WWPD News From the Front: Farewell Episode

As mentioned here, the boys are hanging it up. Listen in as we have some good goofs about the good old days! Download the episode here.

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A Fond Farewell

Friends, countrymen, and esteemed WWPD readers,

After much soul searching, I have made the decision to let the sun set on the WWPD Empire. It’s not lightly I make this decision, and there are years of wonderful memories here. From a humble painting blog to a podcast titan (okay… maybe not a titan.. more like a gnome…) to growing WWPD and becoming a part of a larger community has been an incredibly rewarding and enriching activity. I have met so many incredible people, and had so many folks tell me how important WWPD was to them that I am getting a little choked up writing this!

All good things, however, must come to an end. Obviously, I have been absent for many months now. My interactions with WWPD have been mostly on the back-end of things. Posting podcasts, editing and scheduling articles…. It took a while to admit a hard truth to myself. I have no desire to return to podcasting or writing articles in the near future. And as rewarding as it is to serve a community by enabling other content creators- the joy is gone. We always said we’d stop doing it when it stopped being fun. Sadly, that day has come.

As we considered our options for WWPD, a few different outcomes came to mind. The first and most obvious was passing the reins to a new, capable group. This was the original plan. On second thought, however, we were uncomfortable being hands off moving forward. I know many of you will see that as selfish, and that is understandable. but I believe that being able to end WWPD on my terms (as it began!) is a rewarding way to lay the beast to sleep.

There is much more to be said on this topic, and I encourage all of you to give the final episode of News From the Front a listen where we do our best to thank as many people as possible, dispel rumors, and lay out a bit more about the transition plan.

From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank all of you for making this period in my life incredibly rewarding. Do please keep in touch.

-Steven MacLauchlan

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Rommel - A Review of the Latest from Sam Mustafa's Honour Series

Review by Tom Burgess,

Sam Mustafa, one of the most successful US miniatures wargame rules developers, has brought his Honour series of the wargames into the 21th Century with Rommel. Sam has for the most part had kept previously to ancient, 18th and 19th century rules. The Honour series includes many great historical miniatures wargames to include Aurelian, Maurice, Lasalle, Blücher, and Longstreet. I have greatly enjoyed playing Sam's games and was a playtester for a couple of them. What I always appreciated about Sam's rules is that he always tries to push the envelope and come up with unique approaches and mechanics to keep games simple and fast moving while retaining the appropriate feel for the given period.

Rommel is no exception to Sam's guiding game design philosophy. As I playtester on Sam games I recall as many has eleven different versions being tried. And when I say different versions, I mean complete redoes of the entire core mechanics, not just some minor tweaks.  Blücher may have had many more as it was completely shelved at one point, before coming out in its published form after Sam returned to working on it.

So what make Rommel so different? I've played a lot of WW2 miniatures wargame rules that run the gamut from small man to man squad actions up to brigade size battles, but Rommel picks up where the other WW2 wargames leave off. Wargaming with Rommel starts at the Division command level and extends upwards to the corps and even army level, this level of command in wargaming previously was for the most part the domain of board based wargames.

Indeed, many may see Rommel as more of a board game than a miniatures game, and I can tell you that's exactly what Sam wants. As with rest of the Honour series, he wants you to make what you want out of the game. Sam has designed Rommel and other Honour series wargames to be equally playable using miniatures or without by using unit cards. Even though I consider myself a miniatures wargamer, this aspect has grown on me quite a bit. It really helps in playtesting new scenarios before embarking a large modeling project and it allows you to branch off and do "one off" scenarios in theaters that your model collection does not cover. It also lets you set up full battles which might be beyond your miniature collection span. For example, I have couple of lovely 15mm British Napoleonic Divisions for Blücher, but with the Waterloo unit cards decks for  Blücher I now have the complete orders of battle in unit cards for the Anglo-allied, French, and Prussian armies of the entire Waterloo campaign!

