AAR 3RTR vs FJ - No Retreat - Firestorm in the City

Myself and Winner got together for some FoW for Cameron's Firestorm Caen Campaign. We agreed that we wanted something a little more interesting than British Para's vs FJ's, so I bust out the 3RTR from overlord.

We each put together a 1500 point list and rolled to see which Beach I'd be hitting - we got Gold beach - I opted for the actual firestorm troops, where as Winner opted for the extra Points.

After Action Review - One Day Late War Tournament at IBuyWargaming

On Saturday 31 October I braved the suburban wilderness of Woking to take part in a one day Late War tournament at their local gaming store, IBuyWargames

The tournament was organised by our very own Fez and was a 1675pts open affair with no restrictions.

The venue was very nice and very welcoming and the action took place in the store itself, with a couple of games taking place upstairs in their dedicated gaming area.  This had the advantage of putting the action on display for all the customers on the day to see and ask questions about, something which I am always in favour of.

Berlin Digital - German List Review

Hi all coxer here, I thought having done my in depth review of the Volksgrenadier lists from Berlin digital I would take a glance over the other German lists to help those of you who want something extra for your games.

502 and 503 SS Schwere panzerkompanie

So these two lists have one thing in common - the need to spend close to 1200 points on your minimum compulsory purchases. Now that does not leave you with much for anything else - but there is something completely overpowers by the idea of FV king tigers (unless there is a pesky AoP around).

The problem will be making a list which can attack infantry - you'll need to recon and AA cover, and both lists have these (with 502 having the puma pak40!) but there is not enough left in a typical pointed game to get the things you need to dig out hoards of infantry (or even just some vets)

Late War AAR - SAS Squadrons vs Panzer Grenadier Kompanie (25. Division) - Hasty Attack

Having just completed my SAS list I was itching to try it out.  So I got in touch with one of my regular sparring partners Dave M and set up a game.

We both agreed that this would be a fun, friendly game rather than a tournament practice game so we bought bought lists we’d like to try out that we never normally get the chance to play.  I turned up with my SAS Squadron, all fast moving recce jeeps and Comets, and Dave took a Panzer Grenadier company from the Nuts book.

This was shaping up to be a good historically themed bash.  The desperate Germans holding off the ever more confident Allies in the final push into the German heartland.  Unfortunately Dave didn't have a Jdgtiger to hand so the trusty old King Tiger had to stand if for him.

Who Dares Wins - The SAS in Flames of War

Earlier on this year when the SAS Squadron from the Nachtjaeger digital lists was published on Forces of War I knew I just had to have a go at building such a list.  I mean who doesn’t like the thought of a load of tooled up hooligans racing around the ulu brassing up the Jerries!

One of the first models I ever built was the Italeri 1/35 Commando Car, basically a SAS Jeep as seen in Northwest Europe in 1944-45.  Given the fond memories I had I was sold straightaway.

The Road to Art of War Too - 3RTR - Part Three

Hello All

As this goes out to you it's three days until Art of War Too and the good news is I have finished the army! It took a bit of an effort mainly as I have also been painting up my Israelis, Cromwells and some Great War stuff you will see soon. I have also played quite a few games which I will detail here.

The last time I spoke to you I had to finish off the Shermans and I had all bit finished the breaching group, they are done and here they are.

Beyond The Foxholes: Eyes and Ear Episode 6 - Late War British Armour

Hello All

Welcome to the 6th episode of Beyond the Foxholes: Eyes & Ears, our premium content podcast available on Libsyn.

In this episode we join Ben and Freddie, the French Team Captain for the ETC as they talk about Late War British Tank Armies. The guys look at all the special rules, tactics and all the different list builds.

Freddie thinks British armour is the best list in the game bar none, he also has the record with the army to back it up! So come and hear the how and the why!

Bedspring Armour (SU960) - Review

Hello there, Fez here with a review of the new SU960 Bedspring Armour upgrade blister.

The finished article

When the Bedspring Armour was first announced in the recent Berlin book, I must admit that I hadn't heard of it before! I was excited to add these to an IS-2 based Berlin list, however when they were added to the Hero Tankovy list from Desperate Measures I knew I needed to get some.

Overlord Brit v FI 4. Fallschirmjägerdivision 1750 AAR - Pincer

Hello

It's been an age since I did an AAR.  There have been a number of abortive attempts, but hopefully this candidate will make it to production.

To set the scene, Ben was coming over to get some practice for Art of War Too.  He'd had some recent success against Tankovy so the FJs were back on the table to give him some practice facing veteran infantry.

