Tank! The Great War Expansion Box Opening

After several months of waiting Tank! the first Great War expansion by The Plastic Soldier Company dropped through my letterbox. Well, it didn't, it got taken to the sorting office where I had to pick it up tonight... But whatever, it's here after a few delays. As with The Great War itself, I got in early with the Kickstarter campaign and I am not disappointed that I did! Here is a quick box opening to show you the contents.

As a Kickstarter backer I got a few extras for my money, including a MDF laser cut card holder, which will be very useful in the game (I note that this was supposed to be plastic, but that's not a big issue) and a perspex artillery template, again another really useful item.

The other unlocked items were two Mark IV British tanks and two captured German Mark IV tanks. I also paid an extra £5 to have three Whippets added into the mix.

Here are the excellently detailed tanks, I apologise for the photos, they were taken in a dark room on my phone...

Then we come on the contents of the rest of the box. This includes four British Mark IVs and two German A7Vs. Plus four German field guns, which appear to now be usable on the game board and several sheets of new terrain tiles and tokens.

This time there is also a plastic tray holder for the game components, which is very useful. Some of the new tiles look interesting, in particular these Pillbox tiles. I have yet to read the new rules, but I am looking forward to finding out how these affect game play.

So it's another packed box of goodies, the models are very well detailed, but I think I will certainly be giving them a paint job, even if it's just weathering and detailing rather than the full works. The rules are well illustrated, there is a ton of scenarios (There are supposed to be two extra from the Kickstarter, but I can't tell which they are...) and the production values are very high.

The negatives? This is a slight issue, but one that has already been addressed by PSC, namely that one of my tanks has suffered battle damage from transportation. Some guns and the hitching beam have broken off one of my Mark IVs, it's nothing that a spot of glue won't fix, but PSC have already issued a statement about sending back any broken parts and they'll replace them. Top class customer service as always from PSC. 

So despite the minor gripes mentioned above (and they are minor), this is a first class product and one I am looking forward to trying out. From a historical pint of view tanks in the Great War are a contentious issue, they were never a war winning weapon and were so mechanically unreliable that few got off their starting points anyway. However, this is a board game and as it mentions in the rulebook, the scenarios are flexible when it comes to scale, so this makes up for the amount of vehicles in the box. This is especially true when one considers there were only 20 A7Vs converted into fighting vehicles in the war anyway... 

Thanks for reading!