ValleyCon List - First Team Completed

Last night I completed the first model for my ValleyCon army: a Rolls Royce armoured car. A simple build, straight out of the box, with just the addition of a (hugely overscale) radio antenna.

I don't usually base vehicles, but have decided to base the armoured cars here as they are narrow and top heavy. The trucks and quad tractors for the support elements are all one-piece resin models with bases moulded on, so it also helps tie everything together. And, it was a chance to decide on basing style before getting stuck into the infantry and gun teams.

Some photos:

Reasonably happy with the result, although of course the close-up photos are incredibly unforgiving and I can now see defects that were invisible before. Now I only have to remember how I did it and repeat it ten times...

I have been toying with the idea of swapping one of the Morris/RR platoons for an RAF Rolls Royce platoon, as this gives a couple of upgrades that can use up the last 10 points that I have spare. This fits nicely with the theme of the list, as Combeforce also included cars from No. 2 Armoured Car Company, RAF.

I believe the RAF Rolls Royce armoured cars had the older, fully-enclosed turret, rather than the open-topped turret used by the Hussars. I have had a go at scratch-building the alternative turret, to give me an option of swapping out the kit turrets if I decide to go with the RAF option. The results are shown below, on the hull of the car posted earlier.

Terrain Project

I've always been lacking in terrain, partly due to 10 years in the wilderness, during which time I never played, so this year I have decided to rectify that. I'm great at starting projects, but struggle to finish them off unless there's a specific purpose or deadline that I'm working to. So, with the terrain project I have set myself the goal of putting a complete 6x4 table's worth for ValleyCon.

The plan when I started was to do a Sicily-themed table. I then found out that the competition will be Early War, so that doesn't fit, and it doesn't even vaguely match the desert army I've decided to take. Such is life. I've decided to continue as I am, just so I can say I've finished a project. If I'm lucky I'll have time to do a desert table later.

The constraints I've placed on myself are as follows:

1. Suitably sized for Flames of War's footprint. Just thinking about things like buildings that can comfortably fit a number of medium bases, area terrain big enough to hide an infantry platoon, roads which are wide enough for large bases, etc. 
2. Transportation and storage. I love modular terrain boards, and there are some fantastic examples on the internet of them being done really well. Unfortunately, I'm a bit restricted in storage space and I don't think they're really an option for me, so the aim is to go for a traditional solution using a drop cloth and scatter terrain, that can be boxed up for storage, easily modified if it doesn't play as expected, rearranged to give some variety in future, and potentially extended to make an 8x6 table.
3. Reasonably balanced for gameplay. This is tricky, as missions can be played across or along the table, by armies ranging from static to highly mobile. I want a good mix of bulletproof cover, some difficult going, sensible options for objective locations, and a few areas with decent lines of sight without the board being dominated by them.
4. Cheap. There's a lot of wonderful terrain pieces commercially available, but they're expensive. I wanted to scratchbuild as much as possible to try and keep the cost down. 

Here's the basic road layout I'm starting with. The large black area on the right is going to be a town, with the smaller black area on the left potentially being a bridge. Not sure about that: a river makes sense for the setting, but can have a big impact on gameplay, so I may end up doing something else at that end instead.

The roads are made from railway ballast and coarse turf, glued onto a brown felt backing. I think it looks okay, it's flexible so can mould to contours, and is easily patched up when damaged. 

To try and get a Southern European feeling, I've added stone walls lining the roads, vineyards and olive groves.

I have no idea what Italian vineyards looked like 75 years ago, so mine are modelled on what I know: Marlborough. Sufficient space between rows for medium bases, and space in the headland for large bases. 

The olive trees are made from Woodland Scenic armatures. They're detachable to make storage and moving models through the groves easier. A couple of ideas tried here: one grove has the trees plugging into their bases as they're supplied, while the others use magnets. Not sure yet which way is better. 

I've tried to put lots of gates in so that the walls don't cripple vehicle movement too much. I don't think I have enough yet along the roads, so will build some more. Probably aiming for one gate every 18" of wall.

Still need to make buildings, and there are a number of things I need to decide: how to do hills, on top of the cloth or underneath it? What material to use for them? Do I make a bridge and put a river in? Luckily my eldest minion is pretty competent at FOW, so we can test a few ideas out in trial games and adapt the layout if it's not working. 

Games Today

Two very interesting games of Flames of War today, both 1000pts Early War against an Italian Carri Company, to try out ValleyCon ideas. I proxied my British armoured car list, as I was really keen to see how they went against light armour.

The two games were Fighting Withdrawal and Dust Up. They could have gone either way, but both were won 4-3 by the British thanks to a bunch of lucky dice rolls.

