Competitive Late-War Soviets for Flames of War?

By Richard Steