Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello all, long time 40k/fantasy player here and my brother and I are looking at getting into flames of war, we feel the amount and size of models in 40k has become cost prohibitive, and overcluttered on a 6x4 board, not to mention the inherrent imbalance in 40k has left a sour taste, so we are looking to move on. As an armor officer, I'm extremely interested in playing a t ank company, and my bro is a history buff so he loves the WW2 theme as well.

Right, so I'm looking at doing a Russian late war tank company, for as cheap money wise as possible. The 1500pt list i have come up with is 21 t34's (10 total with the 85mm), and priority air support with an IL-2. If i order from PSC its gonna cost me right around 100$ all told. My brother will be making a british tank company list with 15 shermans (4 total fireflies i think?? dont remember), one motor rifle platoon, and a typhoon priority air support. Seeing as he will be my first oponent are lists seem pretty well balanced against one another, but my question is concerning the wider ranging tactics in flames of war. I understand from some light reading that tanks have a hard time with dug in veteran infantry? So if I roll up against an all infantry us or german list with my russian armored horde, am I pretty much hosed? In my mind 21 tanks with their hull mounted and coax machine guns should be able to make short work of infantry, or at least keep them pinned and ineffective for the duration of the game, but I will admit I skimmed through the rule book pretty quickly so my grasp of the core rules isnt 100% yet.

I guess my ultimate question would be is it possible to be succesful with a 100% armored list? Or am I dooming myself to fail without bringing any infantry? C&C welcome!

Always great to have a fellow former-Officer on board...Check this out..

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Starting_a_Flames_of_War_Force

And if you ever feel like maybe doing some 15mm Fulda Gap stuff???? Check out my Blog here....

http://stoppingtheredtide.blogspot.co.uk/

If you both play all tanks it shouldnt be to bad but I think the brits will prolly end up on the losing end of the firefights.

The issue tanks have with dug in veteran infantry in Latewar is that the infantry have enough Anti tank weapons to be threatening in assault. Not to mention they usually dig in, in the most unfriendly tank territory they can. Thus assaulting them to get rid of them and take an objective can be very difficult.

You can attempt to shoot them out, but needing 6's to hit without recon lifting gone to ground makes it a time consuming and often lucky roll type prospect. As they then get a 3+ save and you then have to make a firepower roll to actually kill them.

Also when you play try to time your games as standard play is 2.5 hours for a match. An you will begin to see that surviving is all those veteran infantry need to do to win the game if they are defending. As most games you will spend the first bit of the game trying to eliminate their tanks/AT guns/heavy artillery. Which may result in you losing the game before you can even get around to those veteran infantry tics on the objective.

You will find no one unit is the answer to everything in this game, combined arms works really well...and if your taking all tanks bring recon...recon is a must with all vehicles in my opinion. All tanks works as long as you have some recon around to screen off ambushes and lift gone to ground from defenders at critical points.

so if my brother 180's on me and rolls a full british commanda list from turning tides, my russian armored horde will pretty much be inneffective without infantry, even with air support?

How much would it help to drop the priority air and take 27 tank escorts in terms of dealing with infantry?

Take the Russian tanks with breakthrough guns (no infantry saves) isu-2 I think

It's a good place to start, you can't go too far wrong with a T34 horde from PSC.

In time you could add an infantry company, or take a few big guns, but for learning the game, how tanks work and even discovering how they fare against infantry its not a bad list.

You've got that many tanks, that if you can tempt the evil little ground huggers to assault you, you should be able to get 5 hits and bounce them. Then give them some machine gun to the face.

Just don't assault them until they are worn down.

Welcome to the game, I hope you enjoy it.

How would this work out in comparison then?

Red bear list tank battallion (red army)
1 CMD T34/85 cupula
2x tank company with 7 t34/85 one with cupula's
1 tank rider company with 2xplatoons
1 razvedki platoon (recon) with 4 rifle squads mounted in captured german kfz 251's

Would that give me better odds against an all infantry list while still being an armored power house?

British Tank lists in Market Garden are awesome!

The Irish Guards list is Solid, lots of options Firefly's can really lay it down. You can field a fair number.

