Bannon's Boys
So now Bannon's Boys are ready for the tabletop, and we look forward to seeing what Battlefront sends us next (hopefully, some Soviets!).