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Mega Team Yankee Game! Soviets vs. United States

 By John Sulek

The Spotsylvania Area Gamers decided to pull out all the stops for a big Team Yankee game.  We played Free for all with  Wayne the Soviet player as the attacker. Wayne ran his army out of Red Thunder. Ren and I ran our armies out of Stripes. We set points at 150 per side. Ren chose to run a standard M-1 Tank Company of 1 M-1 HQ, 2 x 3 M-1 Tank Platoons with 4 VADS and 2 Cobras. He topped out at 69 points. I ran a Mech Infantry Combat Team out of Stripes with 1 HQ M-113, 2 full mech platoons minus the extra Dragon team, 2 VADS, a 6 gun M-109 Btry, FIST, and then tried out a few of the new units in the new Stripes book. 1st up, an IPM-1 platoon of 4 x IPM-1's. The extra front and side armor worked good going up against Wayne's T-72's.  Next was the new Scout sections. I ran 2 and the extended deployment area helped out also. Then I ran 2 x SAM Stinger teams. I used 2 M-151 Jeeps with dismounted stinger teams for proxy. Then last but not least, I ran a Platoon of my 82nd Airborne Paratroopers that are also included in Stripes. Not exactly as I envisioned them but overall not bad. I took a full platoon of 7 stands plus 2 x M60 GPMG's and an extra Dragon team. In Stripes, they ride into battle in UH-1's but I chose to proxy 4 of UH-60 Blackhawks. With the Soviet AA on the board, I waited to deploy them until turn 4. Unfortunately, they were too late to change the outcome and the right flank in the county side fell.  Ren went up against Wayne's T-64's and BMP's and was pretty much overwhelmed by turn 5 in the city. My scouts were within 14" of an objective when Wayne's T-72's assaulted my Arty Btry and they finally gave way. Overall a fun game. Lessons learned and I look forward to running this again.

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STRIPES - Making New Lists from Team Yankee's Newest Book

As a mostly West German player up until now, I haven't been tempted by other armies.  It took me 6 months to paint the one I currently have.  But looking over at the new previews for Stripes has me considering my options.  I still want to work on a Soviet or Warsaw Pact Force eventually, but the Americans were not on my radar.  This was mostly because it appeared that they wouldn't be as competitive as their other NATO allies.  This book changes that, and gives the kind of tactical flexibility I would want in a force.  I will be making some lists out of the new kit, and let you know what I would want to be playing when the book comes out.

I apologize for the quality of the pictures, getting selected PDF copies of the pages proved a titanic pain.  I resorted to the phone.  I'll have it figured out next time.

1. US Airborne - with Sheridan
2. A Patton Company (marines)
3. Armored Cavalry Troop

For the sake of this tournament season, I'll make all my lists at 64 points, since that will be what a lot of North American places use.  I think its a good amount,

List #1 - 82nd Airborne

 UH - 1 Huey Infantry Combat Team

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The Ghost Army Podcast: Cancon Warm Up Special 2017

The Ghost Army Podcast Cancon Warm Up Special 2017 

Listen closely as Patchimus and hobby badass, Andrew Brownrigg go toe to toe in the smacktalking run up to next year’s largest Australian Bolt Action event, Cancon. Sold out with 50 players signed up.

The guys talk about the awesome BA community, national team event that has sprung up and what it means for those wanting to add another element of awesome to their Cancon experience. They also talk about what they are planning on taking this year and what they are looking forward to seeing at Australia’s biggest BA event!

You can find this fine podcast episode in the iTunes store or you can download it directly from HERE.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

WWPD will be taking the week off to prepare to cook, eat too much, drink too much and fall asleep in the 3rd Quarter.  Best wishes to everyone!

- Dirty Jon, Luke & Steven

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BattleGroup: Overlord Beyond the Beaches

All images courtesy of IronFist Publishing.

When IronFist Publishing and The Plastic Soldier Company (PSC) first published their Overlord book in 2013, the tome weighed in at 240-ish pages. The book covered the Western Europe forces in D-Day operations, as well as D-Day+1 up until the defeat in the Falaise Pocket.

IronFist and PSC recently republished a partial re-release of the book: Overlord Beyond the Beaches (BtB) that covers "the battles inland" after D-day. The reprint is slightly over half the pages of the original (at 136 pages).

The new version deals specifically with the forces and operations in Western Europe from D-Day + 1 on. IronFist will publish the D-Day sections and lists from the original at a "future date." PSC teases the release on the web-page for BtB, noting a major anniversary date coming up (2019 would be 75 anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy).

Why then did IronFist and PSC decide to republish just half of the original in paperback version?

"...many of the smaller European Theatre of Operations campaign books we'd like to do in the future will use these lists..." (BtB, page 5)

Both the Wacht Am Rein (Battle of the Bulge) and the newly published Market Garden books do refer back to lists from the Overlord book (now accessible in the Beyond the Beaches re-release). The Wacht Am Rein link above takes you to a page to purchase a PDF copy of the book - but check your Friendly Local Game Store supplier if you'd like to find a physical copy. The Market Garden Link takes you to a link for a bundle of Market Garden AND Beyond the Beaches (BtB). I suspect PSC will continue to bundle (on their website) BtB with the campaign books that refer back to it.

