Corrivalry 2016 – The First Journey Into 1420pts

Hello All

It’s that time of year again for the UK tournament scene. Winter is slowly creeping in and along with it comes the rain (it is the UK after all). During this time most UK tournament gamers hibernate away and wait for the start of a new tournament year (and slightly less rain). While a few events are hold during this time, it’s traditionally Corrivalry each year that brings everyone out of their slumber and marks the start of another year of tournament action .
Corrivalry is a different beast of a tournament. Always a Late War event, each round the missions are selected by the table you play on, not the round as a whole. For example I could be playing Hold the Line on one table while Adam is playing Counter Attack on another. This is balanced out using a computer program so you shouldn’t play more than two of the same type of mission, defensive, mobile and Fair Fight. Also to add to the fun a few extra missions are thrown in, this year they are Road Block and Break Out. To help you with all of this you are given a “swap” out army list, this basically means you can bring a second list which has around 300 to 500 points (depending on the year) different from from your main list.

This years Corrivalry brings something a little new. Following on from the new FOW tournament points for 1420 points, Nobby, Hammy and the other guys who help to run Corrivalry have decided to follow suit. They have also made the swap out 420 points which is a lot for such a small points total. As you might have heard on the last podcast we are in favour of 1420 points as a nice to really mix things up. Yes 1650, 1750 and 1800 points all mix things up a bit, but dropping down to 1420 points (while a brave choice) really messes with the established “better” lists. US 7th Armored, the current “best” list, is very difficult to fit into the points.

So it got me thinking, “what do I want to run?”. That’s a tough question as the list I’d like to run won’t be out in time (I guess I will have to save it for the GT in Oct). I was struggling to decide on what to take until I was reading the FOW forum and saw that people were complaining that 1420 points would favour infantry. This something I disagree with as the same people said higher points favour infantry and yet Tanks armies were still doing well at tournaments. So like Barney from How I Met Your Mother, I uttered the words “challenge accepted”. Being me I knew it had to be British and so I started messing around with the only list I wanted to make work, 7th Armoured Division, the Desert Rats. Why? Simple, I love Cromwells and I have been itching to get the new plastics on the table since I reviewed them.One sleepless night thanks to Bobby, the newest edition to the Davy household, I started trying to make the list work at 1420 points. I was worried as myself and Adam tried to help Alex make a “good” 7th Armoured list for Corrivalry 2014 and failed; we couldn’t make a 1750pts list we were happy with. So I tweaked and thought and edited and within an hour I had one list I was very happy with and a swap out that I was OK with, for a few situations. Here is the first draft which I’m sure it’ll change a bit with play testing.

This reminded me why I liked the lower points so much. Some armies work really well at different points values. An easy example would be a King Tiger list would struggle at 1000 points while a Luftwaffe Field division would be well suited as it’s options are so cheap. While at 1800 points the King Tigers can get the support they so badly need, whole the Luftwaffe are probably just padding out the list to get to the points total, making it weaker.

Now I’m not saying the above list is all conquering (definitely not in my hands), but I think that it’s solid and is set up to be a good all round list. Also I would think most lists will struggle to have 8 platoons and auto attack. The list building was a lot easier to build than if it were set at 1750 points. The costs of the platoons lent themselves well to the lower points with very few units just there for ‘padding’. Every unit has a role, all the bases are covered with Veteran Recce, a lot of FP 3+ shots to dig out infantry and gun teams, AA just in case I face air (I can’t see there being much outside of AOP’s) and while the list has no smoke templates all the Cromwells and Shermans have direct fire smoke. While it might be a little light on anti tank you will see few lists that have a good answer for everything at these lower points (also the swap out list solves a few of these problems).

I have a feeling you will see a number of lists you might not expect thanks to this new “meta”. Lists like the Soviet Matilda or the Light Self-propelled Artillery Regiment which have fallen out of favour, could be worth another look at; the same can be said for the Hungarian Zrínyi II list. I also have a feeling the trained Tank Destroyer company from Overlord could also be well good list and Adam ratings the SS Westfalen for corrivalry. I should point out it’s not all positives for all the lists. Myself and Adam tried really hard to make British Airbourne work and could not find anything we were even remotely happy with. If you can make them work please drop myself or Adam an email as we’d like to know.So if you fancy the challenge or just want to come to one of the best and longest running FOW events in the UK, please check out Corrivalry. It’s always a fun event, you will meet lots of follow hobbyist who are more than happy to share new ideas for painting or gaming with you. Add to that the challenge of making a good list for 1420 points and this should be something different from any other event you have been to. Worst case you get to spend a weekend away with old friends and make new friends, while push toys around a table. Win, win in my books!

Keep an eye out for a few follow up posts over the next month or so as I paint up the army and test it out in a few warm up games.

Until then thanks for reading

Ben

If you fancy reading up on past Corrivalrys, here is a selection of our posts on previous years tournaments.