2023 Retrospective

2023 has been another relatively quiet year for me hobby-wise. I started the year with five goals

Have a good clear out of the random junk in the hobby cupboard.

This I achieved. I had a really good tidy-up in October, bought some new storage solutions, and offloaded some old bits and pieces.

The remaining objectives weren't met: I didn't play any non-FOW games, and didn't make any progress on my ALDG projects.

I played in three FOW tournaments during the year.

ValleyCon was 111pts Late War held in April. I painted a new army for it: a Soviet Rifle Regiment from Berlin: Soviet.

Rifle Regiment - Berlin: Soviet

Regiment HQ

Rifle Company (mid strength with panzerfaust and 1 x Maxim)

Storm Group (full strength with panzerfaust, Maxim and flamethrower)

82mm Mortar Company (6 x 82mm mortar)

120mm Mortar Company (3 x 120mm mortar)

Heavy Tank Killer Company (4 x 76mm gun)

Armoured Car Platoon (3 x BA-64, with 2 x PTRD)

M4 Sherman (76mm) Tank Company (5 x M4 Sherman (76mm)) 

IS-2 (Late) Guards Heavy Tank Company (4 x IS-2)

Unditiching Logs command card (IS-2)

Total Cost: 111 pts

The list was great. It was my first time playing Soviets in FOW since 1st Edition, and while you can argue that Careful troops aren't exactly the classic Soviet experience in FOW, it was still a nice change from Western lists. I won three games, drew two games, and finished tied for 4th place.

The second tournament was Panzerschreck, held in July. This year it was 140pt Late War doubles. I partnered with Bede again, running lists from Berlin: German. My half of the list was four 10.5cm FlaK39 railway cars, and a formation of Fallschirmjager from Fortress Europe. We tied for third out of 18, but lost the dice-off so finished in fourth place again.

The final event was Remember December. This was 60pts Mid War, book points, no Top Armour 2, and only one Support unit. I ran a British Rifle Company:

Rifle Company - North Africa

Company HQ

Rifle Platoon (full strenth)

Rifle Platoon (minimum strenth) 

Rifle Platoon (minimum strenth)

Mortar Platoon (4 x 3-inch mortars)

Anti-tank Platoon (3 x 6-pounders)

Universal Carrier Patrol (3 x Universal Carriers)

Universal Carrier Patrol (3 x Universal Carriers)

Valentine III Death or Glory Troop (3 x Valentine III)

Captured Tank command card (Rifle Company)

Cavalry Commander command card (Valentines)

Total Cost: 60 pts

I started pretty well with two wins, but fell apart in the final game. The Rifle Company played well- I definitely needed all of the infantry, but the Valentines weren't quite as tough as I'd hoped they'd be. The Captured Tank card was a bit of fun: I managed to capture an AB41 in Game 1 and a Stuart in Game 3.

I've continued writing for No Dice No Glory, but my output slowed during the year due to work pressures:

• An overview of Berlin: Soviet
• An article on my Canadian Rifles list from ValleyCon 2022
• A review of the Battlefront Sexton/Ram kit
• A piece on assembling the Battlefront 10.5cm railway car

For 2024, I'm going to keep over a couple of the goals from 2023.

1. I want to paint my ECW Royalists for ADLG-R.
2. I want to play two rulesets that aren't FOW.

FOW has a couple of new things coming out this year, with "Late War Leviathans" adding prototype and 1946 tanks to the game, followed by "Clash of Steel" as an alt-history spinoff. The models look cool, but I'm not sure how much interest there will be locally. 

Tournament-wise, ValleyCon is likely to be Mid War FOW this year, so I'll be looking to put together a new army for that. I can't play at Panzerschreck this year, but hopefully I can make an appearance at Call To Arms in August instead.

The Origin of 17th/21st Lancers' M3 Lees

I recently wrote an article on No Dice No Glory about using the British Crusader Squadron boxed set to field a Death or Glory Squadron for Flames of War. The article touched on the history behind the Lee HQ option for that force, but NDNG wasn't really the place to expand on this so I am writing it up here.

Image: FOW North Africa (2022)

The story presented in the FOW books is that 17th/21st Lancers had three M3 Lees in C Squadron HQ while they were in Tunisia. It is said that the tanks were salvaged from those that had been abandoned by 1st Armored Division in the retreat from Tebourba. 

Photo: Battlefront Miniatures

I have not been able to find the origin of that story. The actual history of these tanks is as follows. 

