The Road to The Art of War - More Soviets!

Hello All

In a little over two weeks I'll be going to The Art of War Late War Tournament. After my poor showing at Corrivalry the Matilda Horde was out and instead I decided to use a T-34/76 tank horde using Desperate Measures. Great I thought, little to no painting needed for the tournament, a rare thing for me and tournaments as I like to change lists to keep things fresh which normally means a lot of painting. But then in an epiphany/moment of madness I decided to sell all my PSC T-34's and buy the new plastic Battlefront T-34's.

This seemed to make sense as the PSC T-34's are a bit smaller than the BF models and did look a little small petite next to each other, add to that I picked up two boxes of the plastic SU-Cat Killers and found them to be a dream to build and paint it seemed like a no brainer. So off to Ebay my old T-34's went and a few days late 4 boxes of more T-34's turned up and the building began.

Having now put together both the BF and PSC T-34's I can say that the Battlefront version is a nicer model detail wise, build wise and gaming wise (e.g. it feels more like a gaming piece than a model and also the bits feel less likely to break), but they take about the same amount of time to put together, e.g. quite a while. This was a bit of a surprise to me as the SU's when together so quickly, but then you do have two turrets to the SU's no turret so thats going to add a lot of build time, but overall it's a lovely kit.

Painting them was very nice the only problem I had with them was my own "why am I repainting 20 tanks I have already painted!" moments. This was a real problem when I was black lining them, a very tedious part if you're a little bored.... but I got through it and I'm quite happy with the end results.

One of the things I wanted to change from my old T-34 was the unit markings. with my previous tanks I had done different unit markings for both the 76mm and the 85mm turrets, this was fine until I wanted to do a mixed platoon. So I did a bit of research and found a brilliant website about Soviet tank Corps unit markings during WW2. From this I decided to do the 10th Guards Tank Corps mainly as I already had the right decals! But also as I had used the same unit marking (not by design) on my SU's so it kept everything themed.

A T-34/85 in Prague from the 10th Guards Corps.

My T-34 done based on the above picture

So with the T-34's done and dusted it was time to look at the support I needed to do, I really wanted to get three of the M17 Quad .50cal Anti Air. The problem was trying to find them! They are very hard to find but I was able to get two Soviet ones from Dark Sphere and had to make do with a US one I found to round out the platoon (this one will get replaced once I find a 3rd Soviet version.)

The nice thing about having the Soviet and US versions was being able to compare them and I was quite surprised to to how much better the casting of the newer Soviet version was compared to the older US model. It really show how much better the casting is getting.

So the lists, well it's nothing massively new or ground breaking, it's a solid list where my games should be quick and should be a lot of fun. I have gone with the Desperate Measures Tankovy as I think being Fearless is better than Dedov as it helps all your support platoons were as Dedov just helps the second T-34 Company. Otherwise the list is 21 T-34/76's to be the main combat platoons. I went for these as they can hurt tanks (unlike Matildas) and I think I'll see more tanks at the weekend than normal. Also they are a lot faster than the Matildas which can only be a bonus.

Next up I added the 8 SU-100's to take on anything my T-34's can't hurt, then I added Anti Air in case anyone takes Rudel or an AOP and to round out the list I went for some Spetsnaz with a Panzerfaust for infiltration and a desperate option to take on King Tigers with. I hope to use the list to hit hard, hit fast and overwhelm my opponent as quickly as possible. I just need to hope I don't see any King Tigers... at least this list can bail them on the flanks....

Fearless    Trained	Tankovy Batalon (Guards) Ben Davy list	Soviet Late-War
Tank Company

Platoon	Qty	Unit	Points
Headquarters
Tankovy Batalon HQ (Guards)  p.9	1	T-34 obr 1942	50
Combat Companies
Tankovy Company (Guards)  p.9	10	T-34 obr 1942	390
Tankovy Company (Guards)  p.9	10	T-34 obr 1942	390
Weapons Companies
Anti-aircraft Platoon (Guards)  p.11	3	ZSU M17 MGMC (quad .50 cal)	120
Support Companies
Medium Assault Gun Company (Guards)  p.21	4	SU-100	345
Medium Assault Gun Company (Guards)  p.21	4	SU-100	345
Spetsnaz Platoon  Fearless  Veteran   p.27	1 1 2 1	Cmd Panzerfaust SMG team Captured Sd Kfz 250 half-track SMG team Captured Sd Kfz 251 half-track	110
Company Points:			1750

www.EasyArmy.com

Source document: Desperate Measures book

Well there you go, my list for the Art of War and the journey there. As I post this I have only got one game in with them, but I hope to get 3 more in before the event, while not as many as I would like I'm pretty experienced with Soviets now as hopefully it shouldn't be to hard for me to work out how to use it. All else fails with the list I'll just have time for more beers!

Thanks for reading and until next time

Ben