Hello All
Welcome to the final post in the series about the Leopard Unit cards. Today we are going to look at Air Support, Anti Air and Tank Destroyers.
First up is the PAH Helicopter, wile this lacks the number of weapon systems the Cobra and the Hind have, it’s one weapon looks very effective at AT 23.
Next up is the unit I have been waiting for, the Tornado. This seems more anti-infantry/light tanks than the A-10 and Frogfoot, but looks pretty sweet :-).
The first of the three Anti-Air units is the Gepard. This looks like it will put out a surprising amount of AA and will keep BMP hordes on their toes.
The Roland is the West Germans Rocket AA, with 3 shots and a very long range.
And then we have the infantry AA with the Fliegerfaust Gruppe. This seems on par with the Soviet infantry upgrade.
The First Tank destroyer is the Jaguar 1, it looks like is based on the Leopard 1 hull and has a very nasty AT 23 HOT missile.
The Jaguar 2 is similar to the 1 but with a slightly worse AT value.
That’s it for today. In the next week or so we hope to bring you some unboxings, a review of the book in full, some painting posts and a podcast chatting about the book in full. So please keep your eyes peeled.
Thanks Ben
Interesting. I was expecting the Tornado to be the ECR version to combat the Soviet SAMs.
I think the issue with that is that the SA-13, with a “range only” radar would be fairly down the priority list (though the supporting radar unit – not in the game – would no doubt receive a HARM) and most Wild Weasel missions would be in support of strike packages of high value targets rather than ‘line of contact’ (but the sliding scale of FoW battlefield does provide some scope to get around that).
Not that I *wouldn’t* want to see Wild Weasel in the game though! It would make for an interesting dynamic.
I think the main reason why they didn’t is simply due to thematic reasons. Battlefront seems to be giving priority in the first release waves to the really well-known ‘classic’ units of the era where possible, and I think the Tornado with a big MW-1 bomb dispenser is probably slightly more iconic than the ECR version. I imagine it’s the same reason why they released the T-72 first and not the comparatively more obscure T-80 or T-64, and the ZSU-23-4 and SU-25 rather than the Tunguska and MIG-27.
The other reason would probably be that it complements the ATGM-only PAH better, and gives the West German forces an airborne salvo weapon (which they would otherwise be without for the moment). Speaking of which, one thing that strikes me as interesting is that this seems to be the first example of an aircraft with a multiple-use salvo weapon. While the rocket pods and cluster bombs so far have been one-use only, it looks like the Tornado will be able to zoom around dropping salvo templates all game long. Combined with the very nasty weapon stats already mentioned, I imagine this will mean Tornadoes are going to become a priority target for opposing AA units.
No way! That Tornado is AWESOME against tanks. Since it is a Salvo weapon it is against top armor.
So a T72 or M1 can tie it on a 6 only! You do have to go through all the fun of ranging in, but it is the big template and it hits top armor. It is nasty and pretty much an auto-include imho.
The Luftwaffe Tornado ECR version didn’t exist until 1990
That also doesn’t help the case 😀
My mistake, for some reason I keep thinking Team Yankee is 1990 not 1985.
I see the special rule ‘Forward Defence’ on the Jaguars, but couldn’t find it in the rulebook. Probably a faction special rule.