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Okay so I got spanked by a Russian IS2 Force at the weekend, when I used my Lehr Army (yes i Know wrong front) as a Proxy force. My 2 x Tigers did okay, my Jagdpanzer IV's did nothing, my 120mm Mortars were pretty good killing 2 and bailing another 2. However the sheer numbers of Heavy tanks he fielded pretty much spanked me. I was thinking of adding in a further 2 x Flak 88's to try and have a fighting chance against heavy Tanks. Is this just a knightmare force and I just have to live with it? Or are there any other effective strategies?

Pak 43's, Jagpanthers, Elefants, Panthers, JagpanzerIV 70s, King Tigers, Hummels, 15cm artillery and aircraft, where these are available they are your best bet for taking them on directly.

Tigers and Brumbars are just targets to them. If all else fails, smoke 'em.

Is he rushing you with them? Pioneers with flamethrowers, Panzerfausts and Panzershrecks may be of use.

I've found smoke works pretty well when focusing on part of the Russian armor you need to kill. At least it makes the IS-2's move to get LOS and that can reduce their return-fire effectiveness.

Maybe smoke one tank platoon, then use everything you have to concentrate on another, hopefully crippling it or destroying it.

I'd agree having additional 88's to help add some more heavy firepower. Hopefully you can use them in ambush as well.....

I know terrain kind of shapes the way you're going to fight them though; typically Russian forces favor more terrain for their hordes, so I usually take this into account when putting a force together to fight them.

They're tough and the only way I know to fight them is build a list specifically to do it. Missions could be another factor as some may favor your forces to a degree.....

Yup, he has several platoons, he uses a Bounding overwatch style with at least one platoon stopped and using their full ROF, with several other platoons of Tanks (7 per platoon, believe they are the T-34 improved variant). These literally drive forward and stop then lay down a formidable amount of firepower, by turn 3 His IS2 are on an objective or stop pouring out the hurt.

I did have some Flamm 251's and a Pioneer platoon with flamers but they got destroyed by the Stalins Organ massed Artillery fire...

I got the advantage on with it being a Mechanised Army on the defensive. I had a mobile reserves which was annoying as my Panzerwerfers never made it on the board. I hate one trick pony armies like these, at tournaments they fail because they cannot do everything, but they do one thing very well, Tank shock.

Also, what kind of tables are you playing on that allows him to get so many tanks watching each other? Do you have Forest/Woods zone terrain scattered around that infantry can hide in? What about hills? If you're playing on flat open terrain, well then of course you're going to lose.

Remember, infantry not on the edge of a forest cannot be seen unless the shooting or spotting model is 6" away. At that point, you can go for the flamethrower bail and assault on tanks.

Smoke is also key. That entire back line of tanks that are at full RoF? Useless to him unless he moves. Same goes for limiting defensive fire on tanks when assaulting them, smoke part of the army, then assault into the smoke. If he spreads out his tanks to keep LoS open to his back tanks, then smoking part of his lead tanks means the rest won't add their MG dice.

Also, since you have vets, you have a better chance of making the tank terror roll, and not taking enough hits in defensive fire to drive you away. Be sure to try and get the gone to ground bonus as much as possible too.

88's will definitely help, even though against other armies they tend to get hit with smoke, Soviets have no smoke for their artillery.

Do your panzers get the stormtrooper move as well? It's not reliable, but at least it will save your tanks from getting shot at for a few turns.

Well the Tables are always covered in a Medium level of Terrain (No open Steppe or Desert tables). I didn't make the best of my Lehr Infantry, I shouldn't have used my Mortars against the Tanks. I should have laid a smoke screen and moved the Flamers and AT infantry through it. He refused a flank by having his units on the board close to edge stopping me from bringing the units on. To be honest, he didn't enjoy the game for the games sake. He was one of these Win at All Costs type, which was disappointing because I am "laise faire" so long as I enjoy the game, I am willing to let the odd thing slide for the sake of sportsmanship and also to stop the getting embroiled in counter productive arguments. That said, if he never gets challenged he won't change, maybe i was a little bit of a moral coward and should have said "Wait WTF, that's not how you do that"...This is where the Painter in me overtakes the Wargamer, I am a definite painter more than gamer. I like the spectacle of a beautiful table with two beautifully painted armies duking it out.

