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.

2017 Retrospective

With 2017 done and dusted, it's time for a look back at what I've worked on over the last 12 months, whether I achieved any of the goals I had set for myself, and look ahead to what 2018 might hold.

As always, the year began with the Early War FOW competition at ValleyCon. I ran a British Motor Company themed on 1st Armoured Brigade in Greece. I won four games out of seven, placing mid table, and winning Best Army.

Item three on my list was Team Yankee, and this was one of my main painting efforts for the year, putting together 100+ points of Soviets. There are only two of us at the club that play in 15mm, but we had some enjoyable games in March and November.

In May there was also a big multiplayer TY game in 6mm.

The major change during the year was FOW V4. I finished painting my Comets, although have not yet added the Cromwell CS tanks, and played a couple of enjoyable 1750pt 8x6 games with them in April. The plan had been to rebase my desert Brits and finish off a few odds and ends, but this didn't happen, partly because after the initial glow of some excellent tank battles using the new system, I became concerned about how it handles infantry combat. More on this in a later post, probably.

The last item on my list for the year was related to Impetus. I didn't add any light cavalry to my Florentines, so that task will roll over yet again. I was encouraged to play in V3 in June, despite hardly knowing the rules and only having a renaissance army to take to a competition that was classically themed, and had a great time.

My goals for 2018 are:

1. Finalise my FOW list for ValleyCon 18 - I will be running an Afrika Korps list, but the details are not yet confirmed. The fact that I'm still at this stage of the process when the competition is only four weeks away is a pretty clear reflection of my feelings towards the game, given that in previous years I'd sorted my lists out in August, and spent the last three months of the year painting for it. I have the feeling that my interest in FOW will either live or die by how V4 performs at ValleyCon. 
2. Actually buy and paint some Italian light cavalry and Landsknechts for Impetus after two years of just talking about it.
3. More Team Yankee. I want to add a NATO force for both the 30pt and 100pt formats, and hopefully lure a few more locals into at least trying the game in 15mm.
4. I will be taking a close look at 'Fate of a Nation' when it is rereleased. The original version missed the mark in terms of game balance, but hopefully the extension of the game to 1973 fixes this.
5. Not entirely unrelated to Item 1, a couple of us are going to be trying out Battlegroup and Chain of Command. I have picked up the core rules for Battlegroup, plus the Normandy and Market Garden supplements, but haven't put it on the table yet.

So happy new year, thanks for reading, and I wish you well for the year ahead.

Desert Basecloth

For the Team Yankee games last month, I had purchased some curtain fabric for a basecloth that I thought would be a good deserty colour. It wasn't, as soon as it was out from under the shop lights it turned out to be shiny and gold. After the games, I put some thought into what would make a better basecloth for a desert table. The commercially available mats look amazing but are quite expensive, so I set out to see if I could make my own.

All of the examples of homemade terrain mats that I could find on the internet use a canvas drop cloth covered with a thin layer of caulk, impressed with sand then painted. I couldn't understand why caulk was used, as to me this would add a lot of weight and expense, so I decided to try gluing sand directly to my golden curtains.

Materials Used:
1.4m x 2.0m curtain fabric
2 x 250mm test pots of Resene 'Camouflage'
60mm test pots, one each of Resene 'Triple Akaroa', 'Half Stonewall', and 'Half Mountain Mist'
1 x 1.5kg bag of bird cage sand
Small amounts of flock and GF9 medium basing grit
PVA glue

With a standard house painting brush, I applied PVA to the fabric in manageably-sized sections, then sprinkled on patches of the GF9 grit followed by covering it with the budgie sand. I use budgie sand for all of my basing because I like the grain size and it's sterile. Once the glue dried, I recovered the excess sand, then repeated the process until I had the whole cloth covered. I learned quickly to avoid applying the glue in rectangular pattern, as I ended up with noticeable borders where one section of glue stopped and its neighbor started. 

I painted the mat with Resene colours that are close approximations to my desert basing colours: Vallejo Brown Violet, Khaki, Stone Grey, and Deck Tan. The entire mat was first covered with a coat of 'Camouflage' to seal in the sand. 500ml was just enough to cover the mat, with some slight dilution towards the end when it looked like I was about to run out. The basecoat was followed by progressively lighter drybrush layers of the others colours, finishing with small amounts of flock as an accent.