It was announced at a 26th Armoured Brigade 'O' Group on 28 December 1942 that each regiment was going to be receiving 10 Grants for "close support." This was in preparation for the brigade being completely re-equipped with Shermans, with General Anderson, commander of First Army, advising during a visit to 26th Armoured Brigade HQ on 31 December that this was intended to occur within six weeks. 

The Grants were intended to be allocated with two to each Squadron HQ and four to each Regimental HQ. Those going to Squadron HQ were to replace the Valentine 2pdrs, with those tanks being sent to the Valentine troops, making them four-tank troops.

Training was provided by the US Army on 1 January, with three Grants being handed over to 17th/21st Lancers “filled with rations, extra sweets, rum, and a bewildering assortment of ammunition.” The other regiments in the brigade, 16th/5th Lancers and 2nd Lothians and Border Horse, received one Grant each.

It was announced on 7 January that those Grants were the only ones that the brigade would be receiving. No reason is given in the war diaries, however ffrench Blake speculates in his history of the regiment that this was due to the losses the Americans had suffered over the preceding weeks.

Where the histories refers to “Grants”, in FOW we would call them Lees, being the US version of the tank with the cupola MG. I am not aware of any photos existing of these three tanks, but it’s clear from the description that this is what they were: "like a wedding cake" with three layers: 75mm, 37mm, and Browning MG.

The Lees' first and only action was at Two Tree Hill on the morning of 13 January 1943. Two of the tanks were destroyed, with ffrench Blake being badly wounded in the third. Ken Ford’s “Mailed Fist” describes the Lees as being in “ffrench Blake’s C Squadron” for this battle, but ffrench Blake had taken up the role of regimental 2iC from 8 December. The orders for the operation and ffrench Blake's writings make it clear that at Two Tree Hill the Lees were part of RHQ and operating independently, supported by A Squadron. There is no further mention after this of Lees or Grants in any of the histories I’ve read. 

To reflect this in Flames of War V4, I would be tempted to use a Death or Glory Squadron with a normal Valentine HQ and a Grant Troop from Formation Support, instead of the Lee HQ version of the list. The alternative is to run the Lee HQ version anyway, as this is close to the way the Grants were intended to be used had they all been received.

Regarding painting, without photos it is impossible to be certain what the Lees looked like. They might have been repainted in British colours since they were intended to be part of the standard equipment of the regiment, or they may have been left in their original US olive drab, possibly with disruptive patterning applied in dark brown. The tactical signs on the turrets, if applied, would have been yellow diamonds, and the arm of service markings would have been Red 52.

To summarise, 17th/21st Lancers did have three Lees for a period of about two weeks at the start of January 1943. These were part of a delivery of tanks to 6th Armoured Division that was never completed, and the story of them being salvaged is a myth.

Sources:

• The Royal Lancers & Nottinghamshire Yeomanry Museum
• WO 175-292, The National Archives
• WO 175-210, The National Archives
• A History of the 17th/21st Lancers 1922-1959, RLV ffrench Blake
• Mainstay - A 20th Century Life, RLV ffrench Blake
• Death or Glory - The 17th/21st Lancers 1922-1993, Keith Shannon
• Mailed Fist, Ken Ford

ValleyCon 2019 Review

ValleyCon this weekend was another excellent event, and a huge thanks goes to McBeth for organising it. I won three games and lost two, placing fourth overall. I won't go through a blow-by-blow account of the weekend, and I don't have any photos to share from it, but will just pick out a few key thoughts.

The weekend has established my faith in Mid War V4 as a good system. Up until now, MW has seemed incredibly bland, a way of biding time until the interesting lists come out with LW, but it surprised me how enjoyable it was. 85pts on a 6x4 was a bit denser than we’ve usually played, but it worked well. There was a wide range of armies represented, with the top three placings going to Armoured Rifles, Grants, and Honeys.

Using the Battle Plans mission selector was good. It added another layer of thinking about your opponent and what posture they would likely take, and what type of mission you wanted to face them in. It did limit the variety of missions played: I had two Bridgeheads, two No Retreats, and a Dust Up. One tweak might be having the TO specify which line to use. It should work well in a five-round tournament if you played lines 2-6 in a random order.

The Rifle Company is a solid list. The fact that I won a few games, quite possibly my first FOW wins in over a year, speaks to how robust and forgiving it is.

