Soviet Pulyemyetno-Artillyeriyskiy List Discussion

Hello All, I'd like to introduce the last addition to the Breakthrough Assault Team, Dr. Alex. He'll be bring his own brand of "saying as it is" humour. Well thats enough from me, I'll leave you in the capable hands of Alex. 

Hi everyone, I'm Dr Alex.

I'm both everything Dr Cox is not and someone who Ben has been harassing to do some blogs for a while.

I only started playing flames of war a year ago (ish) and am still trying out things to see what I like. I have been using a Strelkovy Batalon mainly but have been getting a bit bored and flicking through Red Bear looking for other options.

The one which jumped out as completely different is the Pulyemyetno-Artillyeriyskiv, which is a fortified company of large guns and HMG's. I like large guns and HMG's and in 2nd edition Epic (back when epic was epic)  one of my favourite ways to play was with the fortification rules in the Space Marine Battles Book.


As such, I thought for a bit of fun I would convert my Strelkovy into a defensive force, full of big guns, barbed wire, trenches and a complete lack of movement.

The 1750 point list I came up with is:

Pulyemyetno-Artillyeriyskiy Batalon HQ

The defences, waiting to be manned

2 Cmd Rifle teams
1 Komissar team
1 Sniper team
1 Trench Line

Pulyemyetno-Artillyeriyskiy Company
1 Cmd Rifle team
4 Trench Lines
6 Maksim HMG teams
3 MG teams
3 Barbed Wire Entanglements

Pulyemyetno-Artillyeriyskiy Company
1 Cmd Rifle team
4 Trench Lines
6 Maksim HMG teams
3 MG teams


Artillery group in their gun pits

Artillery Group
1 Cmd Rifle team
1 Trench Line
8 76mm ZIS-3 field guns
8 Gun Pits
1 Observer Rifle team

Anti-tank Obstacles and Minefields
2 Minefields

Tank Destruction Company
1 Cmd Rifle team
4 100mm BS-3 guns


BS-3's look down the road, waiting for StuG's

Sapper Company
1 Cmd Pioneer Rifle team
15 Pioneer Rifle team
1 Pioneer Supply truck

Reserve Artillery Battalion

1 Cmd Rifle team
1 Staff team
1 Observer Rifle team
4 152mm ML-20 obr 1931/37 howitzers


The 152ML-20's are BIG

Gun Position
4 Gun Pits
1 Trench Lines

In terms of why's and wherefores, you may have seen the somewhat disastrous first outing of this army against Dr Cox in an AAR. I suddenly found that I had to move to claim an objective and push some StuGs off it without necessarily having my big guns obliterate them. I had been using a full strength Strelkovy Co. but they can't hurt tanks except by choking them with corpses, so I switched them out for a sapper company, which seems a better option for counter attack and movement.

I suffer from a lack of platoons, as do most Soviet lists, but my problem is that pretty much all my army wants to be deployed at the beginning and a lot of it is immobile. I've found that in the worst case I can keep the artillery group out of their gun pits and they can be quite mobile which helps, or I can combat attach them to the HMG companies which is also useful.

Seriously, they are really Big

I've used the army twice now. The first time was against Dr Cox. It started very well and then ran out of steam, especially when required to move.

The second game was against Winner Dave, which is what all the sepia photos are from (I have a new camera and was playing around with settings). I smashed Winner, I just blew him apart at range and then machine-gunned his infantry as they ran across my fire lanes. In fact it got quite boring and I was itching to move and do something more than just set up a castle and watch him die trying to storm it.

I think this is a list I'll use against beardy people like Dr Cox who I struggle not to get tabled by (usually due to his unique approach to teaching by not telling you the rules) and against Winner I'll use something fun, like my 31 T34's...

Minesweeper is a simulation game right?

With regards the fortifications, I looked at the Battlefront stuff and thought 'that looks very nice'. I then thought 'I'm a cheapskate and I reckon I could put that together with plasticard, polyfiller and matches' so I did. Ben wants me to do a blog on how I made them. (This was meant to be it, but we've had people over all weekend so I couldn't do the Blue Peter-esque in construction shots) I'll try and put one together when I get bored of doing my new British army, and Dystopian wars, and StarCraft, and X-wing, and making up fat jokes about Dr Cox.

The whole army deployed and ready to hold Mother Russia against the Fascists