What's in the book?

Historical Section
Beyond the Beaches begins with a historical recap that spans five pages, and covers June 7 through August 1944. Photos from the Bundesarchive Archive, US Army Signal Corps, and Canadian National Archives enhance the layout.

Scenarios
Beyond that section, the book showcases several battle scenarios and rules for bocage terrain. Three types of battle scenarios are suggested by the designer: Meeting Engagements, Attack-Defence Scenarios, and Historical Re-fights.

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Fight Outnumbered and Win - The U.S. Army in Team Yankee’s Stripes

By Tom Burgess

The 1980’s were an amazing decade for the U.S. Army. Through these years the U.S. Army went through incredible changes in doctrine, organization, and equipment in order to better confront the Soviet hordes that were poised to surge across the Iron Curtain into Western Europe. The new Team Yankee intelligence briefing “Stripes,” tries to represent the U.S. Army right in the middle of this decade of massive modernization and expansion.

During the 80’s, “AirLand Battle” became the new operating concept for the U.S. Army. This concept would rely more on fast and mobile counterattacks rather than simple static positions. The mantra for this new U.S. Army operating concept was “Fight Outnumbered and Win.” To do this, the U.S. Army would require better equipment to out-tech the East Block opponents the U.S. Army Would face. Chief among these was the “Big Five;” the M1 Abrams tank, the M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), the AH-64 Apache helicopter, the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter, and the Patriot air defense missile system. These were not the only new pieces of kit the U.S. Army would field during this period. The ubiquitous jeep was replaced by the High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), the shoulder fired anti-air missile replaced the older Redeye systems, and the Multiple Rocket Launcher Rocket System (MRLS) joined division and corps level artillery units.

There would also be significant changes to U.S .Army Organizations. Under the “Division-86” plan, tank battalions would go from three to four companies, but the tank platoons in those companies would go from five to four tanks. Division Cavalry would give up its tanks, and “light” infantry divisions would come into existence.

The novel “Team Yankee” and the “Stripes” intelligence briefing are set in 1985, right in the midst of this massive re-equipping and reforming of the U.S. Army. As such it allows U.S. Army in Team Yankee to field old style U.S. Army units or the new advanced Division-86 formations. So let’s work our way through “Stripes” and take a deeper historical look at its formations and units.

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Stripes: Reviewed and Spoiled by Sarge!

We here at WWPD got lucky to get our hands on the new Team Yankee book, Stripes, which focuses on the Americans and gives them some great upgrades.  This luck was compounded by getting some famous people who once wore stripes to talk about what they initially thought of when they read the pre-release copy.  We at WWPD thought this would be a great way to commemorate the upcoming Veterans Day and to have these enlisted icons tell you a bit about what is new in Stripes. Before we get to the Sergeants, I will tell you that this book is what every US player has been waiting for and really adds some flavor and color to the US lists from the original Team Yankee book. I know some folks really wanted the Bradley IFV to be in this book, however you get so many neat new toys here I just do not see any room to complain. Also in Stripes the developers take some liberties with some of the units and weapons that were around in Europe during the period (1985) that the game takes place in. Once again, no room to complain because the alt-history in Stripes really is minor and I like what they did here with this new book. Now off to those NCO's of Hollywood!

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FOW LW Tournament - Toywiz October 2017

I headed down to Nanuet, NY to participate in a tournament run by Troy Baker and Ordo Malleus.  Its been a while since I've gotten a game with these guys since they manage to schedule their tournaments during every wedding I've been forced to attend over the past 2 years.  And there have been many weddings.  As my Friend "Matt Varnish" and his Canadian cohorts know, I've been unable to attend Canadian Nationals for 3 consecutive years due to weddings on Labor day weekend.

But the good news is that I'm running out of friends who haven't been married yet.....so I may have more time to do the important things....like painting models, and fighting with toy soldiers.

Some shots of the store:

The Tournament would be played in three rounds, and I brought my airborne, along with their over sized but pretty tray.  It would be the second time I had played Brit airborne in a tournament and I had learned some lessons from last time. I hoped they would pay off.

