Berlin Book Preview - Soviet Lists

Hello All

On Sunday I took a look at the German lists in Berlin, today it's the turn of the Soviets. The Soviet section starts with the history of the Soviet operations in the Berlin area before moving onto the army lists. Also tomorrow we have a new podcast with an interview with the writer of the book Wayne Turner.

There are three army lists in the book, a Hero Guards Heavy Tank Regiment (IS-2 1943 or 44's), Hero Heavy Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment (ISU-122's and 152's) and Hero Rifle Regiment.

All the Hero special rules return, they pass all skill tests as veterans, their warriors are harder to kill and no Hen and Chicks. But there are some new special rules thrown in. Smoke Pots are available to Assault Groups as well as Engineer-Sappers (what this means is, if one team passes a skill test the whole platoon counts as being within smoke when they assault). Building Destroyer is for the new 203mm heavy howitzer, which means in addition to the normal bunker buster rules all rooms adjacent to the hit room and above and below it are also hit!

But the big new special rule is Bed Spring Armour, this is an upgrade to most armoured units and gives them the same rules as Schurzen. The IS-2 just became an assault monster!

The Hero Guards Heavy Regiment and the Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment are very similar lists so I will cover them together, they are all Fearless Trained.

The Tank Regiment has the option of an HQ IS-2 1943 or 44 and 2 or 3 companies or 2 to 3 IS-2's again either 1943 or 1944 versions. You can then add Bed Spring Armour to any or all IS-2's. They then have the options for SMG Tank Escorts and AA .50cals as normal.

The Artillery Regiment then has the option for an HQ IS-2 1943 or 44 and 2 to 3 companies of 2 to 3 ISU-122's or 152's. They can't have Bed Spring Armour (makes sense as they aren't really an assault vehicle), but do get the options for SMG tank escorts and AA .50cals.

The support is then the same for both lists bar the first option, the Tank Regiment gets the Assault Guns as support and the Assault Guns get the Tank Regiment as support.

The next slot is Armour or recon with Hero Tankovy (T-34's, T-34/85's, M4 Shermans and M4 76mm Shermans), the T-34's can have Bed Spring Armour. Flame tanks (3 or 4 OT-34's or OT-34/85's) or Hero Strelkovy Scouts (basically Spetsnaz with out the decoy rules or transports).

Next up is the Tank-Destruction Company option which is Fearless Veteran (yes Veteran that is not a misprint!) 4 Zis-2 or 3, 45mm's and 100mm BS-3.

Moving on, there are three infantry slots, slot one is Hero Strelkovy, Hero SMG Battalion or Hero Shturmovye Group (I will cover these in the Hero Strelkovy section).

Slot two has Hero Sappers and Hero Inzhenerno-Saperniy Company. The Hero Sappers are 7 to 10 Confident or Fearless Trained Rifle Pioneer teams, some can be upgraded to SMG's. The Inzhenerno-Saperniy are a true monster, 5 to 13 Fearless Veterans (yes thats right Veteran Soviet infantry!), they have the Body Armour rule, the smoke pots rule and are Pioneer SMG teams. Like their Red Bear cousins they can swap out teams before the game starts, either two MG's, AT Rifles, HMG's, Mortars or Panzerfaust SMG's. (I think we may see these as a digital list of their own very soon).

The last slot for the infantry gives you a flame-thrower platoon which has to be attached out as normal.

Next up is three artillery slots. The first one has a Hero Artillery Battlalion with the options for Fearless or Confident Trained, otherwise it's the same as the God of War artillery regiment.

The second and third options are both mortars, Heavy and the new 160mm Mortar. You can get either 4 or 6 heavy mortars or (and this might be my new best friend.. sorry Adam) the 2 to 8 160mm mortars. The 160mm is a Heavy gun but is AT 4 and FP 2+ Mortar and doesn't cost that much more than the Heavy Mortar,

The last Artillery option in this slot is the Reserve Artillery. There are 5 options but the new 203, obr 1931 is the highlight. Immobile but it's bombardment is AT 5 FP 1+ and the direct fire is range 24"/60cm ROF 1 AT 14 FP 1+ Bunker Buster and has the Building Destoyer rule. But be warned, they are not cheap!

The last Artillery slot is Rockets with the BM-13-16 and BM-31-12 Katyushas.

The list rounds out with Mobile and static AA and Shturmoviks.

Right, now onto the Hero Strelkovy and the first new special rule, the Red Banner. This is an upgrade to a Stelkovy Infantry Company (so if I'm reading this right your IS-2 or ISU Battalions can also have this upgrade), you replace the command team with a medium base with a banner on it and 3 guards, this represents the troops getting the banner to the top of the Reichstag. The benefits (and disadvantages are as follows):-

To Victory - A force with a Red Banner Auto Attacks

Za Rodinu! - The platoon with the banner always has Quantity of Quality regardless of the number of teams in the platoon. The platoon also gains Mission Tactics.

The World is Watching - If the Red Banner Command team within 4" of an objective in your opponents deployment area or in No Man's Land the game does not end if your opponent takes an objective.

This years GT tournament objectives will be great for the banner team.

If you win the game and your Red Banner Command Team is within 4" of an objective place in your opponents deployment area or in No Man's Land you gain one VP from your opponent. However if you lose the game you lose a VP to your opponent. A Player can never score higher than 7 VP's or lower than 0 VPs.

Also the platoon with the banner passes all Motivation test as if it was Fearless.

On to the list. You have the option of either Fearless Trained or Confident Trained, the HQ now have the option to upgrade from Rifle teams to SMG teams.

The Hero Strelkovy Battalion is 9 to 13 teams which start as Rifle/MG, a platoon (four teams) can be upgraded to SMG teams and one team in every platoon (so 2 or 3 teams depending on the size of the Battalion) can have a Panzerfaust SMG.

The other choice for the Combat Platoons is the Hero Shturmovye Group, this gets a boast to FT if your list is CT or FV if your list is FT. Like the Strelkovy you get 9 to 13 teams, but 6 to 9 of them are Storm teams, these can be swapped around before the game to be either SMG, SMG Pioneer, Panzerfaust SMG, MG, AT Rifle, HMG, Mortar, 45mm gun, 76mm gun or Heavy gun teams, but you can't have more than 4 or any team type. The Shturmovye Group also gets Smoke Pots.

The Wepons Platoons are either Heavy Mortars, Hero Stelkovy Scouts, Flame-Throwers or a Hero SMG platoon, which I have covered in the armoured lists.

The support gets 2 armoured slots, both slots are basically the same except one can also have a Flame tank platoon. The other options include Tankovy, Guard Heavy Tanks and Heavy Artillery Regiment (again as above) but there are two new options only for the Stelkovy. The first is an Assault Gun unit with can be either SU-100's or SU-76M's, the other option is an Assault Tank platoon with a mix of T-34/85's and ISU-152. The T-34's can have Bed Spring Armour and all the tanks can have tank Escorts.

The rest of the options I have spoken about above, this includes the Tank Destruction Company, Hero Sappers, Hero Inzhenero-Saperniy, Hero Artillery, Hero Reserve Artillery, 160mm Mortars, Rocket Battalion, mobile and static AA and Air Support.

Phew thats a lot of units :-)

I'm not sure about how good the two armoured lists are but I think they may end up being better than the Hero Tankovy from Desperate Measures. The Infantry list I think may be quite good if you can work out how to use the Hero lists. I have seen quite a few people have a lot of luck with Hero Motorstrelkovy and I see no reason this list would be any worst.

Well I hope you have enjoyed the two list previews, until next time

Ben