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.