A few lessons:

1. 1000pt games are quick. Each one today took about an hour.
2. In Dust Up, it's an awfully long way for your reserves to go if you need their help to shore up the defence of your objectives.
3. Fearless Veteran 18/25pdrs are excellent. They take up just over a third of my points, but so far they've been a great investment. Just make sure you dig them in as soon as you get the chance...
4. Don't bother trying to use the armoured cars' AT Rifles to take on anything above Armour 1.
5. M13/40s are good. Not fantastic, but solid. The 3/2/1 armour, 24" range, AT 6 and five MG dice are gold. They are hampered by their variable skill/motivation ratings, slow speed and lack of decent support options.

One aspect of ValleyCon that I didn't mention in earlier posts is that, unlike other FOW tournaments where placings are based on total Victory Points, this time placings will be determined by the number of wins, with VPs only being used as a tie-breaker. I think this is fantastic and would love it to be done this way more often. There's a whole bunch of units that you never see fielded at tournaments because they're such an easy VP, and a lot of lists that never seem to be used, largely because they have no chance of winning games 6-1.

Overall, I was very happy with the way the list played. It has a variety of options for handling half on/half off deployments, a core of solid AT, and lots of fast MG platforms. I've managed to pick up a platoon of the armoured cars (thanks Tom) and my CHQ, so can start working towards painting them up. I also have the infantry and artillery. Unfortunately the other two platoons of armoured cars and the portees are still on backorder, but there's still three months to go, so I'm not panicking just yet...

Weekend Painting

Over the weekend my wife was out of town, so I had a bit more time than usual for painting after the kids were in bed than could usually be justified. I ended up painting four Jagdpanthers that I had picked up at some stage on a whim. These were resin kits that included a plastic sprue with tracks, gun barrels, hatches, stowage etc.

Not 100% happy now that they're finished: the plastic tracks are excellent, but they are wider than the metal tracks the resin hull was originally designed for, so stick out about 1mm wider than they should. I didn't notice until I glued the front mudguards on, and I'm annoyed that I didn't stop at that point and fix it. At some stage I'm going to have to go back, take them off and work out where to slim the parts down and make them fit better.

Now that I have 900-odd points of Jagdpanthers, I'm not entirely sure what to do with them. They are of course useful as a support platoon for a variety of different lists, although I'm not sure many games could justify four of them. More promising are a couple of Jagdpanther lists, being the 654. and 559. schwere Panzerjägerkompanie lists from "Atlantik Wall" and "Bridge by Bridge" respectively.

I like the look of the 559. list, with the idea of Jagdpanthers backed up by StuGs, Wirbelwinds and FJ being quite attractive. It'll be hopeless on the table: a company of a small number of expensive tanks, fragile on the flanks, that will usually end up having to attack, without being able to take any recce platoons, but at least it'll look good as it falls in a screaming heap.

The 654. list for Normandy doesn't have any combinations that jump out as strongly, but it's been suggested that people might be keen for a Normandy day at the Club sometime so it's something I'll have to look into.

Gearing Up For ValleyCon 2016 - The Infantry

One of the things I had to decide before getting stuck in to building my early war British Armoured Car Squadron for Flames of War was what style of infantry figure to use. This is a short post on the process I went through to decide.

My army is set in February 1941, the tail end of winter, which in North Africa can apparently be quite cold. Many of the photos of the time show soldiers wearing battledress or greatcoats. I wanted to use Battlefront Miniatures figures, but with no British greatcoats in their range, the basic look I am after is long trousers and the Mark II helmet.

I was able to rule out many of the BF figures immediately due to unsuitable headgear, including those with 1944 pattern helmets, berets and slouch hats, as I don't want to have to do a stack of head swaps. The 8th Army range is in shorts, while the BEF figures, which are in battledress, are carrying gas mask bags on their chest, which I believe stopped sometime during 1940.

That leaves just the Italian Campaign range. Battlefront say these are suitable for 1942 onwards, but I can't see anything too anachronistic for early 1941, at least nothing obvious in 15mm scale. They are in trousers and rolled up shirt sleeves, wearing the right helmet and no gas mask bag, so to me they look about right.

Of course, chances are that by the time I've painted them, none of these details I've agonised over will be visible...

Gearing Up For ValleyCon 2016 - Part 1

I'm making an attempt to resurrect this blog, and this time I may actually have something to write about. In January 2016, the Hutt Miniature Wargaming Club will be hosting their annual ValleyCon tournament, and I have entered to play Flames of War. The tournament is going to be 1000pts in the Early War era. The intention is to write a series of posts as I put together an army ready to play.

