A Force Throughout The Ages

A Force Throughout The Ages: Finns For Early, Mid, & Late-war. with Andrew Haught After moving down to the Southern Hemisphere, I found myself missing all the Flames Of War armies that I had to leave behind in the United States. Though I’m still sorting out moving my things down to New Zealand, I brought some Soviets armies down with me but I do miss my other lists. Soviets are not my favorites but they were easier to transport since as I don’t have any large Soviet infantry hordes instead relying on heavy tanks with mechanised infantry in support. I am an infantry player at heart and I miss my large blocks of Romanian infantry, my British artillery, my American half-tracks and so much more. Since it will take a long time for my stuff to arrive down here I figured that I would start a new project.

So as a project over the holiday season, I picked up some Finnish troops… okay I bought quite a few Finnish troops. My goal was to make a list that I could use in Early, Mid, and Late-war by swapping a few things out here and there. I also wanted an army that had a range of miniatures that appealed to me and was small enough for me to get a good chunk of it completed right away. The Finnish winter army fit that bill; with its many interesting lists to choose from and such a fascinating history.

So my goal is to paint up three armies right away and then build up options from there. I decided on the Early-war winter troops to be the core of all three of my armies.  So far I have painted up my Early-war list; I am working on my Late and Mid-war tanks now. I will post my painting progress in my blog Whispers from the Last War (http://wftlw.blogspot.co.nz/2014/01/the-winter-war-has-begun-anew.html). For my lists I chose to model the Jääkärikomppania, a light infantry force.  So let’s start at the beginning with my Early-war list.

1500 point Jääkärikomppania For Early-war (Fearless Veteran) Jääkärikomppania HQ   with one Company Command Rifle team & one 2iC Command Rifle team. 35 points Combat Companies   Jääkäri Platoon   with Command Close-defence Rifle team & three Jääkäri Squads. 135 points Jääkäri Platoon   with Command Close-defence Rifle team & three Jääkäri Squads. 135 points Jääkäri Platoon   with Command Close-defence Rifle team & three Jääkäri Squads. 135 points Weapons Platoons   Jääkäri Mortar Platoon   with Command Rifle team, Observer Rifle team & three Tampella M/35 81mm mortars. 105 points Jääkäri Tank-Hunter Platoon   with Command Close-defence Rifle team, two Anti-tank sections with Close-defence Rilfe teams. 120 points Divisional Support Platoons   Sissi Platoon   with Command Rifle team with three Sissi Squads & three Close-defence Rifle teams. 255 points Panssari Christie Platoon   with three BT-5 tanks, two BT-7 tanks & SMG Tank Escorts 305 points Artillery Battery   with Command Rifle team, Staff team, Observer Rifle team & two Gun Sections. 275 points Total Points: 1500 points

This list is my favourite Early-war list to date; good anti-tank with the tanks and the light artillery in direct fire. I mix that in with a good amount of Close-defense Rifle teams and the list is pretty set for tanks. At eight platoons the company will be hard to break due to being Fearless Veteran. I think the worst match-up would be a tank horde. British or Soviet tanks could really take advantage of my Trained tanks and the lack of ranged anti-tank so in that kind of game I will have to be extra careful when deploying. The Sissi platoon will constantly apply pressure in games where both armies have objectives since they could spring up near the objectives at anytime.  In games without objectives, they pose a threat to the attacking players Artillery platoons and there flanks. They just add another threat that the opponent has to think about. Now for Mid-war.

1500 point Jääkärikomppania For Mid-war (Fearless Veteran) Jääkärikomppania HQ   with one Company Command Rifle team, one 2iC Command Rifle team & two Close-defence Rifle teams. 95 points Combat Companies   Jääkäri Platoon   with Kaptenni Lauri Törni & four Jääkäri Squads. 220 points Jääkäri Platoon   with Command Close-defence Rifle team & three Jääkäri Squads. 145 points Weapons Platoons   Jääkäri Mortar Platoon   with Command Rifle team & three Mortar sections. 95 points Divisional Support Platoons   KV-1 Panssari Platoon   with two KV-1e tanks. 425 points Anti-tank Platoon   with Command Rifle team, two Anti-tank sections & three Close-defence Rifle teams. 245 points Artillery Battery   with Command Rifle team, Staff team, Observer Rifle team & two Gun Sections with trucks. 275 points Total Points: 1500 points

The Mid-war list gets a bit trickier but it still amounts to about the same thing with two strong rifle platoons forming the backbone of the army. The hero Kapteeni Lauri Törni is a great hero and I plan to attach the Company Command’s Close-defence rifle team to his platoon to maximise his ability to re-roll skill tests in the large-sized platoon. The Anti-tank platoon is interesting; I was not able at this point level to add all four of the Close-defence Rifle teams. Even with three Close-defence rifle teams in the platoon becomes a six stand platoon. Now for my Late-war incarnation of the light infantry company.

1500 point Jääkärikomppania For Late-war (Fearless Veteran) Jääkärikomppania HQ   with one Company Command SMG team, one 2iC Command SMG team & two Close-defence Rifle teams. 90 points Combat Companies   Jääkäri Platoon   with Kaptenni Lauri Törni & four Jääkäri Squads. 240 points Jääkäri Platoon   with Command Close-defence SMG team & three Jääkäri Squads. 140 points Weapons Platoons   Jääkäri Machine-gun Platoon   with Command SMG team & one Machine-gun section. 80 points Jääkäri Mortar Platoon   with Command SMG team & three Mortar sections. 100 points Brigade Support Platoon   Jääkäri Heavy Tank-hunter Platoon   with Command SMG team & two 75 PstK/40 guns. 120 points Captured Panssari Platoon   with one ISU-152 (Fearless Trained) 105 points Divisonal Support Platoons   Heavy Anti-tank Platoon   with Command SMG team & two 75 PstK/40 guns. 120 points Panssari Platoon   with two KV-1. 215 points Heavy Artillery Battery   with Command Rifle team, Staff team & two Gun Sections. 285 points Total Points: 1495 points

Back at eight platoons for Late-war, well after I combat attach the HMGs if I want. The KV-1e tanks will not be as stable in Late-war as they are in Mid-war but they will come in handy to keep off recon platoons and other quick light armoured models from chewing up my troops on the attack. If I am playing a tank force and defending, the KVs go into reserve and will hide out hoping to get side shoots whenever they can. I use the same tricks for the most part as the Mid-war list with the HQ Close-defence Rifle teams and the hero.  The army does rely on its artillery to do a lot of the anti-tank work of the list with some good random assortment of anti-tank. The direct anti-tank in this list is its weakness due to the relatively small size of the anti-tank platoons.  So I am relying on their Fearless rating to keep them in the fight.

So those are the lists I am working towards, and from there I can branch out to tank armies and the other infantry lists. You can get a lot in a Finnish list and it adds a level of flexibility of choices that most Fearless Veteran lists don’t enjoy, at the same time they are limited with small platoons. It is an interesting list to play with and I am quite keen to see how the lists will perform throughout the year.   ~ Andrew.