Stripes: Team Yankee Allied Formations – Should You or Shouldn’t You?

 

A lot of people were excited when Stripes came out and finally allowed a NATO ally to fight alongside the U.S. force.  BF quickly came out with modifications to all the force diagrams so everyone could have an Allied Formation even on the Soviet side.

I saw quite a few people on the BF forum misinterpret this change.  Many people harkened back to FoW v3 which allowed you to take a Churchill Flamethrower Platoon as part of a U.S. Infantry Company, for example.  That is not what this new change allows.  If you want another country to fight alongside you, you need to take an entire formation.  So, no you can’t simply add a platoon of rock-hard Leo2’s to beef up your force.  You would have to take a minimum sized company of five Leo2’s coming out to a whopping 55 points.

No one typically has room for that, even in a 100 point force.  More importantly, the Allied Formation does not count for morale purposes.  In the above example, your opponent could ignore the Leo2’s and just focus on breaking your base formation to win the game.  This is why putting too many points in your Allied Formation is dangerous.

So does that mean you should not take an Allied Formation?  The answer, like so much of life, is “it depends”.  Obviously, you don’t want more than a minor part of your point total to be in your Allied Formation, but it certainly can fill a key vulnerability in a force.

Let’s say you have a West German Armored Force with Leo2’s, but aren’t happy that the West German Marder Platoon is a measly five teams strong and is highly assaultable since their infantry AT weapon (Panzerfaust 44) is only AT 15?  If you are jealous that the U.S. now has arguably the best infantry in the game in Marine Infantry, then why not include them in your force?

The minimum sized Marine Rifle Company starts at only 6 points and then adding on the essential 2 Dragons and 2 SMAWs means a 10 stand platoon with two AT 18 and two AT 17 weapons for only 10 points.  Take two of these platoons and the Company HQ would only be 21 points!  That’s a small slice of a 100 point force and would be very viable since it allows you to still have 79 points in your main force and not make it too vulnerable to breaking.

Another way to look at how you organize your force with an Allied Formation is that since they don’t count for your force’s morale, then look at them as expendable.  So if you are Soviet, take a separate formation of East German T-55s or Soviet Afghansty Formation to add to your conventional Russian Formation.  Then play them suicidally!  If they die they die, but hopefully, take a lot of the enemy with them or at least disrupt their plans.

T55s storm the objective. Photo by Hyato Tukakosi

A formation of 21 T-55s would be 33 points and are bound to do something great if you charge them forward at dash speed for two turns and then are in the enemy’s rear are where they can get flank shots or destroy support vehicles.  Still leaves you 67 points for a main force.  My suggestion on that is to spend those points on a boatload of missile-armed vehicles who can engage at long range while the “expendables” charge forward.

British Infantry – photo by Troy Hill

For some forces, even putting a lot into your NATO Allied Formation can be a good solution. Take the British for example. They have rock hard infantry, but tanks that can be vulnerable to Soviet AT missiles. What about taking a base infantry force (9 points for an infantry platoon with two Milans and three Carl Gustavs) and adding on a formation of the new U.S. IPM1s?  Sure, it will be 45 points to take a formation of five of them, but they will be FA19.

They can take fire from either AT 22 cannons at distance or AT 21 missiles and only be penetrated on a roll of 1.  Worried about getting bailed on a roll of 2?  Why you remount on 2+. I thought I was so clever with this strategy in a game against Mitch and lost an IPM-1 to a double bail; which just proves no strategy is perfect.  And even if you lose all 45 points of IPM1s, the chance that your British Mech Formation is pretty slim so you should be safe there.

One final note to clarify, taking Marines with your U.S. Army force is not the same as an Allied Formation.  Taking both together is a great idea and both count for morale purposes.