Now I've had a desire to do the whole, infantry backed by a single super heavy tank for a while now.  I don't think it's particularly competitive, but you do see it alot.  My only offering for this is an Elefant so I used the EasyArmy unit finder thingy and remembered that you can take them in Fortress Italy.  In fact I found a list I'd been experimenting with hand written tucked inside my book.

There were a few tweaks I really needed to make, like squeezing in an extra Shrek, and downsizing the mortars.  This is a terrible list btw, but I didn't have time to write a new one.

The Road to Art of War Too - 3RTR - Part Two

Hello All,

It's been a few weeks since the last update and despite painting up two months worth of models for the Arab-Israeli War painting challenge I found time to crack on with my Sherman army for Art of War Too.

I did really need to as I thought this post would be me explaining why I'm not doing a British armoured list any more and decided to use British infantry instead.  I did a "Robin" and ended up sending around 5 different sets of lists to Tim and Steve (once again sorry guys...); part of it was me trying to work out if I can use the list I'm running and part of it was I just didn't think I would have time to paint it all, but all is well that ends well and I have made a big leap forward in getting the army painted.

Plastic Cromwell (BBX31) - Review

Hello All,

The guys at Battlefront very kindly sent us a box of the new plastic Cromwells to review. Despite having a massive amount of stuff on my painting table I always really wanted to collect a Cromwell force so I pushed everything off the table, not quite literally, and went to work painting them up.

Whats in the box?

In the box you get enough bits to make 5 Cromwell tanks, the tank itself comes on a single sprue, with the only extra sprue being the same commander sprue you find in the Sherman and Comet box set. The decal sheet is the same one you got in the old Cromwell box with the Firefly, unfortunately this means that the vehicle numbers don't quite work for the box. Also it's missing any Squadron markers (the coloured triangle, square or circle), not a problem for me as I have a load of left over ones from the BR946 British Decals (Late), but something to think about when you pick up the box set.

Fez's Road to Art of War Too Part 2

Hello there,
Fez here again with an update on the road to Art of War Too - apparently, this road is paved with dead T34's.

Bovingdon's T34/85 - Nice detail on the Cast Mantle

I tried another game with the FT Hero Tankovy list, as I hadn't had time to adjust the models from before, my opponent for this one Justin with his Nisei. The fact that I didn't take pictures is evident of the death he tolled out - That list is horrible! Fearless everywhere, Jumbos, time on target, it was just horrific. I got a small victory in shooting down his AoP with the IS-2 AA, but that's about it!

Stuartica - Using An Early War Tank In Late War

Stuarts -They are better than you think they are.

I'm on a one man crusade to prove that the best tank in late war, point for point is the humble Stuart M5 light tank. I am aware that this is an uphill struggle to pursuade people of it's merits, but one day I will get the chance to take on Ben in a Stuart Vs Panzer IV/70 fight to the death and when I emerge triumphant on my one remaining light tank, I will be able to insist we get a new logo replacing the silly Gudarian's ducks with a proper tank, from early war, in late war.

Anyway, there are a number of options for using Stuarts in late war, should you choose to, the British use them as recce, the soviets use them as a 10 tank mass of awesomeness and the US use them in squadrons of 5 as a light tank in a number of lists. Having played around with the US options I think the best option is to go for Confident trained Stuarts and I tend to use the 3rd AD from overlord as I get to auto attack and spearhead, both if which are very useful, the first because this is a very, very aggressive army, and the second because spearheading let's you cover some more ground before the enemy start shooting you, which as we will see is absolutely vital.

Stuarts vs T34s, suicide you say? I think not...

Volksgrenadiers - The Next Generation

Well I'm in a really good mood! It's well known that there has been one list I've been looking forwards to for, well forever - and when we chatted to Battlefront about the Berlin books and they said it would happen in the digital release - I started salivating - and now it's here! Yes Volksgrenadiers are back, and this time they're more reluctant and confident than ever before!

Just so you can catch up on why I love volksgrenadiers you can see my old articles on them here and here.

The Road to Art of War Too - 3RTR - Part One

Hello All,

Art of War Too is around the corner (well September 26th and 27th) and I was struggling to work out what army to take. I played around with British Infantry, British Paras, US Armour, US Infantry, etc etc. Nothing quite seemed right.

I almost caved in and took 7th Armoured to help free up my painting time for Great War and the AIW painting challenge, when a conversation with Adam and an Interview for an upcoming Beyond The Foxholes: Eyes and Ears made the choice for me.

