Echos of El Alamein – Uncle Sam finally goes to war!

Martin back after my summer rest and I’m off to Table Top Republic to play in a 1 day Midwar event focussed on the North African Desert Campaign, in September and its an opportunity to finally get to play some games with the American Mid War Forces I built back in Spring 2022. A real pleasant change from the Late War Berlin Germans attritional slog of late.

Event Link: https://www.tabletoprepublic.com/product-page/echoes-of-el-alamein-100pt-flames-of-war-north-africa-tournament

Firstly quite a bit has changed since I originally built this Force. To start with we have had 2 itterations of Dynamic Points and the North Africa compilation book was released adding new options. There are a few Tournament specicifc rules to take in to account as well in deciding my final list.

• Only Forces from the North Aftrica compilation book are permitted
• Lists may only contain a maximum of 30 Tank or Unarmoured Tank teams
• Mid War Monsters are not allowed

The first of these makes things easier to plan for in MW but the second is a bit of a headache as I have an Armoured Rifle Company and an M3Lee Company forming the core of my operation Torch Force and thus I have a lot of M3 Half-tracks as both transports and AFV’s. So before messing about with adjusting my Force to fit the tournament rules lets take a look at what has happened in gereral to the Force since I initially collected and painted it up back in 2022.

So back in 2022 I built and painted 172 points worth of units, options are quite good here as well. I could swap round my 81mm Armoured Mortars between the two Formations if only playing with one Formation in a list or Swap my Sherman and M3 Stuart platoons over between the Formation and Support components of a Force built around the M3 Lee Company. When I want to make something more competative I will use a cut down versions of both companies and not bother to add any Support Units as I have 4 artillery templates in the Formations already

So where has Dynamic Points changed this. In terms of flexibility that hasn’t altered but there has been a bit of a shift in the way the Points add up within the three components

So the full ARP cost me 5 extra points overall, which is due to an uplift in the cost of the two artillery components of the Formation, not a significant change for such a cheap Formation and has little real impact. The M3 Lee Company now costs 6 points less overall with some of the benefits of the drop in points in the M3 Lee units off setting the uplift in all the other elements. Overall making this a more flexible single Formation choice than in 2022, erxactly what Battlefront were trying to do. My Support elements benefit massively from the change in the Sherman costing saving another 7 points, so now my Force in total comes to 164 points, just 8 less than in 2022 overall. Interestingly if I swap the Stuart for the Sherman Platoon under Dynamic Points this only increases the M3 Lee Formation cost to 80 points which is where I started back in 2022, yep its a couple of less tanks overall but 3 Shermans are a much more powerful unit in MW than 5 Reckless Stuarts (hit on 2+) I may have to add one more of these, which I could do by not upgrading the Lee’s to the long barrel gun. From this we can clearly see the overall impact of Battefronts aims in MW of making medium tanks a more attractive option whilst having a fairly neutral effect on the overall size of the Force. For the Americans in general better equipment doesn’t neccessarily translate into fewer models or more points being needed.

Going to war

So what does this all mean for the Tournament List I need to build. Well my initial Tournament ideas back in 2022 had 2 Formations and not any Support but with the 30 vehicle limit I have had to rethink that ( I get to 25 vehicles just in my base Core Formation so some pruning was needed with my unit options) and I had to realisticly pick a single Formation list. After a bit of consideration I have gone with the M3 Lee Formation as my core and filled all the Formation unit boxes giving me a very solid 7 Formation platoons. My HQ has been upgraded with the later M3 Lee with the long 75mm gun. I have given both M3 Lee platoons a couple of long barrel tanks as well to spred my better AT capability across my units. In effect my list represents a Tank Regiment in the transition period commencing in late 1942 moving from being fully equipped with M3 Lees to the newer M4 Shermans commencurate with the 2nd Battle of El Alamein. My Armored Recon provide me a Spearhead and a 60mm mortar for an annoying (for my opponents) 1 gun barrage option. The M4 81mm Armoured Mortars and and T30’s provide my main artillery components, both with smoke bombardments as well as some extra anti light tank/infantry capability with their 0.50 cal MGs or the AT6 75mm howitzer in the direct fire role. Finally I have a big blob of American Infantry backed up with more MG equipped M3 Half-tracks and again another annoying 60mm artillery template. My final platoon are propbably my favourite models in this set the P-40 Warhawks of the US Army Air Force which come with some potent bombs for taking out static positions and ROF3, AT5, 0.50 calibre machine guns ideal for taking out light vehicles.

Tactically I will essentially be looking to compensate for my low skill in Assault by being able to blast my opponets units off the table and reduce their units near the objectives rapidly so I don’t need to rely on killing too much with an assault. I have the ability to deploy 2 smoke screens to cover my movement or reduce the effectiveness of long ranged German and Italian AT Guns and further reduce the effects of being Aggressive (hit on 3+). I will seek to get all my 60mm mortars ranged in on the same target effectively making them as useful as a regular 3 or 4 team battery, so I should have at least 2 bombardments firing for effect each turn.

My Sherman and M3 Lee longs are mainly for anti-tank duty being able to go pretty much toe to toe with Panzer III units under most circumstances and the American Sherman has the edge over even the best German medium tanks in the desert (Panzer IV early, long). I may be easier to hit but with superiour weight of shot thanks to stabilisers my units are more able to deliver a decisive blow in the manouver battles of the desert. Stabilisers enable me to get into better firing positions whilst still keeeping up a steady stream of fire without risking using Blitz movement orders with my Green skill rating to potentially offset any Desert opponents hit on 4+ benefit. The remaining M3 Lee Platoon will be used more in a flanking role to try and get around the side of the enemy or simply as a near unmovable roadblock to an infantry advance. In Midwar tanks in good defensive position are hard to shift through assault thanks to the general lack of infantry anti-tank capability – common 20mm anti-tank weapons will barely scratch American armour even from the side.

My infantry element is a tough nut to deal with even though it is only Confident it is still difficult to Assault effectively thanks the bonus Motivation to Rally, the five bazooka teams or the mass of MG fire from my supporting M3 half-tracks should hold off most assaults. Even if my infanty are pinned down it only reduces my full strenghth overall weight of fire by 6 dice from a staggering potential 36 (21 + 15) to 30 dice (15 + 15)! On the offensive they again benefit from good mobility thanks to the M3 halftrack enabling them to quickly get into a position and pin down the enemy where they can then launch an assaults from. I am relying on overwealming numbers to compenate for suffering from having the worst skill of all the desert forces here but when you have so many teams more than the enemy platoons you can take a couple of turns over this and a counter assault is always risky when the Americans have so many teams and so much raw firepower.

So there it is my list is all set, my tactics and choices explained and my MW Americans are finally off to war! I’ll update on how I got on in a future update, Martin.