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Bolt Action: Australian Militia Painting Guide

By Bryan,

Hi guys, welcome to another step by step painting guide for some 28mm WW2 miniatures, this time it's for the Australian Militia who fought in the South West Pacific in 1942. This guide is designed to be a simple and efficient way to paint a platoon's worth of miniatures rather quickly. This is for the Australians initial Khaki Drill uniform they first deployed to the theater in, the specialized Jungle Green uniforms came later at the end of 1942-43. I have done a guide previously for these later green uniforms here. You can use this guide for British 8th Army in the desert as well, just swap the helmet colour to a sand rather than green. Right, on with the guide!

Step 1 - Add base texture

After cleaning up the flash and mould lines on your metal miniatures, use superglue to attach them to their plastic bases. The Warlord Games plastic round bases feature a lip around the edge of the design to allow the metal tab at the models feet to sink into them slightly. However, it's still a good idea to fill the base up with some material to hide this and add some texture for later. You can simply use sand an PVA glue for this, but I find it doesn't hide the metal tab well.

I prefer to use Polyfilla (or any gap or crack filling product) from a hardware store and simply smear it across the base, using a toothpick or sculpting tool to poke it about. In a single step this fills up the base, hides the metal tab and creates a rough earth-like texture. The result should look like below.

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Bolt Action: Light Your Fire!

Light Your Fire! Finding Inspiration for your Bolt Action Hobby.
By Kieran

“I’d rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate.” - George Burns

See now that may seem like a rather lofty quotation to start an article about Bolt Action, or even an article about wargaming in general, but while I was looking for a title for this article I put the foundation word about what I am going to write about and it popped up on the old google and I said to myself yes that maybe captures it.

What am I writing about for this article? Well following from the feedback I have received from my first article (Burnout, found HERE) I thought I would expand on it a little and maybe bring something forward that I didn’t really address, the topic of inspiration.

Now no matter what you do in any tier of your life the things that really make us happy and fill the time spent doing them with the most enjoyment are the things that we are truly engrossed in, that have the ability to speak to us on a different level, these are fundamentally things that inspire us.

How do we involve inspiration within the game of bolt action? Well it is maybe something that we have already done. It is having that underlying interest with the armies we put on the table that we put hours into listing, collecting, modelling, and painting. Because I feel, as I know many others do as well, that having that story gives us a hook that will keep us indebted towards any army over a longer period of time no matter how competitive or otherwise it is.

This is maybe why there is that imaginary line between those who produce forces that have a bigger influence from some source or another and those who build for a competitive listing. Now maybe your inspiration comes from that competitive standpoint but I am sure that the turnover of forces that player would play is a lot higher than the other.

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Behind Enemy Lines Ep 42

Download the episode here

A small hiatus, but we haven't gone away. Just a warning, the last part of this one contains a few swears.

The first bit is all about whats happening in the gaming sphere with new releases and all that jazz. Noob News, that kinda thing.

In part 2, we talk about a couple of tournaments we've played in recently here in NZ; FlamesCon 2017 and DanCon 40k.

The last part gets a little more serious and possibly controversial as we discuss the current murmurings around female gamers.

Want to join the conversation? Please sound off in the comments below, or let us know on our forum!

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Flames of War 2017 Masters Preview

When the days get shorter and the leaves with their reddish hues fall from the sky, we all know it’s time for the annual FoW Masters Tournament. Each year the top 18 players in North America get an invite to play against those who have excelled during the 2017 tournament season which went from September 2016 to October 2017. The 2017 Masters will take place once again at Games and Stuff in Glenn Burnie Maryland and will feature six tough rounds over two days, the 17-18th of November. When the dust settles after round six, the 2017 champion will be crowned and the 2018 tournament season will begin in earnest.


I have been to a few of the previous master’s events, however I felt this year’s tournament would be even more interesting with the advent of V4 of the game. When the tournament season started everyone was playing V3 and the first big V4 Event wasn’t until the Mid-War Masters at Historicon in July. So, the players at this year’s event had to deal with the change of the rules more than halfway through the season.

Despite the change of rules, the invitees to this year’s event features a lot of the same faces as years past:

Joe Lewis
Chris Fretts
David Vigor
Chris Jackson
Ron Wismer
Chris Novak
James Best Jr.
Tony Davis
Brian Sullivan
Will Yankausky
Keith Gilmour
Andrew Hopson
James Best
James Copland
Ed Sales
Tim McClelland
Rob Duchesne
Bryan Koches

This year, all 6 of the games will take place in the Early War period with each list being set at 1625 points. I will assume that the lack of lists in the Mid-War period made it very hard to use for the event. Plus, who doesn’t love early war?