The cards I took worked out well. Artillery Expert and Diversionary Tactics are gold. Bagpiper, Sticky Bombs, and transports for the 6pdrs all helped at different times.

As expected my Reserves decisions were challenging. In each game that I needed to, I put two Rifle Platoons in Reserve, leaving another 8pts to find. In the first couple of games that was the 6pdrs, relying on their transports to get them where they needed to be. In the second, I switched that to being the mortars and the carriers, as I really needed to have all of my guns on the table. My Ambush platoon was always the Bofors, which gave me flexibility for dealing with armoured cars.

I had one bad loss that should have been avoidable. Ending up attacking in Bridgehead, I remember thinking "I should Night Attack in this", but then immediately forgot to. I also forgot that I had two batteries with smoke, which would have also made life a whole lot easier.

It was disappointing that I didn't end up running into either Honeys or M14/41s, as that would have been an interesting test of the list.

One thing that would be interesting to see would be how to get Churchills into 85pts. At 33pts for three, it's a tough ask as it would require running a much smaller core formation. No one brought heavy tanks of any kind, and apart from the three players with M10s and Marders, no one was really geared up to deal with them.

I left my painting really late, with a couple of really late nights leading up to the event, but was pretty happy with how they turned out in the end. They are painted in the colours of 78th Division in the Italian campaign.

Next time: I have received a copy of Impetus 2nd Edition, so I'll have a look at the changes, and update any progress on painting my light cavalry. Since it took me a whole evening to paint my first horse, I'm not that optimistic...

ValleyCon 2019 Preview

ValleyCon this year is a much smaller affair than usual, being club-focused and limited in numbers and scope, so that people who would travel to play are more likely to attend Natcon in Kapiti at Easter instead. The FOW event is 85 points Mid War, restricted to Mediterranean theatre lists. 

One of my issues with mid war has been that very few of the lists are actually of any interest to me. Part of this I think is fatigue, I’ve been playing MW Flames since 2001, and it’s a very vanilla period without the variety that the other periods offer. There were only two lists that I felt I’d want to run this year: the “Death or Glory” Valentine/Crusader combination, or a stock British Rifle Company. Since I’ve had all the infantry figures  sitting in a container for ages, I felt it was time to get them painted rather than buying a bunch of new tanks.

The list I have settled on is this:

Rifle Company - Armoured Fist

Rifle Company HQ, 2pts

Rifle Platoon - Full Strength plus the 'Sticky Bombs' card, 13pts

Rifle Platoon - Full Strength plus the 'Sticky Bombs' card, 13pts

Rifle Platoon - Full Strength plus the 'Sticky Bombs' card, 13pts

3-inch Mortar Platoon, 6pts
   4 x 3-inch Mortar

6pdr Anti-tank Platoon, 13pts
   4 x 6pdr Anti-tank Gun plus the 'Softskin Transport' card

Universal Carrier Patrol, 3pts
   3 x Universal Carriers with Boys AT Rifles

25pdr Field Troop, 14pts
   4 x 25pdr Gun

Bofors Light AA Troop, 4pts
   3 x Bofors 40mm AA Gun

'Bagpiper' card

'Diversionary Tactics' card

'Artillery Expert' card

Total Cost: 85 pts

It's a big list, partly because there are no tanks to soak up the points, but also because 85pts is larger than we would usually play here. Under V3 it would have come out in the mid-1400pt range. Some of the thinking that has gone into creating it is:

• I have gone tank-less due to the prevalence of Marders. They're popular due to being underpriced; with no high armour targets they become expensive machine-gun carriers.
• Another popular type of list is the light armour horde, and it's one that I probably have the most concern about. Nearly everything I'm taking has some ability to kill tanks. The Bofors, for example, are there solely for their ROF3 AT7, not because I have much to fear from air attack.
• The 'Softskin Transport' command card on the 6pdrs. I dithered a bit over this one. Would the points be better spent going towards another Carrier Patrol? Transport is highly vulnerable on a 6x4, but the penalty for having no tanks is that I have no mobile AT, so this at least gives me an option for repositioning them, or bringing them forward in support of an attack.
• 'Bagpiper' command card. My infantry are going to have to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to taking objectives, so this card that provides a 3+ Rally within 6" of the Formation Commander is to try and keep them moving in the event that I have to attack.

Apart from a chronic lack of mobility, a major issue I will face will be reserves: there is no natural choice for the 34 points I'll have to leave off in some games, and difficult decisions will need to be made.