Late War AAR - 21st Panzer Grenadiers vs 51st Highlanders - Fighting Withdrawal

Hello All, Welcome to the second AAR from my weekend at Matt's. Matt was once again using 21st Panzer Grens but this time the list was a little different having Tigers instead of Panzer IV's and the FlaK 8.8's.  I was trying out a 51st Highlanders list I quite liked the look of. I'm not sure about playing with reluctant troops as I like to use my British Infantry aggressively but it a lot of tournament players have been using them as I figured I'd give them a go.  We rolled up Fighting Withdrawal, one of my favourite missions. I chose to night attack (stop me if you have heard me say that before), I wasn't sure if that was the best idea as I would be relying on Defrocked Priests and Reluctant troops to get the job done, but I love to attack and you need to try these things out.

21st Panzer Grenadiers (Confident Veteran) HQ + 1 Panzerfaust + Von Luck Full Grenadiers + Faust Full Grenadiers + Faust 3 7.5cm (Sf) 39H 2 Tigers - In Ambush 4 10.5cm (Sf) 39H 3 Pak40's 3 Nebs + Pak38

51st Highlanders (Reluctant Veterans) HQ + Bagpipes Full 51st Highlander Infantry + Defrocked Priests Full 51st Highlander Infantry + Defrocked Priests 4 6pdrs 3 Carriers 3 Wasps 4 M10's (Confident Trained) 2 Mk VI Chruchills + 1 Mk III Churchill + Applique Armour (Confident Trained) 4 25pdrs 4 5.5s (Confident Trained) AOP

Late War AAR - 21st Panzer Grenadiers vs Sherwood Armoured Brigade - Counter Attack

Hello All The other weekend I travelled up to Matt's place with the family, while the wife's and kids were out we got in two Normandy themed games.  Game one saw me running a CV Sherman company against Matt's 21st Panzer Grenadiers. We rolled up Counter Attack which is a mission I always enjoy playing. As I was a tank force I was the attacker. We decided to keep the terrain quite light for the first game as most of the British fighting in Normandy was away from the bocage that dominated the American sector of of the fighting.

21st Panzer Grenadiers (Confident Veteran) HQ + 2 Panzerfaust Full Grenadiers + Faust Full Grenadiers + Faust 3 7.5cm (Sf) 39H 4 Panzer IV's 4 10.5cm (Sf) 39H 3 Pak40's 3 Nebs 2 Luftwaffe 8.8cm FlaK36 (Reluctant Trained)

Sherwood Armoured Brigade (Confident Veteran) 2 HQ Shermans 3 Shermans 3 Shermans 3 Fireflies 3 Stuarts Full 51st Highlander Infantry + Defrocked Priests 4 51st Highlander 25pdrs AOP

Winner's Recent Mad Behaviour

Mornin' all, Winner Dave at your service.

Driving to work has given me more time for reflection, "Damn, I'm hot", "Adam's awful" and "I wish I'd had breakfast" are among some of my favourites.  I also end up thinking about painting...a lot!

Coupled to this I rarely manage to listen to the interviews Ben manages to do before we record, so I end up listening to them at the same time as you guys.  So, I sat down to do some painting (Soviet Infantry) and after listening to "News from the Front" I remembered there were a couple of interviews I needed to listen to.  As I was listening, diligently applying Black Grey to the boots of my infantry, I heard Evan say something along the lines of "I hate having to do the same thing over," and that struck a chord with me.  Now I don't know about you, but I got the feeling Evan may have experienced that scenario in a recent time frame to the interview and he needed to get that off his chest.

The Infamous FJs...just begging to be re-based

Like Evan, I hate having to do the same thing a second time and currently it seems this can be extended to I hate having to paint another couple of armies so I can play early war and mid war again. I wouldn't mind if I already had armies for those periods and I was simply extending them or painting new armies as a slow burn project, but because I'd made them a necessity, it just felt like work.

Thoughts On Using A Panzergrenadier Company

Ok sitting back having now played 9 games with my little panzergreadier list (and a few previously with the Lehr aufklarungs panzergreadier) I thought I'd share my reflections on using them.

Firstly I'd suggest in future ask yourself the simple why are you playing this list? That might sound an odd question but it's important. As a mech player you have to set yourself up to defend vs tanks and attack infantry - As a tank player (especially the AA variety) you need to attack vs infantry and tanks, as an infantry player you need to defend, (occasionally attack I will admit) but the percentage is less than for Mech.

Cossacks in Flames of War

Hello All

Today we have a guest post from Christian - a Beyond the Foxholes fan all the way from Germany! I have been chatting to him about Cossacks, an army I keep almost collecting. He sent me his thoughts on the army and I thought they were too goo not to post on here. Anyway thats enough from me, here's Christian.

Here are my ideas and experiences concerning Soviet Cavalry, I will first go over the rules first and then move onto the individual lists in the different eras. The disadvantages, most of these are actually of no concern, and advantages of the Cavalry rules: