January 25, 2024 • 37 mins
This week we take a look at some of the lists for the upcoming World Team Championship (WTC). You can download all the lists here: WTC Lists You can hear Bo's thoughts on them here: WTC-24 lists: Denmark 1 and Spain 1
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:08):
Welcome to Tabletop Tommies. I'm Jonny and I'm Phil and in today's episode we're
doing a bit of a WTC preview episode.
So what this episode is, we're going to jump into some of the lists that caught our eye.
What this episode isn't, is it's not going to be a blow-by-blow account of every
single list and how they play.
If you're looking for that content, I'd strongly recommend checking out Bo Mortensen's
(00:29):
YouTube channel or you could even just go to the WTC website itself,
which we'll link in the comments, and you can download all of those army lists
yourself and go through with a fine-tooth comb to see exactly what's in there.
Phil, before we go into any lists, do you want to talk through the restrictions for this year's WTC?
Yep, so in terms of list building, it is 1,000 points. You can take one or two generic platoons.
(00:50):
There is a list of units which are permitted, which are taken from the campaign
books. So anything from armies off is absolutely fine.
And then there's a list of units from campaign books. So not everything from
every campaign book that says can be taken in a generic platoon has been allowed,
but there's a really good spread across all the different various nations and
in terms of the the composition of lists in terms
of the teams so it's a four team four person
(01:12):
team event however you submit five lists and
then obviously one of those lists doesn't get played from from game one onwards
but at this stage all the lists are in they've all been submitted every every
team that's that's entered has submitted their five lists and then come the
weekend itself in a couple of weekends time will be when when those four lists
that get played will be revealed indeed yeah the The other thing to note,
(01:33):
though, is that you can't duplicate nations across the five.
So, for example, you couldn't put in two Soviet lists and three other nations.
So there can be no duplication across the five.
They've split Australia separate to Britain, for example, but Canada counts
as a British platoon. So there you go.
Fantastic. So having said all that, as you say, Phil, one of these lists for
(01:56):
each nation won't get played.
So it may be that we talk about a list that isn't going to come up.
But before we dive into the specific lists...
I'll give everyone a broad strokes overview of the types of nations people are bringing.
So we've got the countries coming to WTC. We've got Denmark bringing two teams,
England bringing three, France, Italy, Spain are bringing four teams plus a
(02:17):
referee team who I think are there to fill gaps.
Sweden are bringing two teams. The United States are coming with three teams.
It's a long way to travel with three teams.
And we've got Wales with one team. so
all in all there we've got 18 teams across
eight nations with four players each
so we're looking at 72 players in
(02:39):
total but obviously you've got 90 lists
here so that's a lot of list checking so looking at the types
of looking at the nations the countries are bringing every country apart from
so every team apart from the swedish first team are bringing a british list
which tells me that the Brits are clearly a force that the competitive players
(03:00):
are thinking is a very competitive force at the minute.
Tied with that, you've also got the Soviets, who are included in every team's
choice apart from Spain 4.
After that, you're then looking at the US.
About three quarters of the teams are bringing a US list, 14 out of the 18. Yeah.
And then we've got a bit of a drop-off, and Japan, only two-thirds of the teams
(03:21):
are bringing a Japanese list, which I think is probably under-repped.
After Japan, you've then got Germany, which is to be expected,
because I think everybody has a German army.
And then we've got Tufco, which just came out. I'm not at all surprised to see,
now that you've got Germany with some flavoursome units, I'm not surprised people
are including that, even if it's just their fifth list that they're not going to play.
(03:43):
But then the interesting one is that the
italians are tied so we've got
nine teams bringing germans and nine teams bringing
italians is that a bit of a surprise to you as well phil
yeah i think i was expecting to maybe see a few
more japanese lists and maybe not as many us lists
and then i wasn't expecting to see an equal
(04:03):
number of germany and italian lists i was
expecting to see slightly more german lists although they are difficult to to
build in a competitive way and we're going to highlight at least one one german
list in a minute which is a very interesting build um it's not your kind of
typical sort of german german list you see i'm not surprised to see italy appearing.
(04:24):
More than maybe previously because tough cut has given them a massive boost
and when you look at the way that the italian lists have been built they've
been submitted it's very much leaning into are not just tough gut units but
also the national special rule that tough gut adds,
mainly with regards to the the extra at tweaking this
that's happened there that's exactly what i was thinking they've got a lot
(04:46):
of ways to sneak in a light autocannon a strength two it's getting that boost
from the improvised at rule exactly and i think yeah i think that's probably
why we're seeing them i do think the germans the german and italian lists tend
to be the ones that i think I think are the fifth list.
They're the ones that we're probably not going to see. So I reckon in reality,
(05:07):
we'll probably see about six of each would be my expectation.
So that's the main players, basically. After that, the other nations that are being represented.
Are in alphabetical order. These have two teams bringing this nation.
So we've got China, France, and Romania.
(05:27):
There are three players bringing Poland, and I think there's only one cavalry,
Polish. Yeah, predominantly cavalry, yep.
Yep. And then your sort of quirky nations
that you're only seeing one of are we've got australia
we've got hungary and we've
got partisans so they've each got
(05:47):
one team bringing one list of them so
it is a bit of a spread but most of
the lists are across four nations basically you've
got britain japan soviets and
usa and they account for
60 of the 90 lists those four
nations what's interesting and we didn't break
(06:09):
down the world open war lists in in you know in this way in terms of the number
of nations the number of teams bring in different nations however you you did
see a lot of british and soviet lists obviously and it's a three three person
event rather than a four person event but it wasn't british soviets and then predominantly us.
Whereas here and here it's british soviets
(06:31):
and then us slightly behind and then it falls away
way to japan and germany at world open war
you saw a lot of japanese lists you saw a decent amount of
german lists and then you also had you know the more random ones
you know like romania and so on
so i think that's that's interesting we're not if you
took if you took the wtc spread and then
(06:51):
applied it to world open war world open war would have
been british soviets and us yeah i
think the us are possibly as
well what i was saying about the italians and the germans i think some of
these nations that u.s list might well be
the fifth list that they're not going to play because the u.s
are they're not a top tier army because they're just
(07:13):
good at everything but they're not amazing at any one specific
thing i would say and so they're a great
one to throw in as your fifth list in case because everyone could build a u.s
list that's fairly competent can't they it will also be interesting to see actually
and we wouldn't know this because unless we we actually went around and asked
all of the captains how many teams wrote a fifth list with no intention of playing it,
(07:36):
but actually when it came to the event itself, went, do you know what?
And then had a bit of a change of mind. Because I do know from talking to some
people that the fifth list may not actually be that dummy list they've thrown in.
It may actually be a genuine contender for one of the four lists that does actually appear.
Because all the players in the team are happy to mix and match match prior to
(07:58):
the event and then nail down their colors ready for that first game.
Absolutely yeah i think if i wasn't flying and so i had to pack the army for a flight,
if i was just driving to the tournament i certainly would bring the fifth list
as well because it doesn't hurt to have it if you suddenly have a last minute change of heart,
especially because you get it's like getting
(08:18):
to see behind the curtain before you commit because you you throw
in your five lists you have a little look behind the curtain and
then decide actually this one is going to get stomped
but i mean it is what i expected in
summary it's exactly what i expected what we've seen
at competitive tournaments for quite some time down bolt action
so shall we jump in and look at a few of the
(08:39):
more interesting lists so obviously we
talked about things we were expecting is there anything in the list that
you weren't expecting to see so i'm going
to start with the french team
and the french nation i actually
thought we might see more french lists being submitted
than we did may we may we be answer but i am gonna highlight the french list
(09:03):
submitted by the french team what i will say is that these are not necessarily
lists that we think are absolutely amazing top draw we're not scoring them we're not ranking them.
