This year at Salute, Battlefront had advance copies of the new WW2 skirmish game TANKS by Gale Force 9 along with blister packs of their Wave 1 Tanks.TANKS is an easy-to-learn, quick-play, small-scale game, where you take command of a tank platoon, seeking to destroy your opponent’s tanks and secure victory. TANKS is a flexible game with lots of ways to create a finely-tuned army that fits your play style.
In a similar vein to Star Wars X-Wing, TANKS lets you choose your forces each with a points cost that you can then supplement with crew and equipment. Each Tank has an Initiative value Firepower rating, Armour value and Hull points very similar to Initiative, Shields, Attack etc in X-Wing.
So what do you get in the TANKS starter set. The box is thin card but very nicely illustrated and contains the following components.
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| Box - Just bigger than A4 |
Complete components inside the box
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| All the components |
Rule Book: The Rule book. Thin and very basic rules outlining the make up of the stat cards, movement, firing, defense, cover and building your Tank platoon. The book is beautifully illustrated and contains numerous examples of gameplay as well as a quick reference sheet on the reverse and assembly guides for the tanks included in the starter set.
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| Ruleboook |
Tank Sprues: These are coloured plastic (Green for USA and Dull Yellow for Germans) and identical to the plastic tanks already available for Flames of War. Included are 2 x Sherman's for the USA which can be assembled as either a 75mm gun version or a 76mm. As these are identical to the Flames of War vehicles, numerous components are available to adapt the look of your tank i.e uparmoured attachedments, 105mm gun etc. Extreamly well detailed and go together very simply. 1 x Panther for the Germans. Another great kit and this can be built either as a Panther or a Jagdpather Tank Destroyer. Again extra components are included on the sprues.
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| Sherman Sprues |
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| Panther Sprue |
Card Terrain and Tokens: Card terrain is nicely illustrated thick card stock and includes 2 x woods and 4 x buildings. Tokens are in the same thick card stock and included different value damage/destroyed counters, speed counters, objective counters, identity markers for USA, German, Russian and British factions and 2 x Maneuver arrows.
Cards: Standard size, glossy stat cards, smaller sized critical damage and crew/equipment cards. All very well illustrated and printed.
Overall, for £18 for the cost of the Starter set, I think this is a fantastic little game which could be expanded exponentially and I have already obtained a number of extra Tanks which were released as Wave 1.
Wave 1 Tanks:
Panther
Panzer IV
Stug
Sherman
M26 Pershing