I’ve left the painting my army far too late this year. Usually I’ve been proactive and have finished by the end of the previous year, but now with less than two weeks to go I still have some major gaps: a whole platoon of infantry, additional teams for the other two platoons, the actual guns for the AA platoon, and the artillery battery.

Next up: I'll post photos once all of the painting is completed, and review how it all went once the tournament is over.

Completed Army for ValleyCon 2018

Over the weekend I completed the painting for my ValleyCon list. There wasn't much to do, as it's built around units that I already had. The tanks are painted up as belonging to II./Panzer-Regiment 5, themed on the attack on the Gazala Line in May/June 1942.

I've had to make a few compromises with the Panzer IIIs - I was short a couple of Ausf. Js and don't have time to source new ones, so I've had to use a couple of Ausf. Ls, replacing their guns to try and make it look like they're not actually the up-armoured version.

All 80 points - not much considering an equivalent British force would probably comprise a full regiment of Honeys...

Panzer III Platoon

Panzer IV Platoon

Panzer II Platoon

5cm PaK38 Platoon

One of the 5cm PaK38 guns

8.8cm FlaK36

Objective Markers

Army List for ValleyCon 2018

ValleyCon is coming up at the end of January 2018. After two years of 1000pt Early War, the format has changed to be full V4 at 80pt Mid War. This is an interesting call, given that V4 at Call To Arms last year (albeit prior to the release of Fighting First) was cancelled due to a lack of registrations, but I'm of the opinion that it was the right one. V3 was remarkable for the completionist nature of its lists, but the core ruleset has done its dash and the community needs to move on to the new version, however there are still issues with the balance of the EW and LW conversion. Starting afresh with the native V4 lists is absolutely the best approach. I do have lingering concerns about the suitability of V4 as a tournament ruleset, so the event should be able to confirm or refute those.

Whereas there are probably half a dozen Early War lists that I would have felt inspired to build, and probably twice that number of Late War lists, the MW books are slim pickings, and I couldn't get excited about anything. Maybe it’s that we've all been playing the North Africa setting for a long time, this is now the fifth version of these lists in 15 years, and it’s also the only version of lists that didn’t correct and expand on the edition that preceded it. Whatever the reason, I've left it too late and have ended up limited by what is already in my collection. Having played Brits for the last couple of tournaments, it’s time for a change, so I’ve decided to take Germans.

The list I have ended up with is themed on 21st Panzer Division at Gazala, May/June 1942. The theme establishes the bounds in terms of the types of equipment I can use - a mix of short- and long-barreled Panzer IIIs, the division only had a handful of long-barreled Panzer IVs at this time, and Marders hadn't yet made an appearance.

I also want to try and capture the flavour of DAK operations, which is stereotyped in my mind as close cooperation between tanks and anti-tank guns, with the iconic image being the 8.8cm FlaK, firing off its trailer.

That means that my 80pt list looks like this:

Panzer III Company - Afrika Korps

Company HQ - 1 x Panzer III (short), 5pts

Panzer III Platoon - 2 x Panzer III (short) and 2 x Panzer III (long), 24pts

Panzer IV Platoon - 3 x Panzer IV (short), 18pts

Panzer II Platoon - 3 x Panzer II plus the 'Forward Scouts' command card, 8pts

5cm Tank-hunter Platoon, 12pts
   3 x 5cm PaK38 

8.8cm Heavy AA Platoon, 12pts
   2 x 8.8cm FlaK36 

'Pure Luck' command card

Total Cost: 80 pts

In game terms, I'm not really sure how it'll go. It'll be the first list I've taken to a competition without any infantry. The PaK38s will help keep Crusaders and Stuarts out of my flanks, but AT9 struggles against FA6, so Shermans will be a problem. The sweet spot for Afrika Korps is definitely the Marder III platoon, and three of those would be far better than two 88s. The Panzer IIs, while a lot more expensive than a platoon of armoured cars, provides an extra combat platoon, which is critical given the unforgiving nature of the V4 morale rules.

I only have the PaK38s to paint, so will post photos of the army once they're done.

Club Day - Team Yankee and V4-MW

On Saturday I was at the club for the first time this year, having arranged with Chris to give Team Yankee a go. Having agreed on 55pt lists, I turned up with 11 T-72s and two Hinds, while Chris had six M1A1s and two Cobras, very nicely painted for Desert Storm.