Other other people on social media and the
internet will do that absolutely fantastically well so the
french list is 22 dice that's a
(09:23):
lot of dice that's a lot of dice and what i
like about it is you've got six of
the early war lmg bikes in the armored
cast locks obviously you can take three for one but this is a man after
my own heart over here yeah we've got a
couple of engineers so spread across two platoons we've got
a couple of foreign legions so you get your stubborn squads yeah great for
objective holding and that sort of thing the nation or the
(09:46):
the team is obviously obviously taking advantage of the
free howitzer also the free artillery rule but they're
not taking houses so they're taking an anti-tank gun
so what they've got away yeah so in
their first platoon they've got a veteran light auto cannon
yeah they've got a free medium anti-tank
gun rather than a free medium howitzer yeah and
(10:09):
then you've got a light anti-tank gun which they're paying for in
their second list wow to get to 22 dice
they have got two mule teams and a horse strong limber yeah i
was going to say because 22 dice is about 45 points a
unit on average and so when you're saying these like the foreign
legion squad and the engineers i'm thinking what are the take and that's worth
nothing than to offset that yeah but there you go and and then yeah they haven't
(10:32):
got this they're not using the tank slot you know they're using the armored
car slot with the lmgs they've got the the citric agrees half track and no ft in there to.
The ft 17 because that's a 35 point tank so
that's a nice way to fill a dice yeah so now i just
thought it was a really interesting list and the fact that they've got the
six annoying little kind of like flies buzzing around
(10:54):
sticking out a pin which is the lmg bikes i thought
was really interesting nice well that's interesting i do
like that the french have brought
a french list yeah and the italians have wrote an italian list
italians brought an italian list absolutely yeah the brits have
brought a british british list yep the americans oh
one of the americans teams didn't bring an american list which i think
is poor form and i
(11:17):
don't think the welsh brought a welsh list either no so we'll
have to have words about that so that was our
first one the french what was the next list you want to highlight so
we're going to jump to sweden one we said
earlier on they didn't take a british list which is really interesting in
itself yeah fascinating but that's not the reason i'm highlighting them the
reason i am going to highlight them is they've they've got a partisan list nice
(11:38):
yeah so this is 17 order dice bang
on a thousand points dual platoon so they've got two multi-launchers so
they're using the reno ue in the tank slots of the
captured vehicles platoon one you've got you
know nine nine man regular partisan squad with a panzerfaust which is fairly
standard you've got two 20 man marquee or mackie squads with pistols inexperienced
(12:00):
80 points 20 people with pistols which is huge and then you've got things like
like you've got your medium water sniper.
They've got a bazooka team in there, which you can do for the partisans.
You can take the bazooka for them.
And then you drop to the second list, and then you've got your two compulsory units.
There are two five-man Mackie squads. So we've gone from 20 down to five.
(12:22):
So it's really interesting.
You've got these two massive blobs in terms of the 20-man squads.
You've got a little nine-man regular partisan squad with a Panzerfaust,
and then you've got to make the list legal and to have enough unit choices between two.
You've got two little five man squads I just thought it was worth noting that
somebody brought a partisan list it's a little bit different a little bit interesting
yeah it's nice to see them I actually think partisans are a really nice.
(12:46):
Sort of minor force you can add loads of flavor to it
by especially with the captured vehicle rules obviously
here they're using it there's a bit of a competitive streak but i really like
how when you're playing more thematically you can basically capture the vehicle
that was most predominantly there i think it's really nice and there's quite
a lot going on there and i think the other thing as well is the partisans are
(13:08):
good when they're catching people off guard because,
they're not a common one you face you've got those bombs people
drop so you drop your bombs at the beginning if you're
not regularly playing against it it can be a
bit of a deterrent a bit like the british observer where he plunks
it you've got to kind of decide am i going to commit to it
am i going to try and avoid it but then what's the implications that it's actually
(13:29):
it could be a good one for catching people out speaking of catching people out
so we're going to look at fantastic segues thank you we're going to look at
the german list from spain one yep and And what's so special about the Spanish-German list?
It's very different.
(13:50):
Different to what you tend to see with German, or certainly what I've seen with
sort of competitive Germanists, is people quite often lean into the Pioneers and the field cars.
They start to see Cavalry more and more. The 259 makes an appearance and so on.
There are elements of that. So there's a lot of autocannons in this list.
(14:11):
So it is a thousand points on the nose it's 14
order dice dual platoon so platoon one
you've got your your regular left hand on his own and then the four squads in
in platoon one i'm not going to pronounce the german because i will butcher
it you've got a 15 man unarmed inexperienced convict squad for 45 points yeah
(14:33):
yeah you've got a five man regular guard force.
Who were there, obviously, to buff the convicts. You've got a five-man Brandenburger
squad, five SMGs, three Panzerfausts for 120 points.
They're really expensive, the Brandenburgers. Compared to the other squads, they are.
And then you've got another 13-man unarmed, inexperienced convict squad for 39 points.
(14:55):
So of those four, you've basically got 10 models that can do anything at range
across two squads there.
You then start looking at the support options. you've got your inexperienced
medium water which is fine your 37 millimeter flak 36 so that's the heavy autocannon
yes it's fixed but it's an absolute beast of a of an artillery piece,
(15:18):
you've got your 259 as your armored car which is
your fantastic little armored car wrecky option your daca
panzer panzer 3 and then you move into the
second platoon you've got your creek marine officer
so this was one of the units that got added from the campaign book
so inexperienced officer 35 points to make
it legal you've got to take a creek marine squad so the list here's got a five-man
(15:41):
inexperienced rifle creek marine squad with a panzerfaust then you've got straff
battalion they're regular but they're shirkers one smg one panzerfaust and then
the only other thing in the second platoon is a kugelblitz.
At 205 points. Pricey, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you start breaking down this list. So you've got some really
(16:03):
strong autocannon choices there.
You've got your 37mm Flak 36.
You've got your 259. You've got your Kugelblitz. And then you've got your Dacapanzer III.
And then when you start looking at the actual infantry to go with it,
it's blobs of unarmed men, or it's the Strafbataillon regular shirkers.
The brandenburg is obviously to you know
(16:24):
to affect people's reserve roles and outflanking roles and
so on and then your your guard force to
basically buff the the unarmed convicts i mean
it's interesting i i think it's just it's
a little bit of this little bit of that i i wouldn't like
to play it it's the kind of thing that i might take to sort of a thematic
tournament okay at a competitive tournament once you
(16:46):
take away the two tanks yeah you've got nothing
that can really delete a squad in three
turns really no and obviously i guess
the player here is very much banking on the
flak 36 the 259 the panzer 3
and the kugelblitz doing the work and then
the others the other blobs of infantry effectively are there
(17:08):
to hold hold ground suck up casualties become
come roadblocks i think i know
who this list is and i played that person at wow
and they had a similar list but wow was
1100 points single platoon but they had a similar list in terms of the sort
of spread across the auto cannons for example interesting you know unarmed squads
(17:31):
that sort of thing and it played very differently and it's something that i
had never played before or, you know, against a Germanist,
or this is not how I would build a Germanist.
So in that sense, if you're talking about sort of being caught off guard.
This is one of those lists where you look at it and go, unless you,
like, really experienced or build these lists yourself, you look at it and go, wow.
(17:53):
I don't see how that's going to work. But having played who I think it is at
WoW, it does work, or it certainly did.
WoW, the guy did very well at WoW, and the team did very well at WoW.
I think it's a funny one because only 14 dice, but then loads of inexperienced.
It's a bit of a juxtaposition of those two ideas.
(18:13):
And I think it will be interesting, one to watch, I guess, because I'm not sure on it yet.
No, and we've talked about Soviets before,
and and i've said a few times that i i can't build
a decent soviet list because i can't get
my head around the massive amount of inexperienced squads
and and you know how they work but clearly that
(18:35):
people can and clearly people do very well you know with with
inexperienced squads and similarly i look at this and go
it's just a little bit like oh i'm
not really sure where to go with this one but it works it'd be
interesting to see how how this particular list does and how the
team does as well what else is on the agenda phil what else have you
seen that what else has caught your eye phil okay so we're gonna look
at england one and we're gonna look at the
(18:57):
chinese list are you ready why this one phil
firstly it's only one of two chinese lists so yeah fair play for bringing it
a really interesting list for me it's dual platoon 15 dice bang on thousand
points again what you've got here in terms of the squad so the the platoon one
you've got two eight man and veteran guerrilla cells with pistols,
(19:18):
these guys forward deploy.
So unless obviously the mission says otherwise, these people are going to be
forward deploying. So we're,
That in itself is pretty in your face. You get your free levy squad,
which is similar to the Soviet free squad.
There's a flamethrower there, which is going to sit in a Jeep.
You've got your medium howitzer. The BA-10 in the armoured car slot.
I don't tend to see these being taken by Soviet players.
(19:41):
Occasionally do see them taken by Finns. But as an option in the Chinese list,
it gives you that turret mounted light AT gun, coaxial LMG, forward facing LMG with recce.
In the tank slot, they've taken a Panzer I. So you've kind of almost flipped
the tank and the armoured car around.
So your tank is effectively your dual MMG, and your armoured car is what's doing
(20:03):
the heavy lifting, as it were.
And then the second platoon, another two eight-man guerrilla cells,
another medium howitzer, another BA-10.
And then to bulk up the numbers, there's a couple of mule teams floating around as well.
It'll be an interesting one to play with all the forward deployers.
I think this one will be very mission-dependent.
I think if those forward deployers are going to be a big factor, this will be a big list.
(20:24):
Yeah if if forward deployance not allowed or if
it's just kind of irrelevant because your opponent hasn't brought
forward deployers and doesn't really care if you come closer
to them because they're planning to shoot you anyway then it might not be as
powerful so i think this one's a little bit of a this one could go either way
for me i do like the double medium howitzer so i think that's a classic combo
(20:46):
yeah no one two punch and there's a lot of duplication in this list in terms
of you you've got two houses,
you've got the two BA-10s, you've got the four guerrilla squads.
So there's that element of, okay, well, if one of them gets knocked out,
it's okay because I've got the second one to back it up. Yeah,
or even just pinned down.
Because with the armoured cars and stuff, what I find is often you'll take a
couple of pins, now that armoured car's pointless, you can wreck it away and
(21:09):
the other one can sweep in to put pins out.
So, yeah, it is the way that I like to build this, actually, now you mention it.
I have to say, though, not a lot of flamethrowers and the ones we've highlighted
and sort of scanning through the list without doing serious data analysis, it feels like,
There's a lot of lists for sort of like two engineer squads.
(21:29):
That seems quite common.
But there's not a lot of lists that have really lent into Flames.
It feels like it's the day of the DACA at the minute. Yeah, it's the day of the autocannons.
It's not so much the DACA, it's the day of the autocannons. There's a huge amount
of autocannons flying around. We mentioned it's Sally and Liss earlier.
And that's to be expected because realistically, you're probably going to be
(21:52):
going up against Arma 8 vehicles, Arma 7 vehicles.
There aren't many Arma 9 vehicles there. So a light autocannon with a plus-two
pen at normal range, that's going to impact potentially against those Stuarts
and all that sort of stuff.
But this is where we could swing
all the way around because basically the Dakar came in, Dakar Stuarts,
the Panzers, they're so prolific now that everyone's turning to the light autocannon
(22:19):
as the counter to it because it's the most affordable counter to it basically.
I do wonder if it's time to start countering the light autocannons yet with
heavier tanks or just no tanks.
And then that would be really interesting to then see the next wave.
I don't know, though. It does feel like we're in a bit of a stalemate,
a bit of a trench warfare situation where we're waiting for the next big breakthrough
(22:43):
and maybe we need a new version for that to happen.
Yeah, yeah. Who's going to make the first move and is it going to be successful? Yeah.
And it's interesting what you said about the flamethrowers. I think from memory,
there's only one list that has four flamethrowers in it.
So what you might call an out-and-out barbecue list.
There's a few with three flamethrowers. There's a really nice British list, actually.
It's got two ppa jeeps which i thought fair play for for bringing
(23:06):
that but yeah you you're not looking at a ton
of lists with four or five flame throwers in yeah it's because
you've got so many stubborn gherkas flying around isn't
it like yeah you got your gherkas in the japanese with their asbestos pants
yeah yeah and this is where actually having one flame list in your army is not
too sorry in your in your five lists yeah having one isn't the end of the world
(23:30):
because it it means you can sort of swerve the stuff that's flame-proof.
But the problem is, even then, it means you're having to take a duck every time
to just duck those lists.
And so this is probably why we're not seeing them at the minute. Cool.
So the final list we're going to talk about is USA Team 2, and it's their British list. Oh, interesting.
So many British lists, and we've left it to last.
(23:51):
I presume this one isn't just para-Gurkhas with two Stuarts,
if it's one that you're highlighting, sir.
So this one has no gherkas and
it is to my knowledge the only british list that hasn't
got a single gherka unit in it nice generally speaking that
the british lists have gherkas even regular or paras they've
got some stewarts there's a couple with um crusaders they
(24:12):
allowed land mattresses for the british so you are seeing quite
a lot of land mattresses and british lists yeah that was a
bit controversial from my perspective because it i've said
it before but i guess i'll say it again it's it's the only thing the brits don't
have and so i don't think we needed to give it to them but once you've released
the pack everyone knows it's available yeah game on yeah there are quite a few
(24:33):
brent brent brent engineers there's not it's not like every list has got brent
engineers but the reason for highlighting this one is there are no gherkas.
So it's 18 dice dual platoon vengeance is
the national characteristic my favorite up
an atom is pretty much what you're seeing in all the other lists because because of
the gherkas so instead of gherkas what you've got are
maori squads so using the rules
(24:55):
from jewel in the sun so they're taking regular infantry
sections using the jewel in the sun rules they
are then paying the extra one point per man to give them the
maori special rule so across the two
platoons you've got four seven man maori rifle sections all with an smg on the
nco and then you've basically just got duplication so you've got two land mattresses
(25:19):
six of the lmg bikes yeah man after my own heart once again two chaffies,
in the tank slots so and the chaffee's good because it's a medium anti-tank
gun with a two inch he template so as well as being a threat to to vehicles
because it's medium anti-tank gun that two inch template does actually do a
bit of work if you need to against infantry.
(25:40):
And then you've got your free observer and then for your bonus four
points you've got a mule to bring it up to 18 dice
i do love the chaffee because i love
it's recce i love a recce tank because anywhere where
you can nip around the corner shoot stuff and then retreat back
i think the reason we don't see very often is because it's
more expensive than a stewart and it gets far
(26:02):
less shots and so it's a
shame because i actually think it's a really cool looking tank
as well it looks like what you see after world
war ii as well yeah it's very of that aesthetic so i do
really like it for that reason and so fair enough
140 for a recce stewart or 160 for a
recce chaffee most players are going to go with the lighter anti-tank
(26:24):
gun but two points i guess if you
find yourself at an event where they're limiting or banning daca
stewarts it's a really it's a really good shout all the
crusader if they're banning the stewart and the
panzer three chaffee pumas it's their
day basically the thing that is interesting
about this one because i love the recce bikes
(26:45):
one thing i noticed is two of them have lmgs purple
tune and one has an smg which is really
interesting i'm not a fan of that because the range just is not.
Enough no i expect it partly it's it's
to drop the points down to then put the mule in to give you an
extra dice yeah well i mean even take the mule
out you haven't got the 10 points to pay for the lmg what i
(27:06):
would have done personally is i would have dropped two men
and had six lmg bikes because
six putting out six pins of 36 inches per
turn is pretty tasty yeah then
i i yeah that's you're then looking at six-man
regular squads though yeah but equally the the seven
mans are a little bit tight as well this is one of the things that i'm
(27:27):
noticing actually there's a lot of the players are playing very
aggressive action very sort of like kill
points meet engagement those types of missions a lot of the lists are looking
quite light on the ground when it comes to objectives and things holding yeah
and i mean the missions have been published there are quite a lot of objective
missions in there yeah there are also there are also kill points involved in
(27:48):
some of those objective-based missions.
Yeah, that is a big thing. I think a lot of them in those missions,
they're going to just be playing meet and engagement and ignoring objectives, basically.
