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So I have just jumped in to finally buying FOW miniatures for a late war soviet tank company, however I haven't gotten a game in yet! So far I have 6 T-34/85s, 5 T-34s, and 5 SU-85Ms. My current list looks like this:

Company command T-34/85 w/ cupola
Tankovy company of 5 T-34/85s w/ cupola
Tankovy company of 5 T-34s w/ cupola
Tank killer company with 3 SU-85Ms
Total:995 points.

Is this list good to learn with? How should it be improved? Where to next?
Thanks!

You need some artillery in there, and some motorized infantry to hold points.

Good idea on the tanks, though. Tanks tanks tanks, and lots of them...

The tanks are great, but people have things for that, such as rockets, artillery, and launchers that will chew them up, as well. FOW is not just about run those tanks in and your going to win., people get a well rounded force to take all comers.

A nice way to start is with a squad of those tanks, run them around the table, then add in some grunts, to see what they do.

Nice and simple, then you can figure out the moves, the shoots, and the scoots, because thats pretty much a start of how they work together.

1 squad of tanks, a rifle platoon, and either or cannon/ mechanized artillery.

You'll do ok with what you have, but your going to have an issue when they start setting up those anti armor ambushes in choke points. You don't remove dead tanks, by the way. they smoke up and that smoke starts going around, too.

Tactics are pretty much on for tank tactics, rush in, get stuck in, pull back, hit them again with one squad, whoile you manuver around the fight, and hit them from the flank/ rear- where you get some bonuses for.

Tom was the tank f!@#ing master. look at this site- http://www.battlevault.com/Events/Wolfkrieg-10/Lists/Tom%20Kearney.pdf

You can contact them here- http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/All-American_Gamers/

Hope that helps.

Jack42494 wrote:So I have just jumped in to finally buying FOW miniatures for a late war soviet tank company, however I haven't gotten a game in yet! So far I have 6 T-34/85s, 5 T-34s, and 5 SU-85Ms. My current list looks like this:

Company command T-34/85 w/ cupola
Tankovy company of 5 T-34/85s w/ cupola
Tankovy company of 5 T-34s w/ cupola
Tank killer company with 3 SU-85Ms
Total:995 points.

Is this list good to learn with? How should it be improved? Where to next?
Thanks!

What is your gaming budget like?i can probably be pretty helpful.I am experienced in building Soviet TAnk companies.Your list looks good so far.The main thing is what are the armies your opppents play regularly.

My budget is pretty large at the moment, so any advice would be nice! I would like to keep infantry to a minimum, because I enjoy painting tanks more. I am not sure what my opponents will play most, as I haven't gone to the local FOW night yet!

Here is the final list I made for Tankovy when I was going to start Russians for what it's worth (seems like a lot of people are starting Russian tank companies, posted this only a few days ago in a thread about half a page down):


Tankovy Batalon HQ
1 T-34/85 obr 1943 with Cupola= 85

Combat Companies

Tankovy Company
5 T-34 obr 1942 with Cupola, 4 T-34/85 obr 1943 with Cupola= 530

Tankovy Company
5 T-34 obr 1942 with Cupola, 5 T-34/85 obr 1943 with Cupola= 585

Divisional Support

Guards Heavy Tank Company
3 KV-1s= 255

Tank Killer Company
5 SU-100= 390

Heavy Mortar Company
6 120-PM-38 mortar=145

Points:1990

Much of the advice I received when making this list was to max the T-34s and T-34/85s.

I would advise lots of tanks and a recon element.

Recon is essential to tank companies with the new rules. Esp with the New US Army tank destroyer rules you must have recon or expect to die in droves.

Also I would say infantry isnt necessary all it does is give the enemy a soft target to pick on with weapon systems that cant affect your tanks.

My current tournament army is hungarian tanks all tanks and recon tanks and Ive won 2 tournaments with it. No infantry and no artillery. Now hungarians are veteran while the soviets are only trained but you get more/better tanks as a result but just end up taking heavy losses.

So my advice is get some recon armored cars as you can bring those and get more T34s along with prolly some either ISU 122s of SU 100s to keep panthers honest.

Here's what I run for LW Tankovy (from Red Bear)

HQ Tankovy Batalon HQ - 1x CinC T-34/85 (80 pts)
- Cupola (5 pts)

Combat Platoons (Companies) Tankovy Company - 1x Command T-34/76, 4x T-34/76 and 5x Upgrade T-34/76 to T-34/85 (575 pts)
Cupolas to all T-34/76 or T-34/85 obr 1943 (10 pts)

Tankovy Company - 1x Command T-34/76, 4x T-34/76 and 5x Upgrade T-34/76 to T-34/85 (575 pts)
Cupolas to all T-34/76 or T-34/85 obr 1943 (10 pts)

Weapons Platoons: Anti-aircraft Platoon - 1x Command DShK AA MG on Truck, 2x DShK AA MG on Truck (55 pts)

Corps Support: Assault Gun Company - 1x Command SU-122, 2x SU-122 (130 pts)

Light Armored Car Platoon - 1x Command BA-64, 4x BA-64 (135 pts)

Guards Rocket Mortar Battalion - 1x Command Rifle, 1x Observer Rifle, 1x Truck, 4x BM-13-16 Katyusha (140 pts)
4x Additional Crew (20 pts)

1735 Points, 6 Platoons

It's all CT for support as well; it's got the recce element in there with some artillery. The idea is more hulls you can throw in the list, the better.

How are decoy tanks for recon? The seem interesting to me, and they could fill out the current models I have to 1500 points!

Jack42494 wrote:My budget is pretty large at the moment, so any advice would be nice! I would like to keep infantry to a minimum, because I enjoy painting tanks more. I am not sure what my opponents will play most, as I haven't gone to the local FOW night yet!

Tanks are good for learning. Unfortunately Flames of War is a game that strongly rewards the player that plays with combined arms. Tank only armies are limited in what they can do and enemy infantry dug into foxholes in heavy terrain like a forest are very hard to do anything about. Even some token infantry and AT guns to protect your own objectives is a necessity as they will be harder for your enemies to move. Artillery or air cover are nice to have, but not deal breakers for me since I seem to consistently roll horribly for artillery. If my artillery destroys more than 1 stand/tank/vehicle in a battle I get excieted it is that bad for me. Even though I play British who have lots of cool artillery based special rules I often find that points I spend on artillery end up doing far less than their points expenditure should be providing me with. Planes are also a very mixed bag. I've seen too many games where they either don't show up, get chased off by much cheaper opponent air support, or do nothing when they do show up. I'd much rather spend those points on other things as well.

There is a big caveat on this. If you always play with the same folks and always play tanks on tanks, then the combined arms really don't matter that much. If you are looking for a list that can succeed against any kind of opponent list, then you definitely want to add more than tanks to your force. I do hear you, though. It is much easier and much less annoying to paint tanks than infantry. Also basing the infantry and guns is annoying too. Eventually, though, you'll really need to add some to your force if your opponents regularly use any of them.

Skriker