First coat of paint

Working through the drybrushing

Finished mat

The total cost of the project, including the fabric I started with, was about $70, half of that being the paint. I can't really answer the question of why caulk would be needed, but it may be something to do with the weight of the material - mine is quite heavy, whereas a lighter fabric may require caulk to give it a bit more substance. At this stage the mat seems to be able to handle being rolled up without the surface being damaged, but we'll see how it looks after a bit of use.

Of Gauge and Scale

There was a recent question on the TY Facebook page asking about what railway track to use for terrain, and the discussion that followed has driven me to write this post on the topic.

The first key concept for railway miniatures is scale ratio, which relates to the size of the rolling stock relative to the full sized original.

The other concept is track gauge, which is the distance between the inner edges of the rails. Half of the world's railways, including those in France, Germany and Poland, have a gauge of 1435mm, which is known as Standard Gauge.

All model railway track, rolling stock and accessories are sold at a particular scale, which in this context refers to a specific combination of scale ratio, track gauge, and other factors that makes up the parameters of the system as a whole.

Scale	Scale Ratio	Track Gauge	Scale Error for Standard Gauge
O	1/46	32mm	+6.4mm at 1/56
S	1/64	22.5mm	-3.1mm at 1/56
OO	1/76	16.5mm	+2.2mm at 1/100
HO	1/87	16.5mm	+2.2mm at 1/100
TT	1/120	12mm	-2.4mm at 1/100
N	1/160	9mm	-5.4mm at 1/100
Z	1/220	6.5mm	+1.7mm at 1/300

For most scales, the scale ratio and the track gauge combine to create an accurate representation of a Standard Gauge railway. OO is a bit of an oddball where the track is underscale compared to the rolling stock for historical reasons. There are a multitude of other specialty scales, usually for narrow gauge prototypes. An example is NZ120, which is 1/120 on 9mm track, to represent New Zealand's railway network which has a gauge of 1067mm.

Obviously none of these are a perfect match for representing Standard Gauge in common wargaming scales. In 15mm you would require rolling stock with a scale ratio of 1/100 running on a track gauge of about 14.3mm, so it comes down to what compromises you are prepared to make: do you accept something too large, too small, do you go and scratchbuild your own, or do you simply avoid the problem?

I don't know why Battlefront chose to base their 'Battlefield In A Box' railway track on TT, but it seems to have led to an apparently widely-held but incorrect idea that TT is the perfect match for FOW. In reality, neither the track nor the rolling stock are any more accurate in 15mm than HO. As noted before, not all railways have the same gauge: in Russia the gauge is 1520mm, so for Eastern Front terrain the TT track is even more underscale than it is for the vast majority of rail lines in Northwest Europe.

From my perspective, what would be ideal would be a range of 1/100 rolling stock and accompanying 14.3mm track to use for 15mm wargames, with the next best thing being 1/100 rolling stock that sits on HO track, but alas as far as I can tell there is no such thing on the market. As such, wanting to have railway lines in my collection of TY terrain but being too lazy to scratchbuild, I have chosen to run with HO because of its price and availability, and am happy to accept that everything will be slightly too large.

Team Yankee Day - 25 November

I had a couple of games of Team Yankee with Chris at the club on Saturday, with the main event being 100pts on an 8x6 table. This was the first time we had each brought a full bag of tricks in 15mm.

It had been a mad dash to get ready after work commitments had left me behind schedule on painting a stack of BMPs, and I had also made a late decision to pick up a couple of Academy SU17 kits for air support.


SU17, ready to pretend to be a Frogfoot

PRP-3 observer team

It was also a good chance to try out some of the terrain I had been working on. The EVA-backed railway track was a success: looked okay, solid and stable. The roads not so much - they are light, easily bumped out of place, and don't want to lie flat. Further thought is required for those. We decided to go with a desert setting as we generally have more terrain for that, however in the days leading up to the game I realised that we lacked a suitable 8x6 basecloth. At the last minute I picked up some tan coloured fabric for cheap, and was feeling quite pleased with myself until my wife pointed out that it was actually gold, shiny, and easily crinkled... It didn't look too bad once the rest of the terrain was down, but it wasn't quite right and the smooth surface did nothing to help keep the roads in place.