One of my thoughts throughout looking at all of the lists were you often hear
that Bolt Action is an infantry-based game.
But when you actually look at these lists, there's a huge amount of vehicles
in terms of the proportion of vehicles to infantry.
(28:11):
And then there are some lists. I think Denmark 1's Soviet list has only got
three infantry squads, one of which is the three 12-man squad.
And then it's got two five-man engineer squads.
And there are other lists. There's another list. I can't remember which nation
and which country it was, but they've got four five-man squads.
And I think they were inexperienced as well. so you're
(28:33):
putting so much emphasis on the ability to to
delete dice with your
vehicles with your he flamethrowers whatever
that your infantry are just there to kind
of sit on an objective to go down in cover and pop
their heads up when they need to turn five turn six if you've
got a rush on so it'll be really interesting how the
(28:54):
lists play out over the weekend yeah i'm really
i am looking forward to seeing all these quirky ones the i
think there's a lot of lists that i know exactly how they're going to play yeah
and it's not going to be that noteworthy i mean it's going to come down basically to
the player and the mission the opponent
that they've got and sort of the look of the
dice because sometimes it's a rock meet in a hard place and it's just whoever
(29:15):
gets that big six first basically what i
would like to before we i had an honorable mention do
you want to do your so there's i did fancy just running through the
missions just very briefly but you do your honorable mention first
yeah cool okay so it didn't
make the cut for the top top five lists to talk about but my honorable
mention goes to usa's threes japanese list nice it's 24 dice i think it's the
(29:41):
highest dice count and in all of the lists 105 bamboo spear guys i'm really excited to see if it's.
One of their genuine lists yeah or if it's
just their fifth list because that's a lot
of men to buy paint yeah and then
(30:01):
even transport yeah and then bring it since they're traveling
yeah so yeah excited to find out and it is the
it's the the bogeyman list isn't it
the one that everyone for years and
years and years like probably even since first edition people
have been talking about this list or the bamboo spear hold watch out for
the bamboo spear hold yeah and it's so rarely encountered so
(30:22):
yeah i hope they do bring it because it's a
lot of fun yeah this is a full-on plantation this is
not a little cop's bamboo this is a proper plantation of
bamboo coming across the board at you yeah the deforestation brigade
exactly so now we've
covered the armies i would quite like to quickly look at the missions because
they have pre-published what missions will be playing yep just to
(30:42):
sort of get your thoughts on it mission one meet and
engagement i think we'll both agree threw it in it's not
it's not the best mission of the world it's not the worst mission in the world it's a
good tournament mission basically is my opinion yep mission two key positions
a lot of people's favourite mission mine included yeah not my favourite but
I think like meet and engagement I think everyone knows what's going on there
(31:02):
it's a very balanced mission I think we're in I mean you can't stack the dice
but it's high risk high reward strategy.
But yeah key positions you cannot complain absolutely,
mission three is where it starts to get a little bit interesting
and i've tried this one and i i have to say i
quite enjoyed it it's so it's called penetrate and strike it's
basically double envelopment but you can't leave the
(31:25):
table isn't it yes that's right yeah yeah yeah so you're getting a point.
For a unit killed you're getting points for
being in the neutral zone so one point for every unit in the
neutral zone three points for being in your in your opponent's.
Deployment zone if you're across two zones it's
wherever the majority of the models are so if.
Like more than half your tanks in the enemy deployment zone you can't.
(31:45):
Spin in the enemy deployment zone it's a really interesting
one the thing that's made it really interesting is because we're not rushing in
rushing off the table outflanks back in play
but forward deploying is off the table
and so it's interesting having that dynamic where
no forward deployment no forward deployment but outflanks in
play and we're trying to get across the table but equally
don't rush too fast because you're going to lose all your dice yeah there
(32:09):
there is that timing if you are going to outflank when you
try and bring them in because they need to be still there at the
end of turn six or turn seven if it goes that far yeah yeah
and it's interesting actually because you could just play it as meeting engagement
if you'd like and just everyone moves into the neutral zone
and the no man's land the middle and you just see who has
the most dice left at the end basically heartbreak which is one
of bolt action alliance missions i think it's a
(32:31):
great mission i'm not sure it's my favorite tournament mission though because i
don't like having to have that objective in the middle I don't know what's your
thoughts on it yeah it's I mean I like objective missions
and you are right that because it has to sit in
the middle it does become a bit of a fight over the middle
objective but kill points matter so it is possible to you
know to win the game and not hold the central objective if you've
(32:52):
if you've taken enough units and you've contested or denied that central objective
so yeah and I think this is why a lot of people are just going to be playing
the kill points because an objective mission with kill points we've had a movement
mission that's actually kill points as well and an objective mission sectors
is mission five yeah classic i don't think we need to say too much i think it's
very much in the vein of meeting engagement key positions.
(33:12):
It's a solid mission that very few people complain about
um i don't think it's changed in any way either is it it's just the standard
as it comes mission yeah i think so yeah yeah and then we've got timely as mission
six which isn't one of my favorites to be honest i think it's a really fun mission
i don't think if you're doing full competitive tournament it's a great mission
for the exact same reason I just criticised Heartbreak, basically.
(33:33):
You're basically forcing the players...
To fight in specific locations and that's not what i really like because you're
taking away a lot of the agency which means you're very much limiting the types
of strategies that do work i mean what are your thoughts on timely i do like
it because there is yes you have to deploy the objectives,
along the halfway point but you don't have to
(33:54):
put them bang in the center of the table that you have agency
with regards to where you put them along the other thing to note
as well is with timely there is no forward deploying and
you do see sometimes at events that when you play timely
they allow forward deploying which is really frustrating if you've
got that chinese list we talked about earlier for england
for example if you were playing against that and you were allowing forward
(34:15):
deploying in timely objectives that's four eight-man veteran
tough fighter squads that are forward deploying so good
to see that forward deploying is not allowed and i believe the
original mission when it was first written by the snafu
guys didn't allow forward deploying somewhere somewhere
down the line it's crept into packs and and that's why
you see it nowadays yeah and the original did have very
(34:36):
specific places the objectives were right the other
thing that has shifted here is in the original to stop it just being a small
team snatch you had to have at least three men to take an objective okay and
i believe that's been removed here which again is probably why we're not seeing
as many infantry squads okay because your small teams can hold it in this one, I believe.
(34:58):
It is worth pointing out as well, there's only one mission of the six,
which has prep bombardment.
Which is really good to see. And we've talked before about choosing your missions
across events so that you don't have, you know, on a three-game,
one-day event, you don't want to see two missions with prep bombardment.
And likewise, over two days, you start seeing three missions of prep bombardment.
And that's tough going if you're playing British lists a lot.
(35:20):
So it's good to see there's only one here with prep bombardment.
What is interesting is in the original Timely, there was prep bombardment, I believe.
And so because the idea is you stop because you
can deploy within 12 inches as those objectives right and
so by putting those pins on in the it forces
players to make the decision do i risk that order test
(35:40):
on a six okay then i might get the victory
point if it passes but if i fail it i've lost potentially
two victory points yeah next turn as well and that
was a really nice decision so as much as
i don't like facing brits with two with two
dice on prep bombardment it does make
a big difference to the timely there and for
(36:03):
example actually the big thing that it makes the biggest difference it
makes is in timely objectives with prep you really have to make a hard call
on whether you put troops and transports because if you do it's a huge advantage
if they survive the prep because you can just rush forward get in front of the
objective which really stops your opponent getting on it.
(36:24):
When the prep's in play, that's a tough call up to whether you're going to risk
that because you could potentially lose three infantry squads and three vehicles,
especially if you're facing Brits.
And so I'm not sure how I feel about that just yet. I suppose ask me after the tournament.
Well, if you are going to WTC, I look forward to seeing you there.
(36:46):
Hopefully you don't beat me too badly. If you're interested in looking at all
of the lists, If you head over to the IGE page, we'll put a link in the description,
you can download all of the current lists.
As I said, there are plenty of other people running through them in a lot more
detail than we have, so go check them out. As ever, thank you for listening.
