Army List for ValleyCon 2017

ValleyCon is coming up at the end of January 2017. The format is the same as the 2017 edition: 1000pts Early War. After taking another look through the possible options, I've settled on my second choice list from last year: a British Motor Company themed on 1st Armoured Brigade in Greece, April 1941.

1st Armoured Brigade arrived in Egypt with 2nd Armoured Division in January 1941.  While the bulk of the division relieved 7th Armoured Division in Cyrenaica following the defeat of the Italians during Operation Compass, 1st Armoured Brigade was sent to Greece in March as part of an expeditionary force known as 'W Force', along with 2nd New Zealand Division and 6th Australian Division.

1st Armoured Brigade comprised 3rd RTR (A10 cruisers), 4th Hussars (Vickers Mk VIb), 1st Rangers (motor battalion), and a support group including artillery (2nd RHA), anti-tank (102nd Anti-tank Regiment, RA) and anti-aircraft (155th Light Anti-aircraft Battery) units.

With the Greek army fully engaged either against the Italians in Albania or holding the Metaxas Line protecting the border with Bulgaria, W Force took up positions in the north near the border with Yugoslavia. The German invasion began on 6 April, entering Greece through Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. The Allied defence quickly became a series of delaying actions, leading to the evacuation between 24 April and 30 April of 50,000 of the 63,000 Commonwealth troops in the country.

The particular action that I have themed the list on occurred on Easter Sunday, 13 April. 2/4 Australian Battalion had fought a delaying action at Sotir that morning, buying time for 1st Armoured Brigade to establish a defensive line along a ridge near Proasteion. 9th Panzer Division attacked throughout the afternoon, pressing along the front with infantry while attempting to outflank the position with armour, but the Commonwealth defences held. The German attack was abandoned in the evening due to lack of fuel and ammunition, allowing the defenders to continue their withdrawal overnight.

Proasteion was the first major action involving A10s in Greece. It was also the last. The following day 3rd RTR was reorganised as a composite squadron, having lost two thirds of its tanks to mechaical failure, mostly broken track pins, over the previous week. A few days later the last remaining cruiser was abandoned, the long retreat and lack of spare parts having taken its toll.

To represent 1st Armoured Brigade at Proasteion, I am using the Jock Column from 'Hellfire and Back', centred around a company of 1st Rangers. Beyond the minimum compulsory choices of two Motor Platoons, a Carrier Platoon provides additional mobility and firepower. The list has one tank platoon slot, for which I have chosen the A10 rather than the Vickers Mk VIb. The small size of the games rules out the use of 25pdrs of 2nd RHA, but I have included a pair of 2pdr portees from 102nd Anti-tank Regiment. The spare points are taken up by bulking out the Motor Platoons with anti-tank rifles.

Several New Zealand machine-gun platoons were involved, but there is no option for including them in the list. Interestingly, the 'Reports on Operations' for 1st Armoured Brigade (WO 201/509) recommends the inclusion in Motor Battalions of at least two platoons of MMGs, or at least the inclusion of an MMG Company in Armoured Brigade Groups, on the basis of the support provided to the group by the NZ machine-gunners from 13 April onwards, and you can see this being implemented in battalion structures later in the war.

The final 1000pt list looks like this:

British Jock Column - Hellfire and Back 

Company HQ, 35 pts

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

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

Scout Platoon, 230 pts
   6 x Scout Carriers 

Anti-tank Platoon, Royal Horse Artillery, 105 pts
   2 x 2pdr Portee 

Heavy Armoured Platoon, 285 pts
   3 x A10 

Total Cost: 995 pts

As a mechanised company this list will be attacking infantry and defending against armour. It has the mobility needed to be able to attack, but lacks direct-fire HE so will rely on infantry assaults to clear objectives. On defence, it has two decent platoons of AT7, so should be better placed to cover a wide table than my list last year which had a platoon each of AT8 and AT6. And crucially it reaches six platoons due to the Scout Platoon counting as two.

My next post will look into my choice of models and colour schemes.

Hiatus and Looking Ahead

All of a sudden it's been four months since I last posted. Alas, we had a slight incident that resulted in a need to replace our kitchen, and that has been the focus of all our time and energy ever since. But as the skirting boards go down and life starts returning to normal, I've been reflecting on my gaming goals for the year, how few of them I've achieved, and what I will be looking to do over the last two and a half months of 2016.

The main focus is going to be preparing for next year's ValleyCon, and I'll probably be registering for Flames of War again. The FOW competition is another 1000pt Early War event, and while the format worked really well, the fact that it's identical means that I'm picking over the same lists I rejected last year, trying to find something to work with.

In last year's event, light armour was popular and it was pioneer companies that came out on top since they are tooled up to defend against that type of list, while Early War tank lists typically don't have any real options for digging them out in games this small. In general my armoured cars did okay, winning four games out of seven. For some reason they struggled to attack on the table that had a river (only crossable at two slow-going fords) right across the middle, and also had issues against British armour with captured M13/40s (solid mix of Front 3 and FP 4+), and Soviet T26s (too many tanks), both in games played across the table where the 6ft width combined with low points count made defending the widely-spread objectives problematic. That's the same problem that lists containing heavy tanks will face: not enough teams given the size of the table.

The required list for next year, then, is something that's capable of dealing with concentrated light tanks on a wide table, yet can also take objectives from entrenched pioneers, has a plan for dealing with Matildas and KV-1s, has a historical theme, and is achievable given time and budget constraints. Should be simple, right?

The closest list that the British have to the pioneer company is probably the LRDG from 'Burning Empires', and this could make for an interesting spoiler list in a small event like ValleyCon. As a mechanised company with Tank Assault 3+, Firepower 5+, and reconnaissance abilities on the core platoons, the ability to take a Commando Platoon as a support option, and special rules giving them Time of Day and the ability to mess with their opponent's reserves, they should be able to chew through any other infantry list, and would pose enough questions of tank companies to make life interesting. But I would be starting from scratch as it doesn't use anything currently in my collection, and the number of trucks needed makes it an expensive list to put together, so I've put that idea on the shelf for the time-being. Instead, I'm focusing on what can be done using models that I do have, either already painted or in the stash. I have a few concepts, but have a bit more background reading to do before I decide on exactly what and how. Once that's settled I'll look to put out a few posts on the background story and my progress in putting it together.