My Soviet tank battalion list was an attempt to get as wide a variety of kit on the table as possible, to see what things did and test out different aspects of the rules.

T-72 HQ
6 x T-72
6 x T-72
3 x BMP2 scouts
BMP1 Motor Rifle platoon plus Gremlin
2 x Shilka
2 x Gopher
6 x 2S1 and OP
2 x Hind
2 x SU17s (played as SU25s)

Chris ran a tank company from Stripes of:

1 x IPM1 HQ
3 x IPM1
3 x IPM1
1 x M113 Mech platoon
1 x Scout section
2 x M109 ITV
3 x M106 mortar carriers
4 x VADS
2 x Cobra
2 x F16s (played as Harriers)

We played Hasty Attack, with the Soviets attacking. The Americans ended up killing everything expect the Carnations and the SUs, losing the two IPM1 platoons and the Cobras. Notable was a decent infantry scrap for control of the town in the centre of the board, as we were both keen to try the assault rules. Over the course of a few turns, an American assault was driven off, then a Soviet assault was broken up by M113 support, before the Americans came back and managed to clear the area, thereafter using it as a base of fire to pour ATGM fire into the Soviet armour pushing forward on the left flank. Nicely done, and we were pretty happy with how the mechanics worked.

There were quite a few lessons from the game.

1. 100pts on an 8x6 works really well. There was plenty of space, a good quantity of equipment on the table, no weird rule issues, and things died fast enough to keep the game to two hours. I suspect this might change if either of us went large on infantry, but I think we're pretty happy keeping the focus on the MBT lists.
2. IPM1s are a nightmare to deal with. That additional point of front armour swings the balance against T-72s solidly in the Americans' favour.
3. Karen laughs at IPM1s. My SU17s arrived every turn, and their Kh-25 missiles kept me in the game by accounting for the two platoons of tanks. Without them it would have been pretty one-sided.
4. VADS are nasty. Kill them before attempting to bring your air support anywhere near them. I didn't, and my Hinds never got a shot off. Their range however is limited, and on a table this size they were unable to provide any protection against the SUs, and for big games they really need to be partnered with Chaparrals. 
5. Just because you can Spearhead, doesn't mean you should. I used it successfully to get my infantry in the buildings in the middle of the board, but their BMP1s were too exposed and were quickly disposed of by a crossfire of 105mm, TOW, and 20mm gunfire. In retrospect, I was too aggressive across the board. I had good concealed positions, and could have happily held those for a few turns, taken the time to try and chip out the AA, and waited for my reserves to come on, before pressing forward.

Knowing what I do now, I think I'd tweak the list in future by putting BMP1s in the Scouts (so that I'm not pushing too far with my high AT assets), with BMP2s and an AGS-17 team for the infantry, increasing the Hinds and Shilkas to four each, and making space for all of this by dropping two T-72s.

The table after deployment

Cobras lurking, shortly before being Gremlined...

The SU17s earning their keep.

Last man standing: the Soviet Commander missed. The US Commander did not.

The end: a table full of burning Soviet AFVs

The second game was a lower key 30pt match, Encounter on a standard 6x4. I didn't get any photos of this one, but it was another enjoyable game. 30pts has a very different dynamic, being focused around small infantry platoons and light armour, and I'd be keen to play more of it.

BMP1 CHQ
BMP1 Motor Rifle platoon plus Gremlin
BMP1 Motor Rifle platoon
4 x BMP2 scouts
3 x 2S1
2 x Hind

From memory, Chris ran a mech company of:

Mech HQ
M113 Mech Platoon
M113 Mech platoon
1 x Scout section
2 x M109 ITV
3 x M106 mortar carriers
4 x VADS

My list was far from optimal. The 2S1s were a waste of space and I would have been far better served spending the points on four Shilkas and an AGS-17 team. The Hinds didn't do much, as there were no valuable targets for their Spiral missiles, but I would probably retain them for future games of this size because they are so iconic, and the 1:100 models are a huge part of the visual attraction of TY. Once again the VADS were dangerous, and they quickly gunned down the BMPs that started on table.

All in all it was an excellent day, and I'm looking forward to the next time we get this game on the table. My next steps, apart from picking up a last couple of things for the Soviets, will be a NATO list, before seeing what happens when 'Fate Of A Nation' is rereleased on the TY platform.

New Project - TY Terrain

It's been a quiet winter hobby-wise, with very little to write about. I have, however, recently embarked on making a table of terrain for 15mm Team Yankee.

The parameters for the project are:

1. Covering an 8x6 table, because to me that looks and feels better for TY above about 50 points.
2. To be made from scatter terrain that can be packed down for ease of storage and transportation.
3. Provide sufficient visual clues to be readily identifiable as modern Europe.
4. Provide a range of logical locations for objectives.

That last two points are key for me. This might sound strange to people who play for the game, but I enjoy games that tell a story. The table plays a key role in this: helping place the events in time and space, and answering the question "what is so important about this particular piece of dirt?" An objective in the middle of a wheat field doesn't make sense to me, but a town, a crossroads, a hill: it's easy to imagine someone having a reason to want to seize or defend them. My aim when setting up a table is to have key points in the objective zones no matter which scenario is being played. That's actually easier on an 8x6 than a 6x4, because I believe the best way to play a lengthwise FOW or TY mission on an 8x6 is as a double width 6x4 rather than adding 2ft of almost entirely wasted depth, so you don't have to plan to be able to play down its length.

Here is the progress so far:

I still haven't decided on what season to set the table in, as that will determine the direction I take with trees and agriculture. I had been hoping for more of an olive green basecloth, but the material is darker than it appeared under the shop lighting. Life, and the never-ending search for the perfect basecloth.

Nor have I settled yet on the built up area. The buildings in the photo are from Plastcraft Games' ColorED range, of which I have two kits still to build. These buildings look nice and are reasonably economical, but the range is limited. The church of Sainte Mère Église is an impressive model, but it looks a bit out of place without three times as many smaller buildings clustered around it, so it may not make the final cut. I'm slightly hampered by the general lack of Streetview in Germany, but there is enough photography on the internet to draw inspiration from, and the look of the Plastcraft buildings seems to be reasonable. I do need a few more, and some more modern pieces to go with them. I also need to decide what I'll build around the small railyard in the bottom left.

The autobahn is made from 3mm EVA foam - at $17/metre from a 1.2m roll from Para Rubber it's cheaper and easier to work with than MDF. I'm currently planning an interchange with the local roads (the white pieces of paper in the bottom right), with those roads to be cut from the same material, and I'm looking at options for modern touches like guard rails and lighting.

The railway line uses standard HO track, with the EVA as backing. With a gauge of 16.5mm, at 1/100 it is slightly overscale for the West German track gauge of 1435mm, however the commonly suggested alternative of TT scale at 12mm would be underscale by a similar amount. HO has the advantage of being cheap and readily available in NZ, whereas it looks like TT has to be bought in from Europe, so it was a simple decision that also opens up options for rolling stock and other accesories.

The plan from here is to finish off the rail sections, then move onto the interchange and the rest of the roading, and I'll post updates as progress is made.

FOW V4 - Nagging Concerns

My V4 experience to date has been quite a journey. From initial caution, through disappointment when the first MW lists were revealed, to wild enthusiasm after playing a couple of games with tank companies, I've now played a few games with a major infantry focus and my opinion has started swinging back again.

To be clear, I still believe V4 is a good game. The rules have on the whole been improved. It's just that there are a number of issues that have cropped up as we've delved deeper that have somewhat dampened my earlier excitement.

The main issue is a general lack of clarity about the rules. In the process of slimming down the rules from just short of 300 pages in the V3 rulebook to only 100 pages, there are important sentences that have been left out. McBeth has written a piece that does a good job of capturing some of the issues with the completeness of the rules. These things don't matter so much for social games, but as soon as we put it into a competitive environment, interpretations will differ and problems will arise. As an example, McBeth and I probably spent about 20 minutes during a recent game trying to work out whether aircraft counted as "on table" for the purposes of Strategic Withdrawal (final answer: yes). We spent another five minutes trying to decide whether an observer team was able to Shoot and Scoot after spotting for a bombardment (final answer: yes). A couple of other questions we had were resolved when we eventually read the next sentence in the paragraph, but they were a minority. 

An additional concern is that while tank engagements tend to be over pretty quickly, the game length increases drastically as soon as infantry are involved. It's not that the game is slowed down by them, but rather games involving infantry seem to be taking more turns to bring to a conclusion than they used to, and this may impact our ability to complete tournament games within set time limits. I think there are a few reasons for this:

1. Last Stand. The need to get infantry units down to two stands, and formations down to one CHQ, Combat, or Weapons unit, means it takes much longer to win by breaking the opponents army. 
2. Infantry Assaults. Changes to the line of sight rules mean it's easier to set up a strong defensive position and therefore a lot harder to pull off a successful assault. Instead of one turn of preparation to achieve a pin, and an assault that either blows the defender away or falls over in hail of bad dice, it seems like you now need to take several turns of chipping away with repeat bombardments, followed by possibly two or three moves of successive assaults, in order to fully clear a position. Not unreasonable, but it all takes time.
3. Both sides losing in timed-out defensive battles. Without the ability to win by clock, the only way a defender can win in a defensive battle is by either being able to clear the enemy out of your half, or by hunting down weapons platoons in the attacker's backcourt to bring them closer to Formation Last Stand. In competitions, a lot will depend on the attacker's attitude: if they reach the point of no longer being able to win the game, will they concede and let the defender have the points, or do they take up positions that prevent the defender from winning, play the clock, and force the defender to risk a counterattack?

There are a few other things I've learned from recent games.

• Don't take half-tracks, wheeled vehicles or medium+ guns anywhere near any kind of difficult going. The Cross scores are harsh, and you can be sure that if you end up needing to move them, the unit will play no further part in the game.
• Anti-aircraft units are worthwhile, even though the maths suggests otherwise. In a game with Bede I took a platoon of three Bofors against a Sporadic Hs129, and while they did nothing during the first air raid, costing me a Churchill, they managed to down it the next time it came in. More importantly, even if the dice hadn't lined up the way they did, at least I felt like I was involved in the process and not just helplessly watching my tanks die.  I'll be looking at AA options for all of my lists from now on, at least until we see whether the local meta ends up leaning towards aircraft or not.
• Keep tanks well away from Panzerfausts. This was always the case in V3, but even more so now, given that they hit with AT 12 against side armour on a simple skill check. No one is driving away from that in one piece.
• I'm undecided on Night Attack. McBeth used it on me in Rearguard, and while it gave him more of a concealed approach, it robbed him of his Support platoons until dawn broke on my Turn 4. Did it change the outcome of the game? I asked him about it after the game and he thought it was worth it, so probably not.
• I can't think of a solid justification for Observer teams having unlimited line of sight at night, but it avoids some of the weirdness that crops up in the same situation in Team Yankee. I still struggle with there being no benefit to being Gone To Ground when under a bombardment template.

I did have grand plans to touch up and rebase various armies for V4, but honestly I can't be bothered at the moment. I received a box of more 15mm Soviets for Team Yankee this week, enough to get me to a 75 point list, so I'm going to be focusing on those for the next little while. I'm looking forward to the release of Red Thunder, my initial thinking being that I'd like to pick up some T-64s and then re-purpose my T-72s to start an East German army. But the other thing I've been thinking about for TY, which would take me in a completely different direction to a battalion of T-64s, is to standardise on 30pt games. It would have a very different feel compared to the bigger games. A couple of platoons of BMP-mounted infantry trying to secure a bridge defended by a British Airmobile Company? Getting T-55s on the table without feeling like you have to drop 60 of them? Scorpions and Scimitars having a meaningful role? It sounds to me like smaller games could be fun.

FOW V4-LW Game Review

Let me get this out of the way first: Flames of War Version 4 is an excellent game.

McZermof and I played two games at the club on Saturday. The set-up was 1750pt late war tank companies on an 8x6 table. We were a bit light on terrain, particularly roads, so that's something we'll have to work on for next time. 48 square feet is a lot of real estate to cover, but we managed to arrange it to avoid having large lines of sight.

For the first game, we tried the "Battle Plans" mission selector from the More Missions PDF. I chose a Prepared Attack posture, while McZermof went for Hasty Attack. The die roll to chose the specific mission had me defending in Breakthrough. This made sense: you could imagine that the British were in the process of preparing for a major operation when the Germans threw in a spoiling attack. I quite like the Battle Plans concept, but would need to think through how it would work in a tournament context.