There is very little that can stop units from coming in off a board edge. This is not 40k where there is a bubble of space that allows you to do so.

Infantry has to stay 1 inch away from a vehicle, or maybe 2, but that's at the end of their movement, and when they come in they move in from the edge of a board, so that's a full movement to end up anywhere 6" away from the edge.

Having tanks, or infantry near the edge, or right on it, just means those units will get hit hard with a full strenth attack when the reserves come in. Vehicles don't need to keep any gaps between them.

Since you're playing Lehr, this means a lot of veteran infantry that will probably be armed with panzerfausts or shreks hitting side armor, then assaulting from the rear.

Make sure you know the rules better than your opponent. People who only play to win at all costs will often misinterpret rules to their favor and if you don't call him on it, who will? Do it for his sake as well, because those types quickly find that no one wants to play with them, except yourself, and eventually you will get tired of it as well.

He refused a flank by having his units on the board close to edge stopping me from bringing the units on.

How could he pull this off without totally wasting a giant unit?

I'd also like to add, that from the MLFTF (More Lessons From the Front, aka, FoW rules FAQ's) that any unit that cannot maintain the 1" distance from the enemy when comming on, means they can still come on, but do so as an immediate assault.

It is from the basic rulebook MLFTF, the lastest version I believe, so in that respect, there is no way he could have prevented you from comming on from the board edge.

Don't know where he thought he could prevent you from doing so as I've read through the rulebook and cannot find anywhere, any situation that prevents your reserves from comming on the board once they're rolled-for/activated.

Sad to see that kind of attitude leak into a FoW game though....as I play for the fun as well.

Yeah, as I said above i took the "Moral coward/ sporting ideal" probably a bit to hard. I am going to avoid him in future and if I have to play him again, I will give no Quarter because he's getting away with far too much by abusing my trust.

mwnciboo wrote:Yeah, as I said above i took the "Moral coward/ sporting ideal" probably a bit to hard. I am going to avoid him in future and if I have to play him again, I will give no Quarter because he's getting away with far too much by abusing my trust.

Oh I agree; I wasn't condoning a confrontation in your game at all. It's one of those things you're not prepared for and you just take the high ground which is pretty much what I do for the most part.

At least you're prepared IF there is a next time; I try to brush up on the FAQ's a bit just to see if I've run into some of those situations, but thankfully, I haven't and so far, not with someone who was such a "gamer" like in your situation.

Hopefully, your future games will be much better...

The best way to fight heavy tanks is to make sure there is a ton of terrain on the board. Or at least that has been my experience so far.

In my first few battles as soviet infantry I found that people didnt use enough terrain, and I just got slaughtered by machineguns. By making the table 60-80% terrain you can approach his tanks and slaughter them without worrying about getting shot up on the charge. Remember that people outside woods can not shoot you unless they are within 6 inches or you are on the lip of the woods.

If you make your own woods you can make some big stands of them which people will likely think look cool without realizing you are giving yourself a strong advantage as a non armored force.

Panthers are a pretty hard counter for IS-2s, if you stay in cover and GTG, he cant hit you from long range, or if he moves.
Add in some smoke and things will go your way.

Vertrucio wrote:There is very little that can stop units from coming in off a board edge. This is not 40k where there is a bubble of space that allows you to do so.

Infantry has to stay 1 inch away from a vehicle, or maybe 2, but that's at the end of their movement, and when they come in they move in from the edge of a board, so that's a full movement to end up anywhere 6" away from the edge.

This depends solely on how the tanks are placed and where they are placed. I did keep an opponents flanking polish cavalry off the table for multiple turns by him having the misfortue of continually rolling the same corner on the table and needing to end his movement 2" from my units. He just couldn't get them on the table legally because of what was stacked in that corner of the table. It happens. He eventually got the cavalry to deploy in a different random zone, but by then it was just too late for them to help his position at all.

