Steely Eyed Missile Mountie – Designing a Canadian mechanised list.

A strange and wonderful thing happened recently; I actually managed to play a game of Team Yankee. I can’t remember the last time I had a game of it, certainly more than a year ago. So I dusted off my old models, plonked them on the table… and lost, (although that was to be expected after so long). But it did get me thinking, as these things usually do, whilst I looked at the Army I have spent a lot of time and money on but haven’t touched in a long time, “hey maybe I should get a new army”.

But what type or army was the next question, and when I thought about it, I released I don’t own a primary infantry list; all my armies are all tank based, (because tanks are cool,) but it might be nice to field an infantry formation once in a while, (but with some tanks in support, obviously).

Decision Time

So after that came the next question – what nation? I won’t bore you with the details of how I decided, but I have ended up settling on …Canadians… Or maybe Swedish. Or Belgian. Possibly West German. Or perhaps Danish with West German support., Or maybe ANZAC. Basically, it’s going to be NATO… Unless I do Soviet VDV.

Anyway, here is the Canadian list I designed and my thoughts behind it.

The Metal Box of Freedom

It’s going to be the M113 Mechanised Company. I went with them over the Grizzley’s as I fear T-80s and want some high strength missiles, hence the article title.

First things first, we need to fill the black boxes of the Formation Organisation:

M113 Mechanised Company HQ – 1pt
M113 Mechanised Platoon at full strength, replacing all the Carl Gustavs with Eryx missiles – 10pts
Same as above – another 10pts

I have gone with two full sized infantry platoons since I want this to be an infantry army-I might as well take more infantry. The Eryx missles are so I can scare my friends T-80s. At AT 24 they can actually punch through the front armour, and they have Tandem warhead to laugh in the face of his ERA special rule. Plus, Carl Gustav was just a man, and the Eryx is named after a demigod, so it has to be better right? Or it might be named after the ancient city, and I’m fairly certain if I started firing ancient cities at my opponents tanks then it would cause some damage.

Anyway, back on track

We have our black boxes filled and we are 21 points down. I’m building to 100pts as a nice round number. So that means I have 79pts left to play with, (yey for maths!)

The next question is do I want a third infantry platoon? And I’m not sure about that. Whilst I said I wanted an infantry army, I do still want to have all the other cool toys, so I might leave that for now and see how things stand later on.

So let’s go though the other grey boxes.

Next up we have some mortars, they seem like a sensible choice, so let’s take some of those. Now 8 seems a bit excessive, and I’ve never been a fan of just taking 2 models in an artillery unit due to having to reroll hits, so 4 it is at 3pts.

Woo Tanks! I’m not going to lie, I was 4 units into writing an army list and none of them are tanks and it was making me feel unwell. The Canadians now have access to Leopards 2s (the basic version) and they seem like the ideal choice. I can remember back in the day when the Leopard 2 was the most powerful tank in game Those days are long gone but it’s still a good all rounder and not too expensive at 32pts for 3.

Taking stock, the list is now:
M113 Mechanised Company HQ – 1pt
M113 Mechanised Platoon at full strength, replacing all the Carl Gustavs with Eryx missiles – 10pts
M113 Mechanised Platoon at full strength, replacing all the Carl Gustavs with Eryx missiles – 10pts
4x M125 Mortasr – 3pts
3x Leopard 2 – 32pts
Total 56pts

The other options in the formation are 4(!)Anti-tank units and 2 Recon units. I’m not sure I need 4 AT units with having all the missiles in the infantry already, but I’ll certainly take one of those. A unit of 3x M113 TUA (TOW-2) will do nicely- they’ll work as a nice ambush unit.

A Recon unit also seems like a sensible thing to have to stretch out my deployment options, so I’ll add in a unit of 2 Coyotes.
All that will bring the list up to 65pts

Time for some support

It’s a Canadian army, so it would be downright rude to not include a unit of ADATS, terrible in real life but quite funky in the game. They can serve as both my primary AA to keep the sky open, but also really good AT if my opponent has decided to leave the planes at home and bring more tanks instead.

Is 6 too many? I think it might be seeing as I already have plenty of AT, and the enemy air power may stay at home, so let’s go with 4 of them for 10pts.

So far the only artillery we have are the M125s, so let’s add in some proper big guns with 3 M109s. I don’t think we need the extra range or direct AT of the A2s, so I’ll stick to the basic version.

Recap time

M113 Mechanised Company HQ – 1pt
M113 Mechanised Platoon at full strength, replacing all the Carl Gustavs with Eryx missiles – 10pts
M113 Mechanised Platoon at full strength, replacing all the Carl Gustavs with Eryx missiles – 10pts
4x M125 Mortars – 3pts
3x Leopard 2 – 32pts
3x M113 TUA (Tow-2) – 7pts
2x Coyotes – 2pts
Support
4x ADATS – 10pts
3x M109 – 7pts
Total 82pts
So 18pts left

Now a wise old man once told me….. well, a man once told me, (hi Neil,) that you want no more than 2 reserve units, because then you’re guaranteed to get all of them turn up and they should both be mobile. One should be a big powerful unit, and the other an all rounder. My big powerful unit will be the Leopard 2s which we already have, but that’s only 32pts, so we need at least another 8pts that are a good all rounder and fairly mobile. Enter stage left the good old reliable Leopard 1; 3 of them are 10pts. It almost sounds like I know what I am doing.

Since I have 2 artillery units it would be silly to not take an observer for another point.
By the power of maths, I calculate I now have 7pts remaining, but what to do with those 7pts?

Last Few Options

If I wanted more infantry, I could take a third infantry platoon, either at full strength with Charlie Gs, or under strength with Eryx upgrades. Alternatively, I could take 2 more ADATS for my AT/AA umbrella and 2 more recon Coyotes to help deploy them where I want them to be. I could also take an extra leopard 1 at 3pts and then a unit of the cool new Cougars for some nice mid strength firepower to chew through transports.

Ultimately, we both know what I’m going to do- I’m going to buy them all so I have options. It will also allow me to do 105pts or whatever the “official” points level becomes.

Just so I can finish off this article, let’s say this time I take the infantry.

So the “final” list is:
M113 Mechanised Company HQ – 1pt
M113 Mechanised Platoon at full strength, replacing all the Carl Gustavs with Eryx missiles – 10pts
M113 Mechanised Platoon at full strength, replacing all the Carl Gustavs with Eryx missiles – 10pts
M113 Mechanised Platoon at full strength, with Carl Gustavs – 7pts
4x M125 Mortars – 3pts
3x Leopard 2 – 32pts
3x M113 TUA (Tow-2) – 7pts
2x Coyotes – 2pts
Support
4x ADATS – 10pts
3x M109 – 7pts
Observer – 1pt
3x Leopard 1s- 10pts
Grand total – 100pts

Bosh, that’s done, now to go and decide if I want this or if I should get the Swedish army instead…. or a west German one…. Or those ANZAC……

Or I could just buy more infantry for my Americans – but where is the fun it that?