Due to the size of the table, the game broke into three separate actions: a German left hook of three StuGs running into three Comets, which was a matchup the Germans were never likely to win; a right hook of seven StuGs and two Hornisse against five Comets, which were slightly better odds; and a flank march of Sturm Scouts that had to come onto the table in the face of four Stuart Jalopies and three Universal Carriers. The end result was a British victory for the lost of five of their eight Comets, most of the damage being done by an Hs129B3, with the Germans hitting Formation Last Stand at the start of their Turn 5. All up, the game lasted a bit over an hour.

The British Right Flank: Comets afloat in a sea of burning StuGs.

The Killer Blow: The StuG missed, the Typhoon hit, the Germans broke.

For the second game we decided to play Dust Up. This game went much better for the Germans. Their reserves turned up and were able to make a concentrated push for their objectives, while the British reserves were late and had to be committed piecemeal to try and stop them. The Luftwaffe turned up every turn except for the first, and their lone Hs129 single-handedly removed five Comets from the British left flank. It all came down to a single 4+ Unit Last Stand for the Stuart Jalopies, who through speed and determination had managed to get themselves past three StuGs and onto an objective before being reduced to a single tank. They failed, leading to Formation Last Stand for the British at the start of their Turn 7. This game was a bit longer, at about two hours, but still pretty good for a 1750pt game that involved a lot of chat and leafing through the rulebook.

The End of Game 2. Note Stuart Jalopy on the objective in the far distance, about to fail its Unit Last Stand

As mentioned in my previous post, there were three main things I had wanted to learn from the day.

1. Pace and Space. Light Tank mobility is amazing, particularly on such a large board. Special mention goes to the Stuart Jalopies, whose combination of Light Tank and Spearhead opened up interesting possibilities for deployment in Dust Up. Half-tracked is not as good cross country, but given a decent road network it would come into its own.
2. Transport. I didn't end up using the halftracks at all. The infantry in fact didn't move much at all, due to me being the defender in both games: they parked themselves on the objectives and sat there. The lack of roads on our table would have limited their advantage anyway.
3. Air Support. The Hs129 was the MVP of game two, and my Typhoons did pretty well on the occasions that they turned up. While the reduction in AT to 3 for all bombs and rockets means that those weapons are not going to be a huge problem for tanks, cannon-armed aircraft are incredibly potent against medium armour. An immediate change I will be making to this particular list is dropping the Carriers for a pair of Bofors SPs so that I don't feel like such a sitting duck next time around.

To summarise my thoughts from the day, the ruleset is quick and clean, yet are still undeniably Flames of War. Many rules have been stripped back or removed entirely, but it's evident that an awful lot of thought has gone into what has remained. This would be the benefit of having had Team Yankee in the wild for a couple of years prior to V4 being released, in what was effectively a massive open beta of the revised mechanics. No matter how thorough the playtesting process, there is no possible way that V4 could have been as significantly a change from V3 while still being as slick as it is, were it not for the influence of TY.

There were only a few issues that we came across.

1. Fighter Interception. Under V3, purchasing air support gave you access to both ground-attack aircraft and fighter interception. It appears that under V4 the only fighter interception available is the 25pt purchase in the Early War British and French lists. I have no idea why this would be the case.
2. Hans-Ulrich Rudel. Not present in this game, but if your opponent happens to bring Rudel along, then all you can do is resign yourself to losing two tanks a turn for the entire game. First impressions, given what I've already noted above regarding cannon-armed aircraft, are that he's probably broken. I cannot understand the logic of making him immortal (Charmed Life, page 43 of Special Rules and Warriors), rather than being given a variation of the 3+ Warrior Save (page 3 of the same book).
3. Semi-indirect Fire. It took us a few minutes to try and work out what exactly can be rerolled by Semi-indirect Fire when needing 7s or 8s to hit. I'm still not quite sure that I understand how it's meant to work.

And that was it. Two full 1750pt games with a new set of rules resulted in only three quibbles. To reiterate my opening statement, V4 is an excellent game, and I look forward to playing more of it.

