Road To The Late War Grand Tournament with Chris Townley We will have more information on the website in the coming weeks, but in the meantime we can confirm that this years NZ Late War GT will be held over the weekend of 19/20 November at the Mount Eden War Memorial Hall in Auckland. Whilst the Late War Grand Tournament is still half a year away I thought it might be interesting to post my planned list, if for no other reason than to inspire me to push forward with this rather daunting project. Before we get to the list I thought I'd give some background as to how I arrived at this point. Playtesting any new book is a lot of fun and as any regular reader will know there tends to be a flurry of new armies built by the Studio team as we get inspired by whatever new period or theatre is being worked on. Last year when we were playtesting Earth & Steel and Turning Tide we found ourselves with a plethora of great new lists and even found that some of the older ones were getting people excited all over again. I was no exception to this and found myself gravitating towards the new Beutepanzerkompanie.

I'd already picked up some French tanks as I was planning on building an Early-war French Compagnie de Combat loaded with Char Bs and Hotchkiss H-39s - however time was not my friend and the project died with a pile of half assembled tanks. With a new list in my hands though, I had another chance to get these great vehicles on the table. I wanted to field as much of Panzerabteilung 206 as possible (check out page 180 of Earth & Steel for the Order of Battle for Panzerabteilung 206) so I started with four platoons of Panzer 35-S 739(f) (a.k.a the Somua S-35) and Panzer 38-H 735(f) (a.k.a the Hotchkiss H-35/H-39) spread across the two companies. Adding in the Panzer B-2 740(f) (a.k.a. the Char B) and a PaK40 platoon left me with a few points for some extra divisional support. By dropping one of the Hotchkiss tanks I was able to get some Pioneers, Marder I tank hunters and a battery of 155mm artillery. There is a full listing of the force at the bottom of the page. Learn more about Earth & Steel here... See the Beutepanzerkompanie in action in Mike and Wayne's Battle Report here...

Modelling There is a great thread in the Gallery section of the forum by Fingolfen about the conversion work he has been doing to his Beutepanzers. I must admit I have neither the patience nor excellent modelling skills so a chat with Evan resulted in the creation of a sprue with an open and closed version of the German cupolas (I've got some test casts on my models, they will be available soon via our Special Order Catalogue). As you can see from the picture I have the Char B platoon, two Beutepanzer platoons and my Marders assembled. I also have the rest of the Somua tanks assembled, just waiting on cupolas. Check out Fingolfen's thread in the Gallery section of the forum here... Below: A couple of the test cast cupolas created by Evan.

Since I wanted to be able to field Panzerabteilung 206 in its entirety, I knew I needed to get the extra Hotchkiss tanks to form the Company HQ. This would give me the additional advantage of being able to swap around my HQ and have either a Somua and Hotchkiss, or two Hotchkiss tanks if I was scraping around for points. I also needed the two Somua tanks for the Panzerabteilung HQ, although these two tanks were lacking a game purpose until I realised that I could use them as my objectives. The current plan is to have one broken down with some crew trying to get it started again; the other will have the commander talking to a couple of passing infantry. Left: A Company HQ Somua.

The rest of the assembly is currently on hold as I need to finish my Mid-war Grand Tournament force, but I am planning on having everything ready to undercoat in early May. Although this reminds me, I need to stock up on an extra can of German Armour (Mid/Late) as this will seriously cut down on the time required to base coat the army! Learn more about the War Paint range of spray cans here...

The List At this point I have not figured out how I will allocate out the Divisional support – I want to make sure that each company ends up with six platoons making it slightly hard to break either one. The 2iC in one of the companies might need to form a small Kampfgruppe to get me that illusive extra platoon.

Panzerabteilung 206 Points 1. Kompanie   Headquarters   Company HQ 65 points with one Panzer 35-S 739(f)   with one Panzer 38-H 735(f)   Combat Platoons   Beutepanzer Platoon 145 points with one Panzer 35-S 739(f)   with four Panzer 38-H 735(f)   Beutepanzer Platoon 145 points with one Panzer 35-S 739(f)   with four Panzer 38-H 735(f)   Beutepanzer Platoon 145 points with one Panzer 35-S 739(f)   with four Panzer 38-H 735(f)   2. Kompanie   Headquarters   Company HQ 65 points with one Panzer 35-S 739(f)   with one Panzer 38-H 735(f)   Combat Platoons   Beutepanzer Platoon 145 points with one Panzer 35-S 739(f)   with four Panzer 38-H 735(f)   Beutepanzer Platoon 145 points with one Panzer 35-S 739(f)   with four Panzer 38-H 735(f)   Beutepanzer Platoon 120 points with one Panzer 35-S 739(f)   with three Panzer 38-H 735(f)   Divisional Support   Schwere Beutepanzer Platoon 210 points with five Panzer B-2 740(f)   with two upgraded to Flame-tanks   Bodenständig Anti-tank Gun Platoon 120 points with three 7.5cm PaK40   Bodenständig Pionier Platoon 120 points with three Squads   Bodenständig Tank Hunter Platoon 135 points with three Marder I   Bodenständig Heavy Artillery Battery 190 points with four 15.5cm sFH414(f) howitzers   Total Points: 1750 points

Hopefully by the time I am ready to show off the next stage of the army, I'll also have come up with a cunning plan to make it work on the table as my Win - Loss - Draw record with this army is heavily weighted in one of the categories and sadly it’s not the first. ~ Chris.