1000pts is quite a small game in Flames of War, and it has been challenging to come up with a viable list of that size. I spent a few weeks trawling the relevant books and talking with other players about different options, and the general feeling is that at this level of points, mobile light armoured lists are the way to go. The sweet spot is probably going to be the Panzer 35(t), Panzer 38(t) and M13/40: AT6, range 24" and front armour 2 or 3, for 60-90pts each. The other key point is that four platoons is the smallest workable company, given the number of scenarios that require at least half of your platoons deployed in reserve.

None of my existing Early War armies, which are a Crusader Squadron and an Afrika Korps Panzer Company, both from "Hellfire and Back", really feel up to scratch at 1000pts.

The bare minimum legal company using only Crusaders is nine tanks at 1170pts, so would require dropping a platoon of three back to A13s in order to fit under the cap. They're simply all too expensive, and results in a three-platoon list.

The Africa Korps Panzers need to be built either around Panzer III Gs or Panzer IV Es, both of which are excellent tanks for the time, but also horribly expensive. The compulsory choices for a Panzer III company are four tanks, totalling 615pts, leaving precious few points for support options, and probably tops out at a maximum of three platoons. The Panzer IVs are slightly better off, needing a core of only three tanks at 450pts, being bulked out with Panzer Is and IIs and having room to squeeze in two more platoons to get to the magic four, but neither feel viable as there simply aren't enough models on the table. At this size of game, the more numerous and lower-specced Panzers from "Blitzkrieg" seem like a better option.

Having ruled out my existing armies, I need to build something new. After exploring a few avenues, I have settled on an option that I feel would be fun to play, could cause opponents a few problems, look nice on the table, and has a good historical back story. This is the 11th Hussars, at the end of Operation Compass, the British defeat of the Italian army in North Africa in 1940/41.

As the British Western Desert Force pursued the retreating Italians across Libya, they sent a flying column of armoured cars, infantry and artillery cross-country to block and delay the Italians. This column was named "Combeforce" after its commander, Lieutenant-Colonel J. F. B. Combe. Combeforce arrived at Beda Fomm half an hour ahead of the Italians, repulsed multiple attacks over the next two days, and the action resulted in the entire Italian Tenth Army, a total of 25,000 men, being captured when the main body of the British 7th Armoured Division arrived.

Combeforce can be represented in Flames of War using an Armoured Car Squadron from "Hellfire and Back". The armoured cars in use by 11th Hussars at the time were the Rolls Royce, being a 1920s design, and the more modern Morris CS9 from the late 1930s. After the minimum compulsory choices of 11 armoured cars, a platoon each of motorised infantry, 25pdr Mk 1 field guns and 37mm portee anti-tank guns round out the list to 990pts.

British Armoured Car Squadron - Hellfire and Back 

Armoured Car Squadron HQ, 70 pts
   2 Morris CS9 

Armoured Car Platoon, 105 pts
   1 Morris CS9
   2 Rolls-Royce

Armoured Car Platoon, 105 pts
   1 Morris CS9
   2 Rolls-Royce

Armoured Car Platoon, 105 pts
   1 Morris CS9
   2 Rolls-Royce

1 Motor Platoon + 2 x Anti-tank Rifles, 170 pts

Anti-tank Platoon, Royal Horse Artillery, 90 pts
   2 Bofors 37mm Portee 

Royal Horse Artillery Battery + Transport, 345 pts
   4 OQF 18/25pdr gun 

Total Cost: 990 pts

In play, this list has a few quirks. It is rated as a Mechanised Company, so will be required to attack infantry and defend against tank companies. It has six platoons, which is crucial for games where half need to be held in reserve. Its trump card on the attack is a special rule that allows one objective to be moved by up to 12" after deployment. It relies on this to upset the opposition's plans, with the mobility and massed machine-guns of the armoured cars working to deliver the infantry onto the objective. With the armoured cars being open topped, wheeled and in platoons of three, they will be poor on the assault, and will be totally hamstrung if anyone deploys barbed wire. In defence, the list will rely on the infantry and guns to hold objectives, as the armoured cars simply won't be able to compete against anything that even vaguely resembles a proper tank.

That's the plan, at least. I've trialled the list in a few games, and it feels like it will be fun to play, and a squadron of armoured cars in caunter camouflage should look fantastic on the table. I have half of the models that I need sitting ready to go, and I'm now hoping that the order I've placed for the other half will arrive in time for the tournament.

The aim is to post updates here as things get done and games get played, and maybe a few other things that get done as I'm waiting for kits to turn up, so let's see how that works out.