Please do like, share, subscribe.
Ta-ta for now. Ta-ta for now.
(37:06):
Music.
Music.
(00:08):
Welcome to Tabletop Tommies. I'm Jonny and I'm Phil and in today's episode we're
doing a bit of a WTC preview episode.
So what this episode is, we're going to jump into some of the lists that caught our eye.
What this episode isn't, is it's not going to be a blow-by-blow account of every
single list and how they play.
If you're looking for that content, I'd strongly recommend checking out Bo Mortensen's
(00:29):
YouTube channel or you could even just go to the WTC website itself,
which we'll link in the comments, and you can download all of those army lists
yourself and go through with a fine-tooth comb to see exactly what's in there.
Phil, before we go into any lists, do you want to talk through the restrictions for this year's WTC?
Yep, so in terms of list building, it is 1,000 points. You can take one or two generic platoons.
(00:50):
There is a list of units which are permitted, which are taken from the campaign
books. So anything from armies off is absolutely fine.
And then there's a list of units from campaign books. So not everything from
every campaign book that says can be taken in a generic platoon has been allowed,
but there's a really good spread across all the different various nations and
in terms of the the composition of lists in terms
of the teams so it's a four team four person
(01:12):
team event however you submit five lists and
then obviously one of those lists doesn't get played from from game one onwards
but at this stage all the lists are in they've all been submitted every every
team that's that's entered has submitted their five lists and then come the
weekend itself in a couple of weekends time will be when when those four lists
that get played will be revealed indeed yeah the The other thing to note,
(01:33):
though, is that you can't duplicate nations across the five.
So, for example, you couldn't put in two Soviet lists and three other nations.
So there can be no duplication across the five.
They've split Australia separate to Britain, for example, but Canada counts
as a British platoon. So there you go.
Fantastic. So having said all that, as you say, Phil, one of these lists for
(01:56):
each nation won't get played.
So it may be that we talk about a list that isn't going to come up.
But before we dive into the specific lists...
I'll give everyone a broad strokes overview of the types of nations people are bringing.
So we've got the countries coming to WTC. We've got Denmark bringing two teams,
England bringing three, France, Italy, Spain are bringing four teams plus a
(02:17):
referee team who I think are there to fill gaps.
Sweden are bringing two teams. The United States are coming with three teams.
It's a long way to travel with three teams.
And we've got Wales with one team. so
all in all there we've got 18 teams across
eight nations with four players each
so we're looking at 72 players in
(02:39):
total but obviously you've got 90 lists
here so that's a lot of list checking so looking at the types
of looking at the nations the countries are bringing every country apart from
so every team apart from the swedish first team are bringing a british list
which tells me that the Brits are clearly a force that the competitive players
(03:00):
are thinking is a very competitive force at the minute.
Tied with that, you've also got the Soviets, who are included in every team's
choice apart from Spain 4.
After that, you're then looking at the US.
About three quarters of the teams are bringing a US list, 14 out of the 18. Yeah.
And then we've got a bit of a drop-off, and Japan, only two-thirds of the teams
(03:21):
are bringing a Japanese list, which I think is probably under-repped.
After Japan, you've then got Germany, which is to be expected,
because I think everybody has a German army.
And then we've got Tufco, which just came out. I'm not at all surprised to see,
now that you've got Germany with some flavoursome units, I'm not surprised people
are including that, even if it's just their fifth list that they're not going to play.
(03:43):
But then the interesting one is that the
italians are tied so we've got
nine teams bringing germans and nine teams bringing
italians is that a bit of a surprise to you as well phil
yeah i think i was expecting to maybe see a few
more japanese lists and maybe not as many us lists
and then i wasn't expecting to see an equal
(04:03):
number of germany and italian lists i was
expecting to see slightly more german lists although they are difficult to to
build in a competitive way and we're going to highlight at least one one german
list in a minute which is a very interesting build um it's not your kind of
typical sort of german german list you see i'm not surprised to see italy appearing.
(04:24):
More than maybe previously because tough cut has given them a massive boost
and when you look at the way that the italian lists have been built they've
been submitted it's very much leaning into are not just tough gut units but
also the national special rule that tough gut adds,
mainly with regards to the the extra at tweaking this
that's happened there that's exactly what i was thinking they've got a lot
(04:46):
of ways to sneak in a light autocannon a strength two it's getting that boost
from the improvised at rule exactly and i think yeah i think that's probably
why we're seeing them i do think the germans the german and italian lists tend
to be the ones that i think I think are the fifth list.
They're the ones that we're probably not going to see. So I reckon in reality,
(05:07):
we'll probably see about six of each would be my expectation.
So that's the main players, basically. After that, the other nations that are being represented.
Are in alphabetical order. These have two teams bringing this nation.
So we've got China, France, and Romania.
(05:27):
There are three players bringing Poland, and I think there's only one cavalry,
Polish. Yeah, predominantly cavalry, yep.
Yep. And then your sort of quirky nations
that you're only seeing one of are we've got australia
we've got hungary and we've
got partisans so they've each got
(05:47):
one team bringing one list of them so
it is a bit of a spread but most of
the lists are across four nations basically you've
got britain japan soviets and
usa and they account for
60 of the 90 lists those four
nations what's interesting and we didn't break
(06:09):
down the world open war lists in in you know in this way in terms of the number
of nations the number of teams bring in different nations however you you did
see a lot of british and soviet lists obviously and it's a three three person
event rather than a four person event but it wasn't british soviets and then predominantly us.
Whereas here and here it's british soviets
(06:31):
and then us slightly behind and then it falls away
way to japan and germany at world open war
you saw a lot of japanese lists you saw a decent amount of
german lists and then you also had you know the more random ones
you know like romania and so on
so i think that's that's interesting we're not if you
took if you took the wtc spread and then
(06:51):
applied it to world open war world open war would have
been british soviets and us yeah i
think the us are possibly as
well what i was saying about the italians and the germans i think some of
these nations that u.s list might well be
the fifth list that they're not going to play because the u.s
are they're not a top tier army because they're just
(07:13):
good at everything but they're not amazing at any one specific
thing i would say and so they're a great
one to throw in as your fifth list in case because everyone could build a u.s
list that's fairly competent can't they it will also be interesting to see actually
and we wouldn't know this because unless we we actually went around and asked
all of the captains how many teams wrote a fifth list with no intention of playing it,
(07:36):
but actually when it came to the event itself, went, do you know what?
And then had a bit of a change of mind. Because I do know from talking to some
people that the fifth list may not actually be that dummy list they've thrown in.
It may actually be a genuine contender for one of the four lists that does actually appear.
Because all the players in the team are happy to mix and match match prior to
(07:58):
the event and then nail down their colors ready for that first game.
Absolutely yeah i think if i wasn't flying and so i had to pack the army for a flight,
if i was just driving to the tournament i certainly would bring the fifth list
as well because it doesn't hurt to have it if you suddenly have a last minute change of heart,
especially because you get it's like getting
(08:18):
to see behind the curtain before you commit because you you throw
in your five lists you have a little look behind the curtain and
then decide actually this one is going to get stomped
but i mean it is what i expected in
summary it's exactly what i expected what we've seen
at competitive tournaments for quite some time down bolt action
so shall we jump in and look at a few of the
(08:39):
more interesting lists so obviously we
talked about things we were expecting is there anything in the list that
you weren't expecting to see so i'm going
to start with the french team
and the french nation i actually
thought we might see more french lists being submitted
than we did may we may we be answer but i am gonna highlight the french list
(09:03):
submitted by the french team what i will say is that these are not necessarily
lists that we think are absolutely amazing top draw we're not scoring them we're not ranking them.