I would buy some extra Tanks (Open Fire boxed sets on Ebay).

Don't try and make a list, just get playing and learn your style of play. As an Ex-Armoured Commander you would probably be extremely aggressive. Soviet Lists favour this kind of play, German Forces tend to favour careful husbanding of your meagre forces (e.g Fire from cover and stormtrooper away, better to live and withdraw to fire in a future turn. US and British Forces need synergy in their tank forces, because if you lose the Fireflys early your tanks become pretty much useless at range, so you've got to close and get those shots up close and personal.

I prefer fielding lots of Tanks like a STuG Company or Panzer IV Company rather than say 3-4 Panthers or Tigers. Equally I like Large Sherman Forces, especially ones where you can have 2 Fireflys per platoon, so you can hit hard.

US Tank Destroyer Lists can hit harder than a Heavy Weight boxer with a tungsten fist!

alright ive made up my mind lol, just going to go all in and purchase the 21 psc t34's, an il2 sturmovik, and the psc russian infantry in summer uniform to give me a bit to play around with.

On that note, do the PSC infantry come with appropriate size bases or do i needa order seperate ones?

You will need to order bases for them.

guidsgjg wrote:
alright ive made up my mind lol, just going to go all in and purchase the 21 psc t34's, an il2 sturmovik, and the psc russian infantry in summer uniform to give me a bit to play around with.

On that note, do the PSC infantry come with appropriate size bases or do i needa order seperate ones?

A note of caution..... PSC Tanks great.....PSC Infantry less so.

PSC Infantry don't survive very well, I bought them, painted them, loved them, played them once a week for 12months and they haven't lasted well (plastic guns etc break, occasional knocks have snapped men on the base)



Bought Metals (peter pig / FOW ), painted them, loved them, played with them for over 3 years, no damage, they haven't snapped or broken.





If you are in for the longer term then invest in metals! Otherwise it's a false economy as you need to replace the cheap PSC several times.

PSC Vehicles however are superb!!! Just add a bit of ballast when you are putting them together to weigh them down...







A PSC Panther next to a BF "Noisy Kitty" !!!

Not everyone a fan, but if you can afford it buy the BF infantery set. they have everything you need in the set.

There's always old glory's command decision lines. I have a bunch of their soviet infantry and they look really nice, and are similar looking to battlefront's infantry. The main difference between the two lines is that battlefront is much more chunkier and have more of a pumpkin head look.

 Albeezie wrote:
There's always old glory's command decision lines. I have a bunch of their soviet infantry and they look really nice, and are similar looking to battlefront's infantry. The main difference between the two lines is that battlefront is much more chunkier and have more of a pumpkin head look.

That is good deal forgot about them that is what we use 50 for 15 bucks.

guidsgjg wrote:
How would this work out in comparison then?

Red bear list tank battallion (red army)
1 CMD T34/85 cupula
2x tank company with 7 t34/85 one with cupula's
1 tank rider company with 2xplatoons
1 razvedki platoon (recon) with 4 rifle squads mounted in captured german kfz 251's

Would that give me better odds against an all infantry list while still being an armored power house?

T34 hordes don't really work well in late war, there is too much integral AT in infantry platoons so they tend to just bounce off and they don't really have the firepower to standup to big cat lists. They can still work but they have some quite significant drawbacks. At least they are cheap

One interesting option is to swap out one of your t34/85 platoons for a full platoon of T34/76s as they are just as good in assaults but a lot faster and they can easily handle difficult terrain so you will be assaulting at least a turn earlier.

 Reaver83 wrote:
Take the Russian tanks with breakthrough guns (no infantry saves) isu-2 I think

Still won't have enough volume of fire to kill them.

A better compromise would be to run Tankovys if you want to run Russian armor against a primarily infantry force. This will give you some integrated infantry into your armor allowing you to face the infantry on an even footing.

Having been the "infantry guy" in a meta dominated by armor I can say veteran infantry lists are almost unfair against the armor players.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Having been the "infantry guy" in a meta dominated by armor I can say veteran infantry lists are almost unfair against the armor players.