As he has done in previous years, Battlefront’s event coordinator - David Griffin - and has some curveballs for the players who attend . The 2017 event will be a “reversal tournament” where players will play with their opponent’s army for half of the 6 games. Having played in events like this before, I can attest that this format really challenges your skills as a player.

Dave also plans to keep everyone up to date via Battlefront’s Facebook page and full rules of the tournament can be found here.

The event is open to the public so please stop by to watch or root your favorite FoW player on! I am planning to attend the event and maybe interview some of the participants, so I hope to see you there!

WWPDMitch@gmail.com
Twitter: @MitchWWPD

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Cruising with the Crusader Swarm - An Advance the Colors (MW 80 points) AAR

By Tom Burgess

There has been a lot of speculation and conjecture about Crusader and Honey Swarms being overpowered in Version 4 of Flames of War. However, my previous experiences at tournaments which had players playing Crusader and/or Honey "swarms" were not showing that these list we at all overpowered. In four MW tournaments, including the 2017 US MW Nationals, I had not seen one of these forces even place in the top three. At the US MW Nationals none even made it into the top half of rankings. However, it seems that these formations still have been a bit of a bugbear to many players despite articles and AARs posted by myself and Chris Fretts showing that they are not that dominating. So the only thing left for me to do was try a "swarm" myself and see how much damage I could do with it.

I've been enjoying playing MW Desert FoW battles since the release of Version 4. I have both DAK and 8th Army forces now, but had not yet tried the dreaded "Crusader Swarm." I already had enough Crusaders models on hand to kit out two full squadrons, but only one was painted. Seeing how questions about the "Crusader Swarm" still lingered and with Advance the Colors, an 80 point MW Tournament, approaching this gave me great motivation to build and paint up my second Crusader squadron.

Why Crusaders over Honeys? For me it was most simply because I had picked up some of the V4 MW British starter boxes to support my LGSs and that's what they came with. However, I do think I like the Crusader more so than the Honey anyway with its option to upgrade some to a Crusader III with 6pdr guns and Crusader II CS with a bombardment capability. The only trouble being how to tell the Crusader IIs, II CSs, and IIIs apart! I also really like the look of the Crusader as a sleek low riding gun platform that I could easily visualize kicking up some serious dust storms while running around the flanks of Panzers.



Building the Force.
The easy part was that two full Crusader squadron of 16 tanks each would be the basis of the force. That would give me full two HQ troops and eight line troops. I already had the first squadron modeled with two 6pdr and one 2pdr gun in each troop. I wanted the experiment with some new mixes in second squadron. For the 2nd Squadron, I modeled two troops will all 2pdrs and two troops with two 6pdrs and one 2pdr.

Formation 1 "A Squadron, 3rd Queen's Dragoon Guards (Bays)"
HQ: 2 Crusader II, 2 Crusader CS (7)
2 Crusader II, 1 Crusader III (6)
2 Crusader II, 1 Crusader III (6)
2 Crusader II, 1 Crusader III (6)
2 Crusader II, 1 Crusader III (6)

Formation 2 "B Squadron, 3rd Queen's Dragoon Guards (Bays)"
HQ: 2 Crusader II, 2 Crusader CS (7)
3 Crusader II (5)
3 Crusader II (5)
1 Crusader II, 2 Crusader III (7)
1 Crusader II, 2 Crusader III (7)

For support I thought that I needed at least some option to use "Spearhead" moves so I added the minimum necessary to have that capacity. This came in the form of three Universal Carriers with no upgrades. The last unit for this force was a Hurricane flight. I have found these crucial in my past games for dealing with Marders and Schelppers in German forces. Being that Advance the Colors would have Blue on Blue matches possible as well, I thought Hurricanes might help against M10s in US forces that I was likely to face.

Support
3 UC (2)
Hurricane (9)

That left me seven points for Command Cards. I normally don't take Command Cards as I don't find them really that necessary to do well, however for this test run of a Crusader Swarm I felt that I'd needed to take some. If I did not do well, I did not want people to say it was because I had not kitted out the Crusaders with any Command Cards.

So I first choose "Scout Tanks." Even though these make it harder for the Crusaders to flank Panzers and Shermans, it helps the Crusaders get hit less on the way in. To make up for the loss of speed incurred from the Scout tanks card, I next picked Pip Roberts. Though it's a bit of risk, successful Blitzes followed by a tactical move could get my Crusaders back on the flanks of Panzers and Shermans. That left just two points. I could have just taken another UC unit, but instead thought I'd experiment et with "Cavalry Commander," because it seemed cool and fluffy, and "Lucky" which I never used once for the whole event!