Other other people on social media and the
internet will do that absolutely fantastically well so the
french list is 22 dice that's a
(09:23):
lot of dice that's a lot of dice and what i
like about it is you've got six of
the early war lmg bikes in the armored
cast locks obviously you can take three for one but this is a man after
my own heart over here yeah we've got a
couple of engineers so spread across two platoons we've got
a couple of foreign legions so you get your stubborn squads yeah great for
objective holding and that sort of thing the nation or the
(09:46):
the team is obviously obviously taking advantage of the
free howitzer also the free artillery rule but they're
not taking houses so they're taking an anti-tank gun
so what they've got away yeah so in
their first platoon they've got a veteran light auto cannon
yeah they've got a free medium anti-tank
gun rather than a free medium howitzer yeah and
(10:09):
then you've got a light anti-tank gun which they're paying for in
their second list wow to get to 22 dice
they have got two mule teams and a horse strong limber yeah i
was going to say because 22 dice is about 45 points a
unit on average and so when you're saying these like the foreign
legion squad and the engineers i'm thinking what are the take and that's worth
nothing than to offset that yeah but there you go and and then yeah they haven't
(10:32):
got this they're not using the tank slot you know they're using the armored
car slot with the lmgs they've got the the citric agrees half track and no ft in there to.
The ft 17 because that's a 35 point tank so
that's a nice way to fill a dice yeah so now i just
thought it was a really interesting list and the fact that they've got the
six annoying little kind of like flies buzzing around
(10:54):
sticking out a pin which is the lmg bikes i thought
was really interesting nice well that's interesting i do
like that the french have brought
a french list yeah and the italians have wrote an italian list
italians brought an italian list absolutely yeah the brits have
brought a british british list yep the americans oh
one of the americans teams didn't bring an american list which i think
is poor form and i
(11:17):
don't think the welsh brought a welsh list either no so we'll
have to have words about that so that was our
first one the french what was the next list you want to highlight so
we're going to jump to sweden one we said
earlier on they didn't take a british list which is really interesting in
itself yeah fascinating but that's not the reason i'm highlighting them the
reason i am going to highlight them is they've they've got a partisan list nice
(11:38):
yeah so this is 17 order dice bang
on a thousand points dual platoon so they've got two multi-launchers so
they're using the reno ue in the tank slots of the
captured vehicles platoon one you've got you
know nine nine man regular partisan squad with a panzerfaust which is fairly
standard you've got two 20 man marquee or mackie squads with pistols inexperienced
(12:00):
80 points 20 people with pistols which is huge and then you've got things like
like you've got your medium water sniper.
They've got a bazooka team in there, which you can do for the partisans.
You can take the bazooka for them.
And then you drop to the second list, and then you've got your two compulsory units.
There are two five-man Mackie squads. So we've gone from 20 down to five.
(12:22):
So it's really interesting.
You've got these two massive blobs in terms of the 20-man squads.
You've got a little nine-man regular partisan squad with a Panzerfaust,
and then you've got to make the list legal and to have enough unit choices between two.
You've got two little five man squads I just thought it was worth noting that
somebody brought a partisan list it's a little bit different a little bit interesting
yeah it's nice to see them I actually think partisans are a really nice.
(12:46):
Sort of minor force you can add loads of flavor to it
by especially with the captured vehicle rules obviously
here they're using it there's a bit of a competitive streak but i really like
how when you're playing more thematically you can basically capture the vehicle
that was most predominantly there i think it's really nice and there's quite
a lot going on there and i think the other thing as well is the partisans are
(13:08):
good when they're catching people off guard because,
they're not a common one you face you've got those bombs people
drop so you drop your bombs at the beginning if you're
not regularly playing against it it can be a
bit of a deterrent a bit like the british observer where he plunks
it you've got to kind of decide am i going to commit to it
am i going to try and avoid it but then what's the implications that it's actually
(13:29):
it could be a good one for catching people out speaking of catching people out
so we're going to look at fantastic segues thank you we're going to look at
the german list from spain one yep and And what's so special about the Spanish-German list?
It's very different.
(13:50):
Different to what you tend to see with German, or certainly what I've seen with
sort of competitive Germanists, is people quite often lean into the Pioneers and the field cars.
They start to see Cavalry more and more. The 259 makes an appearance and so on.
There are elements of that. So there's a lot of autocannons in this list.
(14:11):
So it is a thousand points on the nose it's 14
order dice dual platoon so platoon one
you've got your your regular left hand on his own and then the four squads in
in platoon one i'm not going to pronounce the german because i will butcher
it you've got a 15 man unarmed inexperienced convict squad for 45 points yeah
(14:33):
yeah you've got a five man regular guard force.
Who were there, obviously, to buff the convicts. You've got a five-man Brandenburger
squad, five SMGs, three Panzerfausts for 120 points.
They're really expensive, the Brandenburgers. Compared to the other squads, they are.
And then you've got another 13-man unarmed, inexperienced convict squad for 39 points.
(14:55):
So of those four, you've basically got 10 models that can do anything at range
across two squads there.
You then start looking at the support options. you've got your inexperienced
medium water which is fine your 37 millimeter flak 36 so that's the heavy autocannon
yes it's fixed but it's an absolute beast of a of an artillery piece,
(15:18):
you've got your 259 as your armored car which is
your fantastic little armored car wrecky option your daca
panzer panzer 3 and then you move into the
second platoon you've got your creek marine officer
so this was one of the units that got added from the campaign book
so inexperienced officer 35 points to make
it legal you've got to take a creek marine squad so the list here's got a five-man
(15:41):
inexperienced rifle creek marine squad with a panzerfaust then you've got straff
battalion they're regular but they're shirkers one smg one panzerfaust and then
the only other thing in the second platoon is a kugelblitz.
At 205 points. Pricey, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you start breaking down this list. So you've got some really
(16:03):
strong autocannon choices there.
You've got your 37mm Flak 36.
You've got your 259. You've got your Kugelblitz. And then you've got your Dacapanzer III.
And then when you start looking at the actual infantry to go with it,
it's blobs of unarmed men, or it's the Strafbataillon regular shirkers.
The brandenburg is obviously to you know
(16:24):
to affect people's reserve roles and outflanking roles and
so on and then your your guard force to
basically buff the the unarmed convicts i mean
it's interesting i i think it's just it's
a little bit of this little bit of that i i wouldn't like
to play it it's the kind of thing that i might take to sort of a thematic
tournament okay at a competitive tournament once you
(16:46):
take away the two tanks yeah you've got nothing
that can really delete a squad in three
turns really no and obviously i guess
the player here is very much banking on the
flak 36 the 259 the panzer 3
and the kugelblitz doing the work and then
the others the other blobs of infantry effectively are there
(17:08):
to hold hold ground suck up casualties become
come roadblocks i think i know
who this list is and i played that person at wow
and they had a similar list but wow was
1100 points single platoon but they had a similar list in terms of the sort
of spread across the auto cannons for example interesting you know unarmed squads
(17:31):
that sort of thing and it played very differently and it's something that i
had never played before or, you know, against a Germanist,
or this is not how I would build a Germanist.
So in that sense, if you're talking about sort of being caught off guard.
This is one of those lists where you look at it and go, unless you,
like, really experienced or build these lists yourself, you look at it and go, wow.
(17:53):
I don't see how that's going to work. But having played who I think it is at
WoW, it does work, or it certainly did.
WoW, the guy did very well at WoW, and the team did very well at WoW.
I think it's a funny one because only 14 dice, but then loads of inexperienced.
It's a bit of a juxtaposition of those two ideas.
(18:13):
And I think it will be interesting, one to watch, I guess, because I'm not sure on it yet.
No, and we've talked about Soviets before,
and and i've said a few times that i i can't build
a decent soviet list because i can't get
my head around the massive amount of inexperienced squads
and and you know how they work but clearly that
(18:35):
people can and clearly people do very well you know with with
inexperienced squads and similarly i look at this and go
it's just a little bit like oh i'm
not really sure where to go with this one but it works it'd be
interesting to see how how this particular list does and how the
team does as well what else is on the agenda phil what else have you
seen that what else has caught your eye phil okay so we're gonna look
at england one and we're gonna look at the
(18:57):
chinese list are you ready why this one phil
firstly it's only one of two chinese lists so yeah fair play for bringing it
a really interesting list for me it's dual platoon 15 dice bang on thousand
points again what you've got here in terms of the squad so the the platoon one
you've got two eight man and veteran guerrilla cells with pistols,
(19:18):
these guys forward deploy.