Thats what they get for taking armour lists in the first place

I play leg infantry almost exclusively and I love playing armoured lists,especially big cat lists. Its just so satisfying watching those expensive hulks fail to kill anything all game and then get the gak kicked out of them in an assault. Having an strong infantry player in the group makes the meta more interesting and varied to the point where you actually start to commonly see combined arms lists.

guidsgjg wrote:
Hello all, long time 40k/fantasy player here and my brother and I are looking at getting into flames of war, we feel the amount and size of models in 40k has become cost prohibitive, and overcluttered on a 6x4 board, not to mention the inherrent imbalance in 40k has left a sour taste, so we are looking to move on. As an armor officer, I'm extremely interested in playing a t ank company, and my bro is a history buff so he loves the WW2 theme as well.

Right, so I'm looking at doing a Russian late war tank company, for as cheap money wise as possible. The 1500pt list i have come up with is 21 t34's (10 total with the 85mm), and priority air support with an IL-2. If i order from PSC its gonna cost me right around 100$ all told. My brother will be making a british tank company list with 15 shermans (4 total fireflies i think?? dont remember), one motor rifle platoon, and a typhoon priority air support. Seeing as he will be my first oponent are lists seem pretty well balanced against one another, but my question is concerning the wider ranging tactics in flames of war. I understand from some light reading that tanks have a hard time with dug in veteran infantry? So if I roll up against an all infantry us or german list with my russian armored horde, am I pretty much hosed? In my mind 21 tanks with their hull mounted and coax machine guns should be able to make short work of infantry, or at least keep them pinned and ineffective for the duration of the game, but I will admit I skimmed through the rule book pretty quickly so my grasp of the core rules isnt 100% yet.

I guess my ultimate question would be is it possible to be succesful with a 100% armored list? Or am I dooming myself to fail without bringing any infantry? C&C welcome!

Infantry doesn't really hurt your tanks so unless you assault them so they are actually not a problem. Veteran infantry can be a chore to get rid off but they don't actually do anything to you.The problem is the rest of their army shooting your tanks.

The latewar T-34 horde is very overpriced and doesn't really work well as it either fires or moves. You can win games with it but it hates manouvering and is no fun to play. If you want soviet armour I would recommend the light assault gun regiment or the Heavy assault gun regiment. These lists bring good tools to deal with everything. Their speciality is infantry as they bring incredibly destructive weapons and the russian special tactic of rerolling to hit at short range.

A Quick Word on PSC. Their models are usually lower than battlefronts and details are less pronounced. The height difference makes psc vechicles look much smaller than battlefronts on the table. Also the assambly time for them is long. If you are about to build 20 tanks this is something to consider aswell.

@Papdoc, sounds like you are experienced with these types of lists.

I myself have recently acquired a Heavy assault gun regiment, only had one game with it so far (against Reaver83), I got over confident and allowed my SU122s to get assaulted and it was goodnight Sienna.

I was wondering, what list you take? However I don't want to crash the OPs thread. Would you mind either PMing me your list or posting it in a new thread?

 Papadoc wrote:

Infantry doesn't really hurt your tanks so unless you assault them so they are actually not a problem. Veteran infantry can be a chore to get rid off but they don't actually do anything to you.The problem is the rest of their army shooting your tanks.

It all depends on the mission. Armour has great difficulty clearing well supported veteran infantry of objectives, you can't kill them fast enough and if you assault you are very likely to lose. You don't always have to do this of course but its not exactly an uncommon scenario. There is more to FoW than simply killing things.

Anything with a Firepower of 3+ (or 2+ or even 1+). Should be a priority against dug in Infantry. Even veterans will go down.

I actually achieve a pretty good effect on Dug in Infantry using AAA, things like 10/3's and Wirbelwind or Quad even a small unit of 2 will pour out alot of fire, and with a decent 5+ or 4+ FP you will take out a fair few stands, and that's before you start firing artillery, guns, tanks, mortars etc.

With dug in, infantry it pays to be methodical.

A really nasty tactic by Dug in Infantry is to literally sit there and take it, and remain gone to ground. I've seen players never fire a shot with their infantry and win.