Command Cards
Scout Tanks (1)
Pip Roberts (4)
Cavalry Commander (1)
Lucky (1)

Game 1

My first game was Bridgehead attack Dick H's US Armored Rifles backed up by M10s.

U.S. Armored Infantry
HQ: 2 Carbine (2)
FU: Short AI (12)
FU: Short AI (12)
FU: 3 T30 HMC (3)
FU: 3 M3 81mm Mtr Carrier (2)
SU: 4 M10 (32)
SU: 3 M7 (11)
SU: 2 British 6pdr (6) 

I was the attacker and Dick deployed all of his forces save the four M10s on the board in reserves and a pair of British 6pdr guns in ambush. My plan was to swamp his right where one of the objectives was a bit further away from any buildings that infantry could use to occupy and contest an objective from and I could get some early direct fire shots on his M7 priest.

As my Crusaders advanced on Dick's right my Crusader CSs bombarded the buildings near his right objective. My Hurricanes arrived on turn 1 only to be shot down by .50 cal fire from his Assault Guns. That's the first time I've seen a whole flight taken out in one sweep in V4.

In Dick's turn one, he sprung his 6pdr ambush on the hill on his right. Those two veteran guns kept my Crusaders pinned down for four, if not five turns. Meanwhile I knocked out the Assault Guns and Priests and managed to chew through a good part of one of his right infantry platoon. Dick's M10s came out of reserve and proceeded to engage in some long range sniping.

I realized that time was running out and had to assault to clear off the last 6 pdr and destroy his HQ, but Dick still had infantry in the buildings contesting the objective which I could not assault. Fortunately there were a few teams from that platoon in foxholes outside the building which I could assault. Fortunately I was able to drive off the platoon in an assault which included forcing his teams in the building s away from my Crusaders near the objective.

So I won just as the time limit expired, but it was a bloody 6-3 win. Dick had actually managed to break one of my two Crusader formations. He in fact had destroyed well over 50% of my force. I learned that I need to be a bit more patient on bringing in my Hurricanes against US forces and that my "No-HE" tanks were not likely to shoot any infantry off of objectives.

Game 2

In game two I was matched against Richard N's US Rifle Co defending in No Retreat.

U.S. Infantry Rifle Co

HQ: 2 Carbine (1)
FU: Full Inf + LMG (9)
FU: Full Inf (8)
FU: 3 81mm Mtr (3)
FU: 3 81mm Mtr (3)
SU: Full AI (15)
SU: 4 M10 (32)
SU: 3 British 6pdr (9) 

The board had big town centered in his deployment area where he of course placed his objective. I placed my objective out in the open on Richard's right but he placed his Armored Rifles all over it and all of his minefields in front of it. He placed his four M10s in reserves and a unit of three British 6pdrs in ambush. I knew taking on two Rifle Platoons in a town was going to be hard, but I was hoping I could pull it off like I did in game one and I wanted no part of that Armored Rifle platoon with 5 bazookas backing up a minefield.

I initially advanced the Crusaders on broad front, but shifted all of my forces to my right as Richards M10s came out of reserve on his right. Richard popped his 6 pdr ambush on his left against my main effort but without causing major losses. So I dropped in a smoke screen and dashed what I could to get all of my tanks shielded by the smoke from his 6pdrs and by the town from his M10s.

I used my "Cavalry Commander" to get flank assault on the 6pdrs clearing them. I was then starting to circle the town from the rear and started knocking off the halftracks from the Armored rifles to reduce the AAA fire my Hurricanes would face when coming in on the M10s. Meanwhile my Crusader II CSs bombarded the town and most of one US Rifle platoon was destroyed. This forced Richard to shift over teams from his second platoon and Armored Rifles. The Hurricanes and some 6pdr Crusaders finished off the M10s and some Crusader II's overran a US mortar platoon but time had run out. The game ended as a draw 3-3 with us each losing three platoons.

In hind sight I should have just said "damn the minefield" and thrown all my weight against the more exposed, but heavily protected objective. It might have risked a loss more there, but there was a chance for a win maybe. I fear that instead I took a course of action that was "safer" but in hindsight, likely to only ever win in a draw.

Game 3

For the last round of the first day I was matched up against Chris N's German DAK Pioneers in Breakthrough with me attacking.