We rolled for a mission, coming up with Counterattack. When I deployed my first platoon as the defender, we laughed and immediately switched to Dust Up instead. The issue was the distance between the two deployment zones, placing us 8" apart at the start of turn one, and that kind of standup short range slugfest was not what we wanted from the game.

With each of us setting up with just a platoon on the table, Chris did everything right: taking up concealed positions and getting off the first shot. He was let down by some awful dice that left two tanks dead on each side - no big problem for the Soviets but catastrophic for the Americans. They passed their Formation Last Stand, and second platoon of Abrams came on from reserve. The same thing occurred: the Americans took up good positions and fired first, but couldn't survive poor dice.

We ignored a failed formation last stand for the Americans and played on in order to get the helicopters onto the table and give them a run. The Cobras tried a few times to shoot down the Hinds with their Miniguns, but fell short on 5+ Firepower tests. With the second T-72 company arriving from reserve, it was only a matter of time before the last two M1A1s succumbed to weight of firepower.

The game was over in less than an hour, so we reset for a No Retreat with the Soviets attacking. Chris swapped one M1A1 for a pair of F16s. With the Americans having just three M1A1s available until their reserves arrived, I pressed forward, set up a gunline with one company along the ridge in the middle, and swung the second company around to the right and towards the front objective.

Chris got his Cobras on as reserves, and once again they tangled with the Hinds to no effect. I lost two T-72s from the centre company, but the remaining three plus the Hinds killed one Abrams, putting the platoon into poor spirits. The survivor stuck around, but the Hinds switched target and Spiralled the company commander, leading to an auto-fail of American formation morale on the start of their turn three due to having no units in Good Spirits on the table.

Once again we played on, and the game turned quicker than I believed possible. The survivor from the first M1A1 platoon was able to move into a position to contest the objective, the second M1A1 platoon came on from reserve, and the F16s decided to arrive two turns in a row. By the end of that second turn of air support, all of my tanks had been destroyed.

Reflecting on the games, the Americans struggled with the fragility of their two-tank platoons and their vulnerability to a single bad dice roll. The gameplay was fast and brutal, and it looked good. Apart from our issues with the Counterattack mission, there weren't any moments where we thought "this doesn't feel right". However, we believe it would play better with more space for manoeuvre, and to this end, we have agreed that our next game will be 75pts on an 8x6. The arrival of the American jets was a game-changer, and my future Soviet builds will have to include a decent amount of AAA. My plan at the moment is to extend the T-72 companies from five to six tanks each, keep the Hinds and add pairs of Shilkas and Gophers, and a BMP-2 scout platoon. It could feel sparse in a table that big, but that's more a function of the lists we are using, given the number of T-55s or Leopard 1s that could fit into 75pts.

With two games finished before lunch, I grabbed my 8th Army and Afrika Korps armies, and we ran through a game of FOW V4. Sorting through the collection, we came to 77pts each with the British having a formation each of Crusaders and Grants, plus a platoon of Humbers totalling 24 vehicles, facing off against a 14 vehicle mix of Panzer IIs, IIIs, IVs, and SdKfz 222s. Under V3 these forces would have totalled 1515pts and 1365pts respectively. I took the Germans, and we set up for Encounter.

Chris ran the British force exceptionally well. Cribbing an extra 8" headstart for his first Crusader platoon using Spearhead (which I had previously dismissed as all but useless), he hit my five-strong Panzer III platoon with five Grants to the front, coordinated with what seemed like a never-ending stream of Crusaders using their pace to turn into my flank. My positioning was never quite right, and I lost too many shots trying to fix it with failed Blitz Move orders. The Panzer IVs finally came in from reserve on turn five but by then it was too late, and by the end of the next turn I was overrun.

The game played well. It went quickly and produced no weird results. 75pts on a 6x4 felt reasonable - it could maybe do to be slightly fewer points but I certainly wouldn't want to go any higher, given the number of tanks the British can field.

I was left thinking that for this particular match-up the German list needed a platoon of PaK38s, either in the Formation Support slot or as part of a small Afrika Rifle Company. Crusaders are going to struggle to take an objective held by three PaK38s, creating a problem for the British: the Crusaders need to get into the flanks of the Panzers in order to do any damage, but won't be able to without being drawn onto the PaK38s, which they are going to struggle to kill. It's clear that while the rules have been streamlined, and the first release of lists brutally pared back to their most basic core, the mid-war game still poses interesting challenges.

All in all, it was an excellent day of gaming. My next immediate project is finishing my LW British armour for a game with McZermof, hopefully in a month's time.