It's how I often play British paras, three infantry platoons with 6pdrs never move/shoot while artillery and mortars disrupt the enemy

 mwnciboo wrote:
Anything with a Firepower of 3+ (or 2+ or even 1+). Should be a priority against dug in Infantry. Even veterans will go down.

I actually achieve a pretty good effect on Dug in Infantry using AAA, things like 10/3's and Wirbelwind or Quad even a small unit of 2 will pour out alot of fire, and with a decent 5+ or 4+ FP you will take out a fair few stands, and that's before you start firing artillery, guns, tanks, mortars etc.

With dug in, infantry it pays to be methodical.

A really nasty tactic by Dug in Infantry is to literally sit there and take it, and remain gone to ground. I've seen players never fire a shot with their infantry and win.

Yup, I learned this the hard way. Playing against Finns, he never moved or shot any of his infantry, just stayed dug in and waited me out. Note to self, have recon elements and some decent artillery support!

 mwnciboo wrote:
Anything with a Firepower of 3+ (or 2+ or even 1+). Should be a priority against dug in Infantry. Even veterans will go down.

While this is true it will still take a long time. I recently played a game where 4 Brumbars spent 4 turns bombarding one of my Finnish Jalkavaki platoons and only just managed to get them below half strength before I was able to launch a flanking attack with my Pioneeri.

In a defensive scenario your main line infantry sould be set up on your objectives with sufficent support (combat attached MGs, Panzershreks etc) and they simply shouldn't move until the enemy has started to break and then you can start counter attacking. Infantry are far from invincable but they are extremely effective at holding ground, with integral AT and sufficent artillery support they can stand up to anyone.

Some people find it boring but then some people find pure armour lists boring.

assaulting dug in infantry is probably the hardest thing in late war.

If you want to do it you need recon (lifting gone to ground is gold, and you also make gun teams loose the 3+ save to a 5+ save)

you then need to deal with the elements like anti tank guns (6pdrs etc)

and finally when you hit you need numbers to deal with them.

it also helps to have smoke to cover your advance

well, the list i have ordered up for unfortunately has no recon, it HAS numbers, but Soviets don't get smoke so I can't cover my advance. I recognize the limitations placed by running the t34 horde, especially after reading a few forums on the H&C special rule and their apparent points increase from v2. I totally understand it is a sub optimal build right now, but my follow up question would be how can i play effectively with the sub optimal build? I'm torn between two lists right now (that i will have the models to make)

list 1:
21 T34's with 10 upgraded to 85mm, priority Air support IL-2 Sturmovik (1500pts)

list 2:
18 t34's (one full platoon of 10, cmd t34/85, and platoon of 5 t34/85 2 75) one tank rider company (two platoons) and priority Air support IL-2 Sturmovik

Tactics i was thinking for list one was to use Air support to take out any particularly scary anti tank, then use it to help thin out the infantry, then overwhelm with numbers of tanks

For list two I was still trying to hold on to the armor horde feel while attaching some infantry to help the 10 t34/75 in assault, similar tactics though.

Thoughts?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, my brother finalised and ordered his list as well, I will be facing off against a british LW commando list (from turning tide or market garden, dont remem which);

He is essentially running 3 commando platoons with a PIAT in each and an extra in the HQ, and one sniper, a light mortar platoon with 3 mortars, a tank platoon with 3 shermans and one firefly, and priority typhoon air support

How unbalanced are our armies going to be against one another? I imagine my 18-21 T34's can make short work of his 4 tanks, but then be completely inneffective against his commando's while we just roll air support dice against one another?

As folk have said, killing stuff isn't entirely what FOW is all about. If you can isolate one section of the battlefield with most of your tanks vs his non-moving, dug-in dudes, and maneuver to neutralise his reserves, you can make a timely assault and capture whatever the inf was defending. Artillery and recon make a big difference though, so whilst I'd still run with what you've got (perhaps at a slightly lower points level to begin with) to learn the basics, look to the future and later on start adding tidbits here and there to taste. A clutch of Zevzda katyushas would be a cheap and useful investment, down the line.

