I've a 1500pts FoW game set up with Young David tomorrow so I'm distracting myself from painting tonight with thinking about an army list.
As usual, I am sticking with the Highland Division list from the new Overlord book. for our previous 1000pt game I had gone with:
Command Squad (with Piper and Universal Carrier) 50pts
Infantry Platoon (with De-frocked Priests transport) 160pts
Infantry Platoon (with De-frocked Priests transport) 160pts
Machine Gun Platoon (2 Vickers MMG squads with MMG Carriers) 80pts
Mortar Platoon (6 3" Mortars with Mortar Carriers) 160pts
Anti Tank Platoon (4 x 6 Pounder A/T guns with Loyds Carriers) 130pts
Tank Troop (3 x Sherman I's and 1 x Sherman Firefly) 275pts
Total: 1015pts
Which had worked pretty well. This time, with the higher points I am thinking of expanding out the Machine Gun Platoon to the full 4 squads, and adding a third Infantry Platoon (although without the De-frocked Priests). Soooo....
Command Squad (with Piper and Universal Carrier) 50pts
Infantry Platoon (3 squads with De-frocked Priests transport) 160pts
Infantry Platoon (3 squads with De-frocked Priests transport) 160pts
Infantry Platoon (3 squads) 140pts
Machine Gun Platoon (4 Vickers MMG squads with MMG Carriers) 155pts
Mortar Platoon (6 3" Mortars with Mortar Carriers) 160pts
Anti Tank Platoon (4 x 6 Pounder A/T guns with Loyds Carriers) 130pts
Tank Troop (3 x Sherman I's and 1 x Sherman Firefly) 275pts
Total: 1230pts
So still some points to spend. I'm thinking it might be time to pull out the big guns, so to speak. A gun troop of 4 x OQF 25 pdr guns would be 165 points taking me up to 1395pts. The artillery with the Mortar Platoon might be a bit much... plus I want to use my Typhoon! So dropping the Mortars saves me 160pts and Priority Air Support from the Tiffie costs 220pts. Leaving me at 1455pts. A wee read at the rules shows me I don't have to pay the extra 10 points for the piper! Huzzah!
1445pts then... Dropping De-frocked Priests from one Infantry Platoon takes it to 1425pts. A Pioneer Platoon without transport is 75pts. So 1500pts on the button!
Command Squad (with Piper and Universal Carrier) 40pts
Infantry Platoon (3 squads with De-frocked Priests transport) 160pts
Infantry Platoon (3 squads) 140pts
Infantry Platoon (3 squads) 140pts
Machine Gun Platoon (4 Vickers MMG squads with MMG Carriers) 155pts
Anti Tank Platoon (4 x 6 Pounder A/T guns with Loyds Carriers) 130pts
Tank Troop (3 x Sherman I's and 1 x Sherman Firefly) 275pts
Gun Troop (4 x OQF 25 Pounders) 165pts
Pioneer Platoon 75pts
Priority Air Support 220pts
Total: 1500pts
Only things I'd be concerned about is your weak AT options and that perhaps dropping the mortars is a mistake.
ReplyDelete1. Only one Firefly means only one rolling AT14 gun to pop potential heavy armour. Yes, the Typhoon can do the job, but playing this game has taught me that relying on Air is like relying on my Aberdeen FC to consistently win games - not a good bet. Perhaps drop to Limited air - 5 dice is as likely as 7 to call in your plane and once your mobile force is in the enemy's face, those extra dice will be wasted points as any target you might want to hit will be too close (16") to your own troops for your air attack to work anyway.
2. Those mortars along with the 25pdrs would be sweet for dropping smoke ahead of your advancing infantry. Two smokes is better than one, especially when one fails to range in.
3. You've no recon sir. No recon means no getting rid of gone to ground against dug in artillery targets and it'll be harder to defend against ambushes.
Anyhoo, just my take. I also don't know your opponent and what he'll bring, so my musings could be null and void on the day. Ha! Good luck mate!
Thanks for the feedback Dai! I feel the Mortars and the 25 pounders might be a bit too much to have together - my personal cheese o'meter spikes a little at the thought!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I have no recon as none has been painted yet. My carriers and my Daimlers are currently in the queue to get done.
I take your point about the Typhoon and the range issue. I could drop it and take my 4 17 Pounders instead. I may take both and discuss it with David tomorrow. Not sure he has any AA painted.
Smoke isn't something we have really used...
get yer brushes out and paint up a recon you've got hours yet.
ReplyDeleteHey mate, it's all about personal preference, right? Play what you like in the end and listen to what you think sounds cool. I’ll offer advice like some old duffer and like some old duffer I hope you’ll ignore the stuff I mention that you don’t care for. :)
ReplyDeleteSmoke’s great and comes in two flavours – bombardment and direct fire. Direct fire from Shermans makes our tanks so much safer against those horrible German tanks, gun teams and also observers. Just got to time your shooting correctly though as a platoon that has tanks planning to use direct smoke rounds must fire before any other tank in that platoon that plans to also shoot. But 1iC & 2iC don’t have to shoot first if they’re not attached to a platoon, so there’s some shenanigans available if yer clever enough.
Bombardment smoke is invaluable to an infantry list, especially when they are footin’ it across the board. (Hence why I like to sometimes take multi-platoons with templates throwers so I can drop umpteen smoke templates to cover my advance when I’m not Night Attack’ing.
Speaking of which, have you tried out the Night Attack rules yet?
Goes back to our conversation last week re use of smoke.
ReplyDelete