So unless obviously the mission says otherwise, these people are going to be
forward deploying. So we're,
That in itself is pretty in your face. You get your free levy squad,
which is similar to the Soviet free squad.
There's a flamethrower there, which is going to sit in a Jeep.
You've got your medium howitzer. The BA-10 in the armoured car slot.
I don't tend to see these being taken by Soviet players.
(19:41):
Occasionally do see them taken by Finns. But as an option in the Chinese list,
it gives you that turret mounted light AT gun, coaxial LMG, forward facing LMG with recce.
In the tank slot, they've taken a Panzer I. So you've kind of almost flipped
the tank and the armoured car around.
So your tank is effectively your dual MMG, and your armoured car is what's doing
(20:03):
the heavy lifting, as it were.
And then the second platoon, another two eight-man guerrilla cells,
another medium howitzer, another BA-10.
And then to bulk up the numbers, there's a couple of mule teams floating around as well.
It'll be an interesting one to play with all the forward deployers.
I think this one will be very mission-dependent.
I think if those forward deployers are going to be a big factor, this will be a big list.
(20:24):
Yeah if if forward deployance not allowed or if
it's just kind of irrelevant because your opponent hasn't brought
forward deployers and doesn't really care if you come closer
to them because they're planning to shoot you anyway then it might not be as
powerful so i think this one's a little bit of a this one could go either way
for me i do like the double medium howitzer so i think that's a classic combo
(20:46):
yeah no one two punch and there's a lot of duplication in this list in terms
of you you've got two houses,
you've got the two BA-10s, you've got the four guerrilla squads.
So there's that element of, okay, well, if one of them gets knocked out,
it's okay because I've got the second one to back it up. Yeah,
or even just pinned down.
Because with the armoured cars and stuff, what I find is often you'll take a
couple of pins, now that armoured car's pointless, you can wreck it away and
(21:09):
the other one can sweep in to put pins out.
So, yeah, it is the way that I like to build this, actually, now you mention it.
I have to say, though, not a lot of flamethrowers and the ones we've highlighted
and sort of scanning through the list without doing serious data analysis, it feels like,
There's a lot of lists for sort of like two engineer squads.
(21:29):
That seems quite common.
But there's not a lot of lists that have really lent into Flames.
It feels like it's the day of the DACA at the minute. Yeah, it's the day of the autocannons.
It's not so much the DACA, it's the day of the autocannons. There's a huge amount
of autocannons flying around. We mentioned it's Sally and Liss earlier.
And that's to be expected because realistically, you're probably going to be
(21:52):
going up against Arma 8 vehicles, Arma 7 vehicles.
There aren't many Arma 9 vehicles there. So a light autocannon with a plus-two
pen at normal range, that's going to impact potentially against those Stuarts
and all that sort of stuff.
But this is where we could swing
all the way around because basically the Dakar came in, Dakar Stuarts,
the Panzers, they're so prolific now that everyone's turning to the light autocannon
(22:19):
as the counter to it because it's the most affordable counter to it basically.
I do wonder if it's time to start countering the light autocannons yet with
heavier tanks or just no tanks.
And then that would be really interesting to then see the next wave.
I don't know, though. It does feel like we're in a bit of a stalemate,
a bit of a trench warfare situation where we're waiting for the next big breakthrough
(22:43):
and maybe we need a new version for that to happen.
Yeah, yeah. Who's going to make the first move and is it going to be successful? Yeah.
And it's interesting what you said about the flamethrowers. I think from memory,
there's only one list that has four flamethrowers in it.
So what you might call an out-and-out barbecue list.
There's a few with three flamethrowers. There's a really nice British list, actually.
It's got two ppa jeeps which i thought fair play for for bringing
(23:06):
that but yeah you you're not looking at a ton
of lists with four or five flame throwers in yeah it's because
you've got so many stubborn gherkas flying around isn't
it like yeah you got your gherkas in the japanese with their asbestos pants
yeah yeah and this is where actually having one flame list in your army is not
too sorry in your in your five lists yeah having one isn't the end of the world
(23:30):
because it it means you can sort of swerve the stuff that's flame-proof.
But the problem is, even then, it means you're having to take a duck every time
to just duck those lists.
And so this is probably why we're not seeing them at the minute. Cool.
So the final list we're going to talk about is USA Team 2, and it's their British list. Oh, interesting.
So many British lists, and we've left it to last.
(23:51):
I presume this one isn't just para-Gurkhas with two Stuarts,
if it's one that you're highlighting, sir.
So this one has no gherkas and
it is to my knowledge the only british list that hasn't
got a single gherka unit in it nice generally speaking that
the british lists have gherkas even regular or paras they've
got some stewarts there's a couple with um crusaders they
(24:12):
allowed land mattresses for the british so you are seeing quite
a lot of land mattresses and british lists yeah that was a
bit controversial from my perspective because it i've said
it before but i guess i'll say it again it's it's the only thing the brits don't
have and so i don't think we needed to give it to them but once you've released
the pack everyone knows it's available yeah game on yeah there are quite a few
(24:33):
brent brent brent engineers there's not it's not like every list has got brent
engineers but the reason for highlighting this one is there are no gherkas.
So it's 18 dice dual platoon vengeance is
the national characteristic my favorite up
an atom is pretty much what you're seeing in all the other lists because because of
the gherkas so instead of gherkas what you've got are
maori squads so using the rules
(24:55):
from jewel in the sun so they're taking regular infantry
sections using the jewel in the sun rules they
are then paying the extra one point per man to give them the
maori special rule so across the two
platoons you've got four seven man maori rifle sections all with an smg on the
nco and then you've basically just got duplication so you've got two land mattresses
(25:19):
six of the lmg bikes yeah man after my own heart once again two chaffies,
in the tank slots so and the chaffee's good because it's a medium anti-tank
gun with a two inch he template so as well as being a threat to to vehicles
because it's medium anti-tank gun that two inch template does actually do a
bit of work if you need to against infantry.
(25:40):
And then you've got your free observer and then for your bonus four
points you've got a mule to bring it up to 18 dice
i do love the chaffee because i love
it's recce i love a recce tank because anywhere where
you can nip around the corner shoot stuff and then retreat back
i think the reason we don't see very often is because it's
more expensive than a stewart and it gets far
(26:02):
less shots and so it's a
shame because i actually think it's a really cool looking tank
as well it looks like what you see after world
war ii as well yeah it's very of that aesthetic so i do
really like it for that reason and so fair enough
140 for a recce stewart or 160 for a
recce chaffee most players are going to go with the lighter anti-tank
(26:24):
gun but two points i guess if you
find yourself at an event where they're limiting or banning daca
stewarts it's a really it's a really good shout all the
crusader if they're banning the stewart and the
panzer three chaffee pumas it's their
day basically the thing that is interesting
about this one because i love the recce bikes
(26:45):
one thing i noticed is two of them have lmgs purple
tune and one has an smg which is really
interesting i'm not a fan of that because the range just is not.
Enough no i expect it partly it's it's
to drop the points down to then put the mule in to give you an
extra dice yeah well i mean even take the mule
out you haven't got the 10 points to pay for the lmg what i
(27:06):
would have done personally is i would have dropped two men
and had six lmg bikes because
six putting out six pins of 36 inches per
turn is pretty tasty yeah then
i i yeah that's you're then looking at six-man
regular squads though yeah but equally the the seven
mans are a little bit tight as well this is one of the things that i'm
(27:27):
noticing actually there's a lot of the players are playing very
aggressive action very sort of like kill
points meet engagement those types of missions a lot of the lists are looking
quite light on the ground when it comes to objectives and things holding yeah
and i mean the missions have been published there are quite a lot of objective
missions in there yeah there are also there are also kill points involved in
(27:48):
some of those objective-based missions.
Yeah, that is a big thing. I think a lot of them in those missions,
they're going to just be playing meet and engagement and ignoring objectives, basically.
One of my thoughts throughout looking at all of the lists were you often hear
that Bolt Action is an infantry-based game.