Upcoming V4-LW Game Preview

This coming Saturday I have a game of FOW V4 lined up with McZermof. It's set up as a 1750pt late war game, being played on an 8x6 table. His post about it can be found here. I'll be taking my Comet Squadron for its first ever run, with my list being:

British Armoured Squaron - Nachtjäger

Company HQ, 290 pts
   2 x Comet

Armoured Platoon, 435 pts
   3 x Comet

Armoured Platoon, 435 pts
   3 x Comet

Recce Patrol, 185 pts
   4 x Stuart VI Jalopy

Motor Platoon, 140 pts

Scout Platoon, 95 pts
   3 x Universal Carrier + 1 x PIAT upgrade 

Limited Air Support, 170 pts
   2 x Typhoon

Total Cost: 1750 pts

I am borrowing M5 Stuarts and M3 halftracks from my American collection as I don't have models of their British equivalents, hence the difference in colours.  If the list is fun then I'll look to get the miniatures to do it properly.  I made up some removable commanders and .50cals to temporarily turn the Stuarts into turretless Jalopies.

Apart from getting a game in with a friend who is always great fun to play, there are a few other specific things I'm hoping to get from the game that have influenced my list build.

1. Pace and Space. First impressions are that V4 looks like it promotes manoeuvre, so we want to put that to the test by putting quite small lists onto a table twice the size that they'd usually be found on. All of my vehicles have either Light Tank or Half-track mobility, so if the game has been built to favour movement then this is a list that should be able to exploit that.
2. Transport. Under V3, motorised transport was only really of use on tables bigger than 6x4, and even then were usually more of a liability. Infantry have been given a significant speed boost in V4, but also now have a better save while mounted. It's going to be interesting to see how these two factors change the value of transport.
3. Air Support. V4 is notable for the similarity of its rules to Team Yankee, and in that latter system failure to field air defence will cost you dearly. While nothing in V4 compares in any way to the firepower of the AGM-65 in TY, both of us are bringing cannon-armed ground attack aircraft to the table, and neither of us have any anti-aircraft units. Hopefully this will indicate whether fielding AA is going to be important in this system.

I'll post again after the game with some photos and thoughts.

Battlefront Mi-24 Hind

I had intended to do a build review of the Battlefront Hind, but there are lots of reviews and how tos out there so there's not really any point. To summarise my impressions of the kit, the model on the whole is pretty good. It goes together nicely, looks like a Hind, and is pretty impressive on the table. The join between the two fuselage halves follows the canopy framing rather than just running straight through the middle of the front windows, which shows someone put some thought into how it goes together. It hints at the characteristic twist in the Hind's fuselage without actually capturing it - undecided about this but it is probably a good decision for a game piece in this scale.

I was worried about the main rotors breaking, given their 170mm diameter, but there have been no problems so far. The blades come in three pieces, with a nicely detailed hub and three blades cast as one large piece, and two individual blades to attach and make up the five. Poly cement has done a good job of welding the blades together, but I used superglue for the mast as I didn't want to risk softening it. So far everything is holding together nicely.

As far as problems go, the tail rotor appears to have been cast backwards: on the original it rotates clockwise, but on the BF model it is set up for rotation in the opposite direction.

One of the red star decals delaminated slightly as I applied it - not a tear as the transfer was still intact, but part of the red printing seemed to come off. I was able to push it back into the right place with a brush and don't expect any further problems with them now the model is vanished.

The decals for the tail boom have misspelt  the warning "ONACHO" as "ONAOHO", and the decal for the starboard side has the lettering reversed. I have ended up painting them on by hand.

On the table, they are large beasts. It is difficult maintaining a 6" command distance without the visual distraction of having rotors overlapping. If I were to expand to a unit of four, I would vary the height of the flight stands for variety, with the added bonus being that they will be able to maintain command distance without looking ridiculous. In theory it would be possible to put a couple in line abreast and up to 16" apart, however while they would be In Command, there are a number of rules that have a 6" range, looking particularly at Good Spirits, Movement Orders and Replacing Leaders, so these won't apply even though you are In Command. I note that the equivalent rules in V4 refer to teams being In Command, rather than within 6", so would expect TY to be updated to match at some point. For the meantime, I'm happy with my two, and I'm looking forward to hunting more Abrams with them in the near future.