The rules allow you to move through your own vehicles/units, but not through enemy units and vehicles, so if there is no space to move through it doesn't matter that you have to be a set distance away at the *end* of the move. That said it is hard to line stuff up along an entire table edge to keep any reserves from coming in that way. I just pulled it off by accident of my opponent being forced to deploy in the same corner of the table mutiple times.

If there is enough space, though, you can just move in around a unit trying to block deployment, BUT there has to be space to move through. In that case, yes they become shooting targets for whatever deploys from reserve.

Skriker


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ThirdUltra wrote:
I'd also like to add, that from the MLFTF (More Lessons From the Front, aka, FoW rules FAQ's) that any unit that cannot maintain the 1" distance from the enemy when comming on, means they can still come on, but do so as an immediate assault.

Have to remember this for future play against my friend's polish cavalry. He will definitely be happy to see this ruling!

Skriker

Tanks can actually move through enemy tanks, unless the enemy tank is blocking a defile

Skriker wrote:Have to remember this for future play against my friend's polish cavalry. He will definitely be happy to see this ruling!

Skriker

You sure about that? Remember what the rules say about cavalry assaulting tanks...

I had the exact same thing happen to me yesterday. Wouldve lost but I managed to catch the enemy CO tank from the year and popped it with three shermans.

My canadian rifle list has a huge problem with heavy armour. Im currently reworking my list to include 17 pdrs and some other stuff. But tbh I dont really know what else to add to counter this kind of stuff. Maybe piats in Carriers?

Infantry, smoke, flanks.

Remember that if they turn the turrets to face one way, you can hit the side of the turret for side armor, assuming he doesn't stormtrooper or something.

So, you can also flood the field with targets at over 90 degree angles of attack against your intended target. If he shoots at one thing, the other gets side shots.

Kages Flames of War is required reading regarding Turret facing rules, actually, all his "Rules-Nazi" stuff is just aces.

I might take panthers to counter the IS-2's but they are damn expensive.

However I painted the following a few weeks back and with extra Crew the ROF is pretty impressive, as is their ability to "pop" armour..



I think I've finally got something that can damage the IS-2's and keep them cautious.

Not quite...

Large gun teams like the 88s are certainly deadly, but they suffer from some major drawbacks.

First is that they don't get concealed from foxholes. So you'll need either gun pits or concealing terrain to put them in.

Then after that they still just have a 5+ gun save, so you're more likely to fail it. Then if you're dug in, it goes to a firepower check, which the IS-2 gun has a pretty good firepower. And even low firepowers can still kill 88s due to the number of failed saves.

Thankfully you don't have to worry about smoke since they're fighting soviets. But they still can't move to shoot, so most likely the IS-2s will get the first round of shots.

About the only advantage to it is that you can go Gone to Ground with it, and the 40" range so you can shoot from slightly farther away than the enemy.

Vertrucio wrote:Then after that they still just have a 5+ gun save, so you're more likely to fail it. Then if you're dug in, it goes to a firepower check, which the IS-2 gun has a pretty good firepower. And even low firepowers can still kill 88s due to the number of failed saves.

The IS-2 has a 2+ FP rating. It also (along with the ISU-122 and ISU-152) has the Heavy Breakthrough Gun rule, which states that any unarmored target that is hit by the vehicle's main gun doesn't get a save. So there's no gun save.

NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER put more than one infantry team in a building if you're facing an ISU-152. Bunker Buster means that the gun will hit every team in the building simultaneously, Heavy Breakthrough Gun means that the infantry won't get their 3+ infantry save. And 1+ Firepower means that there's no point in testing firepower. If it hits, you lose EVERYTHING in the building. And while the target priority rules ordinarily state that hits need to be allocated to teams that aren't in bulletproof cover before being allocated against teams that are, there's an exception for Bunker Busters. Hits from Bunker Busters are allocated to teams in buildings (to take advantage of what Bunker Buster does against multiple teams inside of a building) first.