But when you actually look at these lists, there's a huge amount of vehicles
in terms of the proportion of vehicles to infantry.
(28:11):
And then there are some lists. I think Denmark 1's Soviet list has only got
three infantry squads, one of which is the three 12-man squad.
And then it's got two five-man engineer squads.
And there are other lists. There's another list. I can't remember which nation
and which country it was, but they've got four five-man squads.
And I think they were inexperienced as well. so you're
(28:33):
putting so much emphasis on the ability to to
delete dice with your
vehicles with your he flamethrowers whatever
that your infantry are just there to kind
of sit on an objective to go down in cover and pop
their heads up when they need to turn five turn six if you've
got a rush on so it'll be really interesting how the
(28:54):
lists play out over the weekend yeah i'm really
i am looking forward to seeing all these quirky ones the i
think there's a lot of lists that i know exactly how they're going to play yeah
and it's not going to be that noteworthy i mean it's going to come down basically to
the player and the mission the opponent
that they've got and sort of the look of the
dice because sometimes it's a rock meet in a hard place and it's just whoever
(29:15):
gets that big six first basically what i
would like to before we i had an honorable mention do
you want to do your so there's i did fancy just running through the
missions just very briefly but you do your honorable mention first
yeah cool okay so it didn't
make the cut for the top top five lists to talk about but my honorable
mention goes to usa's threes japanese list nice it's 24 dice i think it's the
(29:41):
highest dice count and in all of the lists 105 bamboo spear guys i'm really excited to see if it's.
One of their genuine lists yeah or if it's
just their fifth list because that's a lot
of men to buy paint yeah and then
(30:01):
even transport yeah and then bring it since they're traveling
yeah so yeah excited to find out and it is the
it's the the bogeyman list isn't it
the one that everyone for years and
years and years like probably even since first edition people
have been talking about this list or the bamboo spear hold watch out for
the bamboo spear hold yeah and it's so rarely encountered so
(30:22):
yeah i hope they do bring it because it's a
lot of fun yeah this is a full-on plantation this is
not a little cop's bamboo this is a proper plantation of
bamboo coming across the board at you yeah the deforestation brigade
exactly so now we've
covered the armies i would quite like to quickly look at the missions because
they have pre-published what missions will be playing yep just to
(30:42):
sort of get your thoughts on it mission one meet and
engagement i think we'll both agree threw it in it's not
it's not the best mission of the world it's not the worst mission in the world it's a
good tournament mission basically is my opinion yep mission two key positions
a lot of people's favourite mission mine included yeah not my favourite but
I think like meet and engagement I think everyone knows what's going on there
(31:02):
it's a very balanced mission I think we're in I mean you can't stack the dice
but it's high risk high reward strategy.
But yeah key positions you cannot complain absolutely,
mission three is where it starts to get a little bit interesting
and i've tried this one and i i have to say i
quite enjoyed it it's so it's called penetrate and strike it's
basically double envelopment but you can't leave the
(31:25):
table isn't it yes that's right yeah yeah yeah so you're getting a point.
For a unit killed you're getting points for
being in the neutral zone so one point for every unit in the
neutral zone three points for being in your in your opponent's.
Deployment zone if you're across two zones it's
wherever the majority of the models are so if.
Like more than half your tanks in the enemy deployment zone you can't.
(31:45):
Spin in the enemy deployment zone it's a really interesting
one the thing that's made it really interesting is because we're not rushing in
rushing off the table outflanks back in play
but forward deploying is off the table
and so it's interesting having that dynamic where
no forward deployment no forward deployment but outflanks in
play and we're trying to get across the table but equally
don't rush too fast because you're going to lose all your dice yeah there
(32:09):
there is that timing if you are going to outflank when you
try and bring them in because they need to be still there at the
end of turn six or turn seven if it goes that far yeah yeah
and it's interesting actually because you could just play it as meeting engagement
if you'd like and just everyone moves into the neutral zone
and the no man's land the middle and you just see who has
the most dice left at the end basically heartbreak which is one
of bolt action alliance missions i think it's a
(32:31):
great mission i'm not sure it's my favorite tournament mission though because i
don't like having to have that objective in the middle I don't know what's your
thoughts on it yeah it's I mean I like objective missions
and you are right that because it has to sit in
the middle it does become a bit of a fight over the middle
objective but kill points matter so it is possible to you
know to win the game and not hold the central objective if you've
(32:52):
if you've taken enough units and you've contested or denied that central objective
so yeah and I think this is why a lot of people are just going to be playing
the kill points because an objective mission with kill points we've had a movement
mission that's actually kill points as well and an objective mission sectors
is mission five yeah classic i don't think we need to say too much i think it's
very much in the vein of meeting engagement key positions.
(33:12):
It's a solid mission that very few people complain about
um i don't think it's changed in any way either is it it's just the standard
as it comes mission yeah i think so yeah yeah and then we've got timely as mission
six which isn't one of my favorites to be honest i think it's a really fun mission
i don't think if you're doing full competitive tournament it's a great mission
for the exact same reason I just criticised Heartbreak, basically.
(33:33):
You're basically forcing the players...
To fight in specific locations and that's not what i really like because you're
taking away a lot of the agency which means you're very much limiting the types
of strategies that do work i mean what are your thoughts on timely i do like
it because there is yes you have to deploy the objectives,
along the halfway point but you don't have to
(33:54):
put them bang in the center of the table that you have agency
with regards to where you put them along the other thing to note
as well is with timely there is no forward deploying and
you do see sometimes at events that when you play timely
they allow forward deploying which is really frustrating if you've
got that chinese list we talked about earlier for england
for example if you were playing against that and you were allowing forward
(34:15):
deploying in timely objectives that's four eight-man veteran
tough fighter squads that are forward deploying so good
to see that forward deploying is not allowed and i believe the
original mission when it was first written by the snafu
guys didn't allow forward deploying somewhere somewhere
down the line it's crept into packs and and that's why
you see it nowadays yeah and the original did have very
(34:36):
specific places the objectives were right the other
thing that has shifted here is in the original to stop it just being a small
team snatch you had to have at least three men to take an objective okay and
i believe that's been removed here which again is probably why we're not seeing
as many infantry squads okay because your small teams can hold it in this one, I believe.
(34:58):
It is worth pointing out as well, there's only one mission of the six,
which has prep bombardment.
Which is really good to see. And we've talked before about choosing your missions
across events so that you don't have, you know, on a three-game,
one-day event, you don't want to see two missions with prep bombardment.
And likewise, over two days, you start seeing three missions of prep bombardment.
And that's tough going if you're playing British lists a lot.
(35:20):
So it's good to see there's only one here with prep bombardment.
What is interesting is in the original Timely, there was prep bombardment, I believe.
And so because the idea is you stop because you
can deploy within 12 inches as those objectives right and
so by putting those pins on in the it forces
players to make the decision do i risk that order test
(35:40):
on a six okay then i might get the victory
point if it passes but if i fail it i've lost potentially
two victory points yeah next turn as well and that
was a really nice decision so as much as
i don't like facing brits with two with two
dice on prep bombardment it does make
a big difference to the timely there and for
(36:03):
example actually the big thing that it makes the biggest difference it
makes is in timely objectives with prep you really have to make a hard call
on whether you put troops and transports because if you do it's a huge advantage
if they survive the prep because you can just rush forward get in front of the
objective which really stops your opponent getting on it.
(36:24):
When the prep's in play, that's a tough call up to whether you're going to risk
that because you could potentially lose three infantry squads and three vehicles,
especially if you're facing Brits.
And so I'm not sure how I feel about that just yet. I suppose ask me after the tournament.
Well, if you are going to WTC, I look forward to seeing you there.
(36:46):
Hopefully you don't beat me too badly. If you're interested in looking at all
of the lists, If you head over to the IGE page, we'll put a link in the description,
you can download all of the current lists.
As I said, there are plenty of other people running through them in a lot more
detail than we have, so go check them out. As ever, thank you for listening.
Please do like, share, subscribe.
Ta-ta for now. Ta-ta for now.
(37:06):
Music.
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