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Flames Of War – Bagration: Soviet Infantry Releases
September 18, 2020 by avernos
Battlefront Miniatures has just released four box sets to help the defenders of Mother Russia against the Grey Wolf. To coincide with the release of the Late War Soviet book Flames of War players can now run out the Soviet hordes with three new Company box sets and a platoon-sized box for more tailored list building.
Rifle Company // Flames of War
The Strelkovy (riflemen) form the bulk of the RKKA, the Red Army. Their role is to break through enemy defences for the mechanised troops to exploit and to follow them to hold their gains. The set contains four hard plastic rifle platoon sprues and two of each of the Flamethrower Team and PTRD spun plastic sprues for your command and specialist support weapons.
Engineer-Sapper Company // Flames of War
Engineer-Sappers are the elite arm of the Red Army’s engineer corps. These well-trained engineering assault troops are called on to overcome the most difficult enemy defences. Assault groups are formed based upon the nature of the enemy defences faced by the advancing Soviet army. All of the miniatures are still shown as being in metal, I know Battlefront have started to move to injected spun plastic for some metal components, but I'm not sure what material they will be at time of writing.
SMG Company // Flames of War
The sub-machine gun is already a deadly close assault weapon. Putting it into the hands of Soviet heroes creates some of the most deadly assault troops in the world. These miniatures, twelve sprues in all, are a range of the new Battlefront spun plastics. This allows you to make Penal Companies or Scout platoons in place of the SMG Company which is always good to add to the meat grinder.
Storm Group // Flames of War
The actions of the Storm Group are short, fast and daring. The commander prepares his Storm Group for the mission at hand, tailoring his unit to suit what is needed to defeat the enemy and take the objective. Seven spun plastic sprues make up this Storm Group force, including two maxim machine guns and four mortars to support the PPSH wielding assault force.
The boxes all contain the relevant cards to run the companies in all the various combinations that the lists allow. Obviously these are a fantastic jumping-off point for people wanting to get into the Late War period with the Soviets for the first time, but they also offer good expansions if current Soviet players don't already have enough infantry already 😉 I'm pretty sure I heard Soviet players groan there so my work is done.
Another great offering from Battlefront as the focus shifts from the fields of France to the Eastern Front. I look forward to Lloyd starting them once he gives up on the British. If you fancy picking up a gun and defending Mother Russia you can get them at
Store.Ontabletop.Com
Mother Russia
Mother Russia rain down down down
"Obviously these are a fantastic jumping-off point for people wanting to get into the Late War period with the Soviets for the first time, but they also offer good expansions if current Soviet players"
“I look forward to Lloyd starting them once he gives up on the British.” – lol nice Gerry.
Well I will be showing my Brits on the XLBS! 🙂
awwwh
Going all “rivet counter” here…
The usual “wargamer thing” is to arm all your Guard infantry units with SMGs to max out the dice on your assaults. But actually nearly all the Guard units were actually armed with rifles. The SMG was used by the storm companies (who were usually fresh troops to the front) as it required less training to use (and alas the life expectancy in these storm companies wasn’t great). The Soviet army equipped their troops with rifles in preference, but the SMG were cheaper and easier to use so were issued in great abundance compared to other WW2 armies. So to keep your army “rivet counter proof”, Guards get rifles and green/conscript troops get the SMG. Remember the Russian Rifles weren’t all that bad and the German even copied the Russian SVT-40 rifle for their Gewehr 43 (funny how you almost never see army lists for Russians with ANY troops armed with a semi-automatic rifle 🙁 ).
The Engineer/Sapper company with the body armour is a bit of a fictional history making here from BattleFront. Yes, it did exist, but it was HEAVY (and the troop disliked it, you certainly couldn’t run around in it), Other than propaganda photo’s it doesn’t seemed to have been used in the field (the only photo I’ve seen of them wearing it on the front line was a photo of a MG gunner on a M3 Lend Lease Half Track in the pintle/pulpit crew position). Even for duties like mine clearance (for which the armour was designed for), the troops seemed to have left these back on the truck from all reports. But it looks cool I suppose, and anything that tempts Flames of War/Team Yankee players to field infantry of any type is a good thing.
I always field infantry, I start with an OOB and build my force as close as I can rules permitting, then I sit back and get roflstomped by a swarm of angry tonks!
Thanks for the information on the Soviets, I never ran Soviets or really played eastern front so haven’t looked into them. The detail about the SMG wielders mostly being green is fascinating.
Well it’s pretty true that all “assaults” used ideally trained units that hadn’t seen much combat before (veterans would baulk at the order as we have seen in other conflicts). Look at the divisions assigned for the D-Day initial landings on day one and you’ll see this to be evident (whereas wargamers would probably bung them in with a min-maxed army list). SMGs were easier to train troops to use (spray and pray basically), and this coupled with the soviet high commands willingness to accept massive casualties meant that the storm groups were usually green troops rather than veterans and/or elite units (given enough time for the soviets to prepare). Rifles cost more, and took longer time to train troops to use (ie more than half a day), so these were usually assigned to guard units and then line divisions as supplies became available. Other than the soviet storm groups however the eastern front tactically was pretty much the same as the western front (alas many rules tend to depict the soviets as a “zerg” and give them rules so that they can only play as this one trick pony. This wasn’t true, as the human waves were used from time to time but in no way formed a standard tactic for the Russian army (we need to relook at our assumptions here). One fantastic set of rules was “Grey Storm, Red Steel” by Firebase Games published in the mid 90s. This set probably had the best researched set of rules I’ve seen for the Eastern Front. Alas it went to the great rules graveyard of Brookhurst Hobbies (who seem to buy rules and then do nothing with them). But if you’re into playing Eastern Front games at any scale and happen to see a second hand set available…BUY IT (no questions). Reading this set will give you a great insight to the theatre, and even if you don’t use them you’ll find yourself house ruling elements into the more commonly available sets out there now.
Nice.
I’ve just ordered a Bagration book from OTT. Great to get on with a new army for Flames of War after getting a US Sherman Company and a German Panzer IV Company rienforced with Tigers, and I’m close to completing a German Infantry company with lots of mortars and anti tank.