German Infantry

HQ: 2 SMG (2)

FU: Full Rifle + Mortar (9)
FU: Full Rifle + Mortar (9)
FU: Full Rifle + Mortar (9)
FU: 3 Captured 6pdr (9)
SU: 4 Marders (16)
SU: 4 Captured 25pdr (14)
SU: 2 Sd 231 (2)
SU: 2 Sd 231 (2)
Cards:
Captured 6pdr
Captured 25pdr
Pure Luck: (1)
Pioneer Company (1)
Erwin Rommel (6)

Chris placed captured 25 pdrs  as a base of defense. He had captured 6 pdrs in ambush had one of his three Pioneer units on the board along with two SdKfz-223 8 Rad units. In reserve he had the rest of his Pioneers and a unit of Marders.

I decided to weight my advance on my left dashing up behind a smoke screen from all the Crusader CSs tanks. Chris popped his ambush on my right flanking some Crusaders, but I took minimal losses and would soon leave these captured 6 pdrs behind me.

After the smoke screen cleared I again found myself having great difficulty taking out veteran dug in guns with my "No HE" tanks. It took several turns to clear them and I lost a few troops to the fire of those captured 25pdrs and the Marders. The Marders actually were taken out quicker than the 25pdrs  once they came in from reserve. My Hurricanes were a big help here.

Again as the clock was winding down I found myself in a situation where  had to assault on the last turn of the game to push my opponent off the objective. It worked despite getting counter attack rerolls from his Formation Commander. So again I barely squeaked out a 6-3 win.

Game 4

In game four I was matched against Chris F's US Armored Rifles backed up by M3 Lees, P 40 Warhawks, and worst of all...more veteran British 6 pdrs! Our mission was Encounter. 

U.S. Armored Infantry

HQ 2 Carbine (2)

FU: Full AI (15)
FU: Short AI (12)
FU: 3 T30 HMC (3)
FU: 3 37mm AT (4)
FU: 3 81mm Mortar Carrier (2)
SU: Recon Patrol (3)
SU: 4 Lee L (24)
SU: 3 British 6pdr (9)
SU: Warhawks (6) 

Chis had deployed his 6pdrs his left which meant that I was going to push everything against his right.On Chris' right he had his big Armored Rifle platoon and 37mm Anti-Tank Guns on a hill.  Both of my Crusader CS HQs ranged in on the hill and rather than face rerolls of saves on following turns, Chris pulled most of these units to the reverse slope of the hill leaving some infantry forward as a screen.

I had massed all but one Crusader platoon against Chris' right.

He got his reserves exactly where he needed them and rolled in his M3 Lees.  I lost a few Crusaders but was able to use Blitz moves to get my 6pdr Crusaders into some concealing brush. His Lee's in the open being much easier for my Crusaders to hit than his Lees could hit back made this a losing battle for him. It would have been better if he brought his Lees up on the Hill to get Hull Down, but it was just way too contested there.

After knocking out the Lees and 37mm ATG I found myself again short on time so had to go into the assault to win the game.

Fortunately, I had four Crusader troops that were able to get into assault position. The first three assaults ended in disaster. All three were defeated by just a pair of Bazookas. Chris would kill or bail one Crusader on the way in, and then kill or bail one in melee and the troop would then fall back leaving it bailed tanks to get captured.

Only the fourth troop one it's assault, but it was too far the objective to push Chris back enough to secure the win.  So we ended up as a 3-3 draw.

Game 5

Going into my last round I had two 6-3 wins and two 3-3 draws (losses). This round was going to be Dust Up and I was matched against Joe M's US Rifles backed up with 105mm Howitzers, British Grants, and Sherman tanks (which were his reserve).

U.S. Infantry

HQ: 2 Carbine (1)
FU: Infantry S (6)
FU: Infantry S (6)
FU: Infantry S (6)
SU: M3 Stuart OP (1)
SU: 4 105mm Arty (10)
SU: 4 M4 Sherman (32)
SU: 3 M3 Grant (18) 

I finally got to use Spearhead in this round! I sent my UCs far to my right as I could and placed virtually everything there with them. My Hurricanes and Crusader and most of my A Squadron were in reserve. So basically I had all of B Squadron and the A Squadron HQ on the board.

In the first few moves I concentrated my Crusaders on Joe's British Grants while then HQ Crusaders CS tanks bombarded his 105mm artillery.  I lost my "Cavalry Commander" Crusader platoon,  but finally managed to knock out the Grants and whittle down the 105mm artillery to just two guns. 
I had also managed to kill off all of Joe's Bazookas after the Bazookas from his rear platoons moved forward to support his front but where caught out in the open.