Postscript to Thoughts on the Afrika Korps Spoiler

Less than 12 hours after my previous post about the upcoming Afrika Korps book, WWPD posted a spoiler of its companion, Desert Rats. This was one of the three missing pieces of context that I felt made judging AK difficult, with the other two being design notes, so that we could have insight into Battlefront's intended scope for the book, and an understanding of how the roadmap of future releases is likely to play out.

Like AK, Desert Rats is notable for what is missing: Shermans, Deacons, portees, 2pdr anti-tank guns, Priests, and variety in armoured car choices. It too has a dubious inclusion in the form of the 17/25pdr anti-tank gun. My guess is that the Tiger was included in AK because Tiger, and the 17/25pdr then had to be added to try and restore game balance. But once you subtract those anachronisms, in my opinion the two books are actually a very good representation of generic forces from British and German armoured divisions in July 1942.

Seeing what is in Desert Rats, the thinking behind AK, and mid-war in general, has started to become clear. It's now obvious that V4 is a total reboot of the system as Team Yankee WW2, targeted at those who have never played FOW, because with the completion of the V3 lists for the entire war there is now little money in existing customers. The mid-war models will all be sold as platoon boxed sets, and the scope of each list will be set by production capacity and release schedules for those boxes.

In a world where V1 to V3 didn't exist, V4 would be huge. A (presumably) tight set of fast-play rules that (hopefully) look and feel like a WW2 game, nice miniatures conveniently packaged, the promise of expansion into other nations and list types, an arms race between gamers as new units were purchased. But that those earlier versions have been and gone, that experience is exactly what playing FOW was like in its heyday, and the people most likely to be attracted by WW2 gaming in 15mm already have been there, done that, and many of them have drifted away. Since they have multiple armies across multiple eras sitting in boxes, they might try a game or two of V4 out of curiosity, but they won't stick with it because the lack of variety in the initial releases. It will be a couple of years before the system is mature enough to run a native V4 tournament, and by the time the game gets to that point those veteran players may not be able to be enticed back.

So where will the target audience, these new players that V4 is going to attract, come from? You can't accidentally find FOW in New Zealand any more. I believe there are only three brick-and-mortar retailers of FOW left in the country, and the nearest of those is a seven hour drive from my hometown, which just happens to be the capital and third-largest city. Without the product having a ground presence, people will only find out about the game by seeing it played, either at conventions or clubs, and that requires the aforementioned veterans to be playing it. There may be a small amount of growth from second generation players who have access to their dad's old miniatures, who will try it and may end up getting some of their friends interested, but that's it. But in all honesty, I can only see further decline for FOW in New Zealand.

The unknown in all of this is the EW/LW conversion, with the questions being how it plays, how the V3 lists balance out under the new rules, and how long it will be before those eras are remade in mid-war's image? And most importantly, will it be enough to at least keep people playing the game while MW sorts itself out?

First Thoughts on WWPD's Afrika Korps Spoiler

WWPD has posted a preview of the contents of the new Afrika Korps book for FOW V4. To be honest, my feeling when reading the article was one of disappointment, and my initial reaction was a thought that I should cancel my pre-order of the new mid-war books. After further reflection, I'm still buying the books, but the disappointment remains.

I have played Flames of War since stumbling upon the public beta in 2001, and the Western Desert Campaign has always been my primary interest. I have seen the mid-war lists progress from the barebones versions in the 1st edition rulebook, through the Desert Rats/Desert Fox/Avanti Savoia supplements, to the Afrika compilation. I skipped over the release of North Africa until it was converted to V3 and re-released on FOW Digital last year. With each iteration the lists have increased in depth, flavour and historicity. In my opinion the lists in North Africa are very good: the splitting of the period into separate theatres guides themed list-building, and they give you a range of options for representing the unique units of the setting.

Based on the preview, it appears that Afrika Korps dispenses with all of that development. It very much feels like the first Team Yankee lists: cut back to bare basics, with precious few opportunities for variation, for players to take different paths to achieve the same outcome, likely leading to all armies created from it being almost entirely in common with one another. Gone are the odd units that made the theatre distinctive: the Dianas, the Bisons, the ex-Soviet 7.62cm guns, the reuse of captured British equipment. There are no FJ, no Pioniere, no Aufklärungen. And to cap it all off the book includes Tigers, completely dashing my hopes that the new books would give 1942 its moment in the spotlight.

