With the two mid-war books hitting Forces of War recently, the Breakthrough Assault crew have put the Pershing, Comets and King Tigers down and gone back to where Flames of War all started – the burning heat of the desert and the wide spaces of the Russian Steppes. This series sees the authors discuss their favorite list from the period; its strengths; it weaknesses; and why anyone should play it.
Hello All
Today we have the third part of the series on Mid War. A big thank you to Dave Madigan for his thoughts and next week we’ll have the final part with my look at my favourite Mid War List.
As a New Zealander living and gaming in the UK, it’s only natural that I should field a Kiwi Company in MW to go with my EW and LW Kiwi Co’s
Also in running MW (Desert) 8th army, I‘m also going back to what got me into FOW in the 1st place when the Africa Korps and 8th Army Box sets were a great way to get started. Shame BF no longer produce these great sets.
So in MW I’m running a Rifle Co. (NZ) from Monty’s famous Desert 8th Army. It was said that Rommel was quoted as saying he knew when Monty meant business when the Kiwi’s were in the attack as he regarded the NZ Division as an elite Allied formation. 
So on to the list….Kiwi’s have all the British National rules, Night Attack, British Bulldog, Carry on Sgt and Mike Target for artillery, plus the 4 x 2 and No.8 wire (Mission tactics) special rule. This makes them superb in the assault especially as in most missions you would choose to attack at night. The list is unusual for an Infantry list as being designed to attack at night, get on the obj. and hang on vs inevitable enemy counter attacks.
So I’ve gone with 3 Rifle platoons, sadly at 1650 pts there just wasn’t points to take the light mortar or Boy’s teams as well but they are all packing sticky bombs for that last ditch defence against heavy tanks. I am a big fan of Portee’s for AT work, going on the theory of packing the biggest gun possible on the cheapest vehicle, relying on veterancy and “Tip and Run” to keep these alive for longer. I’ve elected to take the Vickers rather than a mortar platoon as the HMG’s will be golden if defending against say Strelk and uniquely they can also bombard to a greater distance than mortars!
Of course no British Infantry Co. is complete without the ubiquitous 25pdrs and I’ve gone with 2 batteries of these very useful guns. In previous lists I’ve had a Sherman platoon, but being Trained they were very vulnerable and often didn’t really give much value for the points invested so instead I’ve opted for a troop of Honeys from the Divisional Cavalry. These have the benefit of 16” movement and being veteran might stay alive long enough to cause havoc in an opponent’s rear area.
Lastly I have the obligatory patrol of U/C’s, again no points free to provide upgrades, so these are there to perform the task of recce for which they are designed.
Oh, and there is occasional support from the RAF too! I’ve got Hurricane IID support figuring that if they turn up, the greater “to hit” stats of the cannons is better than bombs. The maths is better too vs most armoured targets as only heavies get a save roll.
And if 9 platoons of Beer drinking, Rugby playing Kiwi lads can’t get the job done, I’d be very surprised…
I see this company’s strength as night attack vs most other infantry co’s, quite probably do well against small numbers of tanks too. I suspect it may be a tough day at the office vs Tankovy unless the 25prs and the RAF have a good day.