Another alternative is to see if you can get two companies of infantry and a HQ for an Udarny Strelovky battalion out of that PSC box set; two medium strength shock troop coys and proxy in some T-34s as their counterpart flame-thrower version... they still get a main gun, but have flamethrowers too!

@guidsgjg

Honestly IMHO, you don't have a sub-optimal list. This thread has become so focussed on killing dug in vet infantry, that it may sound like you are sub optimal...you're not!
I've seen far worse and I know a very very good player that runs a list a lot like this.

Remember, machine guns don't suffer from H&C...just count up all those MG shots you have...some of those are getting through.

You're right, you need to focus on his Shermans, that's what your 85s are for. You need to overwhelm him with targets at this point. If you drip feed in, you're dead. Horde him, get round his flanks and stick up up his exhaust pipe.

With regards to the infantry, sit at 10.1 inches away and declare it openly. "I am 10.1 inches away....too far for you to assault me...now cry as I start blowing you away" You've got the number of dice to do it. Focus on one platoon, get it to half strength. Then if you're feeling good assault them. You're goal is to make them break not kill them all. So assault and then pull back, don't get carried away.

Time is not on your side, you need to be aggressive, especially in games where your opponent is half off the table. If you are half off, then maybe some caution is advisable.

Finally, planes are so hit and miss, they'll be awesome one game and useless the next. You need one, simply to make your opponent spread out, that's their real value for you...not much else, don't rely on it.

Good luck, I hope you enjoy your games, post back when you have a few more games under your belt.

P.S. Remember, it's all about the objectives.

@guidsgjg

You will have a big advantage against the commando list, he is right now very low on antitank (and you put down almost twenty) and as far as I remember his tanks are trained. Against them, hen and Chicks is actually manageable. At some point should your opponent get some 6 pounder AT guns, as you should will basicly steam roll him.

I have two comments. Priority air is not great in a tankovy for one reason. You are the one attacking and moving forward. You can't use air if you within 40cm of your enemy. And taking objectives means you have to be within 10 cm of the objective, and your opponent prevents you from taking it by putting his force there. This means either you have to wait on the air doing their job, or skip calling it in. You could go down to limited air, letting the dice run out as you close in and use it for interceptions. I would remove it though.

Second is, try to aim for atleast 4 platoons. That means in reserve missions where you need to put atleast half your army in reserve, you can have two platoons to manouvre. Right now most of your points will be in reserve if a mission uses reserves, or even worse delayed reserves (with bad luck you are stuck with one platoon on the table till turn 5). I think 2 katjusha with extra crew and the 37 mm AA are an excellent unit multipurpose unit. Those 37mm cannons wills hred typhoons. Be wary of exposing the trucks though as they are very easy to kill. Try to work in some recon aswell if you can find the points.

@Baby Darth Vader

Here is my army at 1500 and 1780 points. I don't know if this will help you that much.

1500
HQ
IS-2 +0.5 Cal AA MG 140

Combat Platoons
5 ISU-122 + V.S Rat
4 ISU-122 + 4 0.5cal AA MG

Weapon Platoons
Assault Gun Recon 1 Squad

Support
2 Katjusha Extra Crew 37mm AA

With the MG Issue with and Dug Infantry, it is a falsehood to say "Some of them are going to get through".

This is because you might spend 2-3 turns sitting there shooting just to kill a few Stands. What are the enemy doing during the these 2-3 turns? You can bet they are moving everything into position to punish you, while your Infantry act as Bait and lure them in.

The key to this is to under stand the mechanic....

So lets say you roll 18 MG dice against a Dug in-Veteran Infantry Unit require 6's to hit.

So 18 Dice, 1 in 6 to get a 6 so call it 3 x 6's rolled.

3+ Infantry save, so he rolls 3 dice, 2/3 chance so lets say he saves two.

Leaving you with 1 Die, you now need to roll a 6 to pass Firepower test to kill. e.g 1 in 6 chance to kill 1 stand.

So your 18 dice have given you precisely a 1 in 6 chance to kill one Stand in a Platoon of probably 7-9 Stands.......

So now you can see why Dug in Infantry is difficult to shift with only MG's.