I was able to get an initial assault against the front objective, but the single troop I was able to send it was repulsed fortunately with no loss.

In the next turn, with Joe's Shermans, came rolling out of reserve. I saw that I could concentrate a Crusader troop and a Crusader HQ to assault.  Joe managed to throw back one assault, but the second succeeded as I pushed Joe's lead Rifle platoon off of the front objective.

Unfortunately Joe's Rifle platoon leader was just out of range to allow a counter attack reroll from his Formation Commander. They were close enough when he deployed, but losses and counter attacks caused Rifle platoon leaders position to change. This game was a 7-2 win for me and was my quickest game.

If Joe had dashed his Shermans on instead of moving tactically and shooting when they arrived, then I think he could have got his Shermans in close enough to provide defensive fire that would have prevented my game winning assault.

Recap

So I ended up the tournament with 25 points and secured 4th overall. I tried my best to get in the top three but running a force with virtually all “No HE” tanks and then facing off against three infantry and two Mech infantry companies was going to be rough.  

My Crusader tanks did fine against any other tanks they faced but struggled against veteran anti-tank guns. The Crusader CS got to use smoke screens in at least three games, which was great, and they did well when they bombarded trained US units, but struggled to get a pair of 4+’s when bombarding veterans.  My Hurricanes died instantly in game one and never made an appearance in game four or five, but they were crucial in knocking out M10s in game two and Marders in game three.

The Command Cards were a big help. The “Scout Tanks” cards was crucial as I ended up in a lot of frontal gun duels. No doubt it was very useful, but I felt it automatically compelled use of the “Pip Roberts” card to help give back , through a blitz, some of speed that the “Scout Tank” cards caused.  “Cavalry Commander” was a neat card and I actually got to use it a couple times, most notably to flank a British 6pdr unit in game two. The “Lucky Card” was never used once as I always seemed to forget it. It might have made a difference in my game four if I could have remembered it on one of my key failed counter attack rolls. I’d have loved to have got the “John Currie” card in if I had the points, but I found with good placement of my two formation commanders that they allowed for enough remounts and re-rolled last stand checks to keep my 5+ morale units going. When a troop was down to a single tank, I was not worried about it sticking around that much.

I had a great time running this force, but found the “Crusader Swarm” far from an auto-win. I only ended up with three wins and two of those were very close wins. Another player also ran two British light tank formations, but he had much less tanks but had  more support. His force was more balanced than mine and he was able to take 2nd place. That player, by the way, was one of the top 10 ranked players in the US! He had:

British Armor / Armor

HQ: 1 Crusader II , 2 Crusader CS (5)
FU: 1 Crusader II, 2 Crusader III (7)
FU: 1 Crusader II, 2 Crusader III (7)
HQ: 4 M3 Honeys (7)
FU: 3 M3 Honeys (5)
FU: 3 M3 Honeys (5)
SU: 4 25 PDR (14)
SU: Hurricane (9)
SU: U.S. Armored Infantry(15)
Cards:
LRDG Raid (2)
Artillery Expert (1)
Scout Tanks (1)
Roll Over Them (1) 

Final Observations

I think the best thing about the “Crusader Swarm” was that due to the attacker/defender selection system used at Advance the Colors, I was the attacker in every defensive and mobile mission. I liked that and also found that in the two fair fight missions, my opponents were basically constrained to a defensive posture.  So the initiative was always in my hands and I pretty much got to dictate where the main fights would occur, even if they did not always work out in my favor. I liked that a lot about this list.

The list does have its problems though. No serious bombardment capability and No HE on virtually all tanks meant that just a few veteran AT Guns could really cause me problems. Then there was the issue about not being able to assault into buildings at all. This really hurt me in game one and game two. Finally the list does bleed points with its 5+ last stand checks. I lost at least three units in every game except the last. In a couple of games I lost as many as five or six units, and in at least one game a whole formation.

In my assessment, the “Crusader Swarm” can be a lot of fun to run if you like to maintain the initiative, but by it’s very nature it is unbalanced and will have a hard time pressing the attack to take objectives. I’m pretty sure I’ll not run two full Crusader squadrons again at less than 80 points, but I’d like to try it again 100 points to see what it can do with some better support options added.

Tom has been playing wargames since the late 70’s, and Flames of War since 2007. He maintains a gaming website www.battlevault.com for the BattleVault Gamers of Kentuckiana and posts and moderates WWPD as Iron-Tom.

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