Unboxing TANKS by Gale Force Nine

As my readers will know from my earlier post about games that I play, TANKS is one of the games on my radar. Well, this week I went out and bought a copy. One thing that I found lacking on the Internet was a written write up about what is in the box. There is lots of videos of the topic on YouTube, but not so many blog entries. This post is to help fill that void.

It always feels good to crack into a new game.

Retailing for around $30 Canadian, this box is a great deal for what is inside. It comes with an entirely new game, cardboard terrain and 3 plastic tank models that I can re-use in Flames of War. Better yet, I can use my Flames of War collection in this game. That is a huge draw for me.

TANKS comes across as a total re-skinning of X-Wing (with a few modifications), which is a re-skinning of Wings of War (with a few modifications). There are some big differences, so I will have to see how it plays when I get it on the table.

The cover of the box. This box is heavy for its price tag.

This is what greeted me when I opened the box. Looks good.

The rule book. Underneath is terrain and tokens.

There are three boards of tokens and terrain here. All are the same size as the box.

A huge forest for in your battle ground.

Some houses and tokens. Terrain is similar to what was in the Open Fire Boxed Set, but I am okay with that.

My boards came with some warping inside of the shrink wrap. I hope that will not be an issue once I punch out all of the scenery and tokens.

There are two Sherman models here each with two turrets a 76mm and a 75mm turret can be built for each model.

The Panther can be built either as a Panther or Jagdpanther. I will be building mine as a Panther.

Another shot of the rule book. It is 21 pages long, but the rules are simple and this is an easy read.

All of the Tank Cards that come with the base game. Being a German and British Player in Flames of War, I wish that this box came with more cards for those nationalities.

A deck of Upgrade Cards.

The same cards spread across the table.

The Damage Deck.

For those of you familiar with X-Wing, Attack Wing, or Wings of War, you will likely notice a lot of similarities in the content in those games to the content of TANKS. The basics seem similar, but there are some changes to movement, shooting and turn order. All the games definitely all use the same core engine for play. That said, TANKS is aimed more at people more interested in World War 2 or modelling than the other games. The models that come in this kit are true miniatures that still need to be assembled and should be painted.

Tonight was just an unboxing. If you are interested in this product, check out its Website. At its price, it seems to be a good buy to me and I can’t wait to get it on the table to see how it compares to the other games.