Fate of the Nation Battle Israeli Tank Company vs United Arab Republic Tank Battalion

By Eric Lauterbach

You may have noticed something looks different about the pictures of tanks in this post, well your eyes are not deceiving you we did this battle in micro armor.

John Desch has a huge micro collection some of the models dating back to when his US Army days and they used them for training. (This what the army did before computers kids)

You will notice in the pictures some of the models are not quite right, which is something you don't notice when putting the force on the table top. From normal eye to table distance you really have to look close to tell a M48 from a M60, pictures have a magnifying effect.

For micro armor we did not change any of the movement or shooting distances. The only real change we had to do was make the small village area terrain because the buildings are two small to get the granularity.

So for our first battle with the Fate of the Nation we went with a basic free-for-all so we could get a feel for how it played.  The forces were an Israeli Tank company with 2 Magach-3 in the HQ, a platoon of 3 Magach-3, a platoon of 4 Isherman, some 4 AT jeeps, and 120mm mortar section.  To face this force the Arabs had 31 T-55s all upgraded with stabilizers in three 10 tank companies and one platoon of two ZSU-57.

The Israeli force

The board. With micro armor there is plenty of room for maneuver.

Hull down on the objective, 2ic and the Magach 3 platoon.

CO on the center hill with AT jeeps and mortars.

AT jeeps its amazing how small they make these they are no bigger than tic-tac.

Here is a picture of the level of detail GHQ puts into their models its impressive.

Far left objective covered by ISherman

The UAR deployment 

Playing in micro armor really takes the terrain to a new level as there is no way all these guys could hide behind this hill in 15mm.

The center company with CO and ZSU platoon.

Far right company

Arabs get the first turn and our buddy Bob Rossi is helping push the Arabs and he only knows one speed attack ahead full!

Arabs move forward and get some good firing positions.

Israeli turn.... Boom. 

I concentrate on the center company and force a morale check and also kill the ZSU platoon.

The Israeli 120mm smoke the left company.

Bob passes the morale check with the center company.

Oops I failed stormtrooper... this is a bad thing as I would learn throughout the day.

These guys make it!Pulling back from the far left Arab force.

Ouch.. The ISherman pays the price for not stormtrooping. The key here is that the Arabs move forward out of the smoke, close the range, and have stabilizers. Without stabilizers this shot would be impossible.

Time to fight back.

With their 40" range the Magach 3 move to hit the Arabs.

Bob rolls armor saves really well and this is a depressing sight to me.  All those bails will cost me.

The three tanks left with the center company are annoying me with fire as well.

The full company on the other flank gets the smoke screen.

Storm troop out of the bailed guys view.

On the UAR turn his they splat a jeep, but that is all that dies and Bob rolls forward on the other flank.

These guys get the smoke screen got to cut down the fire.

The UAR force pushing the flank gets a few knocked off 

And the center force finally runs.

These guys are in tough spot with two companies of T-55 gunning for them.

It was about this time my jeeps got machine gunned to death.

The T-55s close in on the Magach

Getting hit from two directions is not good.

To make matters worse only one bails in on the Israeli turn!

Boom the Magach get finished off.

The CO trying to force a morale check.

The IShermans shoot the UAR on the objective we can not make it there but maybe we can shoot them off.

The CO and ISherman concentrate fire on the UAR taking the objective this our only hope to win the game if we force a check and they fail they will break.

The UAR in the valley get some smoke for good measure.

Meh. not great shooting. One kill one bail but it is enough to force the check for the game.

DANG! Bob passes the check and takes the objective! Game Over

That was a nice swirling fight. 4-3 to the UAR.

Lots of room to maneuver and the hills really make a bigger impact in micro.

I was really impressed with the flow of how FoW plays in micro armor and the effect terrain has on the fight. Micro armor does have its challenges the infantry is awful and it can be hard to move some of really small vehicles, but the price for this force in 15mm is well over $400 and the micro version is only about $80 bucks.  So if you are looking for a straight up tank fight micro maybe the way you want to go.

Now, the Isreali force had some clear winners and some losers. The IShermans gotta go.  They can't take hit or really penetrate very well the T-55, they were getting far to many bounces and bails. The jeeps are cheap and effective but only when you can't afford anything else.  The Magach 3 is the work horse of the force. For the UAR T-55 force (which, in my opinion, is the only way to go) you must spend the 15 points each and upgrade your tanks to have stabilizers. You have to do this because without it you can't get the hits on the move, and you will be moving.

Tarzan now make war!