I presume the reasoning behind sending screenshots of an upcoming book to a blog is to generate discussion and "hype" for the new product. Unfortunately for the moment the spoiler is out without any design notes being posted by Battlefront, without any information about the opposing Desert Rats book to provide a point of reference, and without any understanding of the roadmap to how additional lists are going to be released in future. This prevents the book from being seen in any kind of context, and results in the book being judged against customers' expectations rather than the scope and purpose that Battlefront had established for it. Those expectations have been established by the late-war books, and Battlefront shouldn't be surprised that this lack of a broader context has resulted in customers becoming upset about the mid-war lists being stripped back.

If I were to guess at the path that mid-war will take from here, additional lists will be released to cover the options missing from Afrika Korps, very much in the pattern of the Afgantsy and Panzertruppen expansions for Team Yankee.  This staged release is a let-down from the comprehensive V3 books that the community has become used to, especially so given that the NZ$18 price tag for a single one those TY lists is half the price of a LW compilation of two dozen lists. Looking further into the future, once a number of books and digital briefings have been out in the wild for a year or two, the familiar pattern from earlier editions will repeat as the lists are once again revised and combined into a larger compilation. This is unfortunate given that many veteran players will have purchased the same MW lists five times over, with Afrika Korps/Desert Rats being iteration number six, all in the 14 years since FOW was first published.

So, what does it mean for me? I'm definitely going to give it a chance, but based on my first impressions of a spoiler of the first two books of an as-yet unreleased new edition, my dream that V4 would bring about a local FOW renaissance lies in tatters.

Thoughts on "Remember December"

The club Flames of War event on Saturday was an enjoyable day. Full results can be found here, so I'll just focus on a couple of thoughts coming out of it.

I lost all my games, and only managed to avoid the wooden spoon thanks to my son winning his final game, relegating his opponent to last place in the process. It's fair to say that the Motor Company proved difficult to use. At 1000pts and having so many points tied up in the tanks, and with the small infantry platoons having a lot of firepower that is not available if you move, I didn't feel like I had many options to win as the attacker. And I ended up having to attack in all three games. I needed three infantry platoons, I needed the light mortars for an extra stand, I needed more carriers to give that mobile firepower, and I needed medium mortars for smoke and to give me another means of getting a pin. Basically, I needed a full Rifle Company in order to pull off what I was trying to do with a small Motor Company, and that directly stemmed from my decision to take the Shermans at the expense of all of those other things that I needed. But would I drop them in order to retool the list? Probably not.

One particularly good outcome of the day was Simon trialling a scoring system that completely abandons the official Battlefront victory point scheme based on broken platoons. It's a process that began back in the days of Version 1, by adding +2 points for a win to try and spread the table and reward winning a bit more. I don't know whether that practice continued and evolved through the years or if umpires generally reverted to using the official system, but at ValleyCon this year the rankings were determined by wins, with the VPs only acting as a tie breaker. Simon has now taken that to the next logical step, where it is the points value of the broken platoons that matters. The argument against this has always been the maths involved, but honestly it wasn't that hard to go "I lost 155 + 155 + 95 = 405 points". Still a little bit of tweaking to do, but the concept is good and the day was a good opportunity for it to be tested. A scheme like this pushes the definition of a "competitive army" far beyond just something that is able to win 6-1, and I fully support the change.

Armies for "Remember December"

I have completed painting my army for tomorrow's 1000pt Flames of War event, "Remember December" themed on Italy in 1943. I've played a couple of test games to get a feel for the list, and it's not quite as gloriously bad as I had thought. Yes, half-on/half-off games with delayed reserves are going to be a particular problem, but the Motor Platoons, while small, each put out as much firepower as a full sized Rifle Platoon, and are hard to assault due to being ROF 2 when pinned down. The Shermans are good, provided you can keep them alive, the carriers provide 12 dice of mobile machine-gun fire that could be useful if applied at the correct time and location, and ROF 3 AT 10 anti-tank guns are always going to be dangerous. As a bonus the company counts as Infantry instead of Mechanised, so it's possible I won't end up spending the whole day having to attack.

My 14 year old son will also be playing, which is nice. It's his first FOW event, so he's a bit apprehensive, but we've played quite a few games and I think he should be fine. The main thing he wants to get out of the event is enough confidence to play FOW at ValleyCon. He's taking a German Grenadierkompanie, using my late war Gebirgsjäger models.

