Magach 2/3 by Battlefront

By Throckmorton

You've seen this tank before. He's big, he's mean and he's named after one of America's best generals. It's American designation, the M48A3 Patton Main Battle Tank is far less interesting that its Israeli name "Magach" (ma-GAH), or Chariot of the War Heroes. 

Who wouldn't want to ride in something called the Chariot of the War Heroes? I know I would.

Israel obtained a number of Magach 2's (original M48A3's) from West Germany and the United States in the 1960's and about 150 of them fought in the 6 Day War. Interestingly, although stats and variant pieces are included for the Magach 3 in the Battlefront kit, it played no part in the 6 Day War. However, in the years between the '67 conflict and the Yom Kippur War in '73 Israel bought a fleet of more than 800 Magach 3's.

Makes you wonder what our fine New Zealand friends have planned in follow up to Fate of A Nation hrmm?

The box set for the Magach 2/3 is mostly similar to that of the Patton box now released for Tour of Duty with two key differences. First, you've got the option to add on the 105mm gun for the Magach 3 variant along with the original cannon. And second, there are no decals, which is a bummer.

So, here's how they stack up on the game board (via easyarmy.com)

Coming in at 155 points and 187-ish points for the 2 and 3 versions these are expensive tanks that can form the mainstay of your force supported by lighter friends like the M-50 and 51 Shermans and the AMX. The armor is solid against the IS-3, the T-54 and even gives you a shot at survival against Jordanian Centurions; the three biggest guns the opposition can throw at you. The addition of top armor 2 and the numerous MG's makes this a solid choice to assault unsupported infantry as well as well as survive massed artillery.

Let's take a look at how we got from this:

To this:

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I got my hands on some of the T-34s from the new all-plastic T-34 Tankovy Company from Battlefront today.  Since I don't play Russians, I figured I would do something different and make some captured tanks....that everyone seems to be doing these days.  Let's take a look!

This box has everything you need to make 5 complete tanks with BOTH the T-34 and the T-34/85 turrets.

There is even an option to make the flame tank!  Included are 15 magnets to make sure that your turrets stay on tight.  There are even decals for making Soviet tanks, but of course, we are going captured today.

The box art -- neat!

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Happy Tanksgiving from the WWPD Northern Research Center.  We recently had our annual Tanksgiving grudge match.  Ten players faced off against each other in an all armor cage match.  Everyone brought a 1500 point tank company and faced off for control of a massive 6ft by 8ft table.  We played eight turns and by the end the table was full of wrecks.

Players set up their forces.

German positions anchored by Ferdie

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Over the course of at least the next few months or so I'm going to focus primarily on American armies for my Late War Flames of War forces. My goal is to complete 2 tank, 2 mech and 2 infantry lists. I've already got a start on a light tank company, so a medium/Sherman focused one will get in the pipe as well. For mech, I'll be doing ARP and Cav Recon. For infantry, I've got a ton of Para's, and have always wanted to do a Bastogne list. Each of these lists will be at 1650 to fit into next years late war tournament meta, but I imagine will the all the extras I'll have at the end I could go pretty big.

But first, and possibly most challenging, I'm going to focus on a 1st Infantry Division list from Overlord. I've always wanted to do an invasion force replete with water effects, blood, beach obstacles and all that good stuff. Add on to that that one of my favorite movies as a kid was "The Big Red One" and I've got a recipe for personal modeling enjoyment.

To get started, I had to figure out what the heck I wanted to paint up and play. Now, I love going to competitions and have frequently been beaten heartily by many of you dear readers. I'm hoping to change that a bit by putting something a bit more competitive together than my quixotic German lists (I still contend that KG Hummel is AWESOME).

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It's DnD3! (Click to Download)

The boys get back on air with a buffet of Flames of War chatter. Battle reports, Sydney toy and games festival ranger report, an interview with Matt from the Hall of Heroes (BF stockist), an interview with FoW play testers! What hasn't this episode got?!

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By Fire and Sword: Polish vs Swedish Skirmish

Joe and I played a game of By Fire and Sword. I played my Polish and he played my Swedish. We played 12 points on each side, so since the armies were equal, we played the patrol scenario.

The board post deployment

The Swedish consisted of three big blocks of Veteran Reiters, and one section of Veteran Dragoons.

A menacing wall of Reiters

And some more Reiters on the far flank

The Polish list consisted of a big block of Pancerni, two small blocks of Cossack style infantry, two blocks of Wallachians, and a block of Volunteers.

Wallachians and their advance deployment

I had enough of a reconnaissance advantage to advance deploy one unit, which ended up being some Wallachians to start near on of the objectives, and also outflanked a unit of Cossack style infantry, which would start rolling to come on the board on turn three.

The rest of the Polish line - Volunteers screening the meaty stuff

We each had two commanders, and we each bought the extra command point upgrade on our main commander. We rolled for random effects, and I was able to permanetly strip one command point off of his main commander, and he started one of my units disordered - which ended up being a Wallachian banner.

Disordered Wallachians!

And with that, we're off!

The Reiters start to move out. Big wide battle lines are hard to maneuver

The far flanking Reiters start to move towards the center

The open-order Polish have a much easier time maneuvering around the terrain, since they aren't wheeling

Volunteers charge forward like the meatshields they are while the Pancerni start to line up

Wallchians taking to the woods on a defense order

The Pancerceni and Volunteers surrounding the center house

Cossacks filling the gap on the left flank

The Swedish battle line moves up and Dragoons prepare to garrison the center house

The Volunteers are eager to charge in to the Reiters

On turn three, the outflanking Cossacks arrive on the far right flank

The Pancerni charge into a large Reiter block with moral support from the Cossacks to their left

The Volunteers don't quite get close enough enough on their first charge move - they're going to take some heavy fire!

The Dragoons garrison the center building. They're going to be a lot tougher to move from that!

The Wallachians that were disordered on turn 1 start to move towards the fight

The Dragoons put two wounds on the Volunteers

And the Reiters do a third to remove a stand, but the Volunteers hold strong and finish their charge

The Pancerni also lose a stand moving in for the charge

And they lose combat, twice, being forced to eventually flee!

And off the table edge they run :(

As to be expected, the five Reiters break the Volunteers, but the Volunteers claim one stand from the unit. Op success! The outflanking cossacks move into their rear arc, but the Swedish reform on a defense order before the Cossacks can make use of their advantageous position.

Meanwhile the other Reiters, that just broke the Pancerni, move up

The last remaining Volunteer runs off the board

The Reiters then charge the Cossacks, who get caught between a Reiter and a hard place.

Joe's tape measure photobombs this shot

The Cossacks charge the Reiters in the rear, but they're too little and too late to break them

The Wallchians charge towards some Reiters

Run 'em down boys!

Wallachians actually do some serious damage to the Reiters, but between the Reiters Good Tactical Discipline and the Wallachains Poor Tactical Discipline, they still bounce.

Parting shot - board at the end of the game!

Both sides scored 6 VP for scouting the objectives as per the scenario, but the kills were so heavily in favor of the Swedish that they scored an additional 7 VP, making it a historic victory for the Swedish.

And from Joe: My primary goal with deployment and early movement was to just get my Reiters into a position to move freely at 5 wide. Possibly because of that limited focus, I felt like I was outmaneuvered on both sides with units able to get around my flanks and move up behind me. Fortunately the outflanking cossacks couldn't change their order to a charge to exploit their positioning, and Scott's inability to spread to 6 wide with his Pancerni made up for my lack of foresight in dealing with his cossacks coming around my right flank.


After action thoughts from Scott: Splitting up the Cossacks was probably a mistake - three strong banners don't do much, especially against five and six strong elite troopers. I was disappointed by the less than spectacular performance of the Pancerni, but sometimes the dice just say no!

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Episode 18: With Captain TO's Fall-In tournament behind them, Chris, Judson and the good Captain himself sit down for drinks and a little analysis of the Bolt Actioneering that went on in Lancaster, PA. During the tournament wrap up, they cover many subjects; and as usual, most of the topics are nearly relevant! Terrain and army list composition are two of the many bases covered in this, the Fall-In '13 review episode.





Download the BAR here! 

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