German Grenadierkompanie (Tunisia and Italy) - North Africa (2016 Revision)

Company HQ, 45 pts

Grenadier Platoon, 3 Squads + Panzerknacker, 160 pts

Grenadier Platoon, 2 Squads + Panzerknacker, 115 pts

Grenadier Machine-gun Platoon, 135 pts

Grenadier Anti-tank Platoon, 85 pts
   2 x PaK38 + Transport 

Assault Gun Platoon, 340 pts
   2 x StuG III G

Rocket Launcher Battery, 120 pts
   3 x NW41 + Transport  

Total Cost: 1000 pts

The list is pretty handy, certainly a lot better than mine. Six platoons, cost-effective artillery, lots of firepower.

Hopefully I'll remember to take lots of photos tomorrow, and will post here how we get on. It should be a great day.

1943 British - Motor Anti-tank Platoon

I've completed the next platoon for my 1000pt 1943 British Motor Company - a Motor Anti-tank Platoon of 6pdr portees with a dismounted option.

Since Battlefront don't have anti-tank crew in their Italian Campaign range, I've reused some of my old 8th Army crew, with shorts converted into trousers using Milliput to make them better match the rest of the figures.

I have found very little information about the use of portees in Italy. For the camouflage scheme, I have largely based it on the standard 3-ton truck pattern, with further inspiration taken from video of the United Nations Parade in Cairo, 1943 (portees appearing at 2:45). I've painted the racked ammunition boxes in SCC2 brown to provide a point of contrast.

The portees in that video are on the Bedford QL chassis, whereas the Battlefront model is a Ford F60 - unfortunately I have no idea of the prevalence of each type, and there don't appear to be any Bedford-mounted 6pdr portees in 15mm anyway. A conversion of a QLT kit might be possible, but we'll leave that challenge for another project.

I still have three carriers and the Company HQ to paint. I've painted the remainder of the infantry and only need to base them, so things are looking like they're on track for completion over the next week.

But First, a Slight Diversion

In December the club is holding a themed FOW one-dayer in memory of Nick Garden, who passed away last year. I have taken a slight detour from my preparation for ValleyCon in order to put something together for it.

The theme is Italy in 1943, at 1000pts. This is a huge challenge, mainly due to the price of armour. A lot of the tanks you would expect to see at this stage of the war (British Shermans, Panzer IV H, StuG III G) are all 150+ points each, making them prohibitively expensive. The exceptions are the Americans and Canadians, who both get 115pt Shermans. I expect this will lead to seeing mostly infantry companies, with a lot of lightweight armour: Stuarts, M10s and Marders. There may be a few StuGs, though, as they can be bought in pairs. Hopefully some armoured cars, too.

Without the time to research, acquire any new models and build a force specifically for the event, I decided that the best approach for me to take was to spin the infantry teams I am painting for ValleyCon into something out of North Africa, bolting on other platoons from my existing collection, so that in the process I'm still working towards what I need for January.

My first instinct was to put together a Rifle Company and Night Attack my way through the event, but while it's a solid option it didn't seem like a whole lot of fun and would have required painting up a large number of additional teams. So instead I will be taking a Motor Company, because this just requires two PIAT teams and two extra Bren teams over and above the teams I am already working on, adding some kits from the stash and repainting some of my older models to suit. And for some illogical reason I have decided that it absolutely must include a 440pt platoon of Shermans...

British Motor Company (Italy) - North Africa (2016 Revision)

Company HQ, 35 pts

Motor Platoon + PIAT, 155 pts

Motor Platoon + PIAT, 155 pts

Scout Platoon, 105 pts
   3 x Universal Carriers + Extra MGs

Motor Anti-tank Platoon, 95 pts
   2 x 6pdr Portee 

Armoured Platoon, 440 pts
   3 x Sherman III

Total Cost: 985 pts

It's an awful list: five platoons, with nearly half the points tied up in three average tanks, no templates, truck-mounted anti-tank guns with no HE, two small six-stand infantry platoons, and a bunch of trucks that won't feature in any of the games. Should be good times.

I had the necessary transport for the CHQ and infantry platoons in the stash, which I have painted up in Light Mud/Blue Black camouflage and markings for 1st Rifle Brigade, 7th Armoured Division, and based to match the infantry.

And I have refreshed an old troop of Sherman IIIs to match, with markings for 5th RTR.

I still have the portees and carriers to repaint, plus the infantry to finish, but this shouldn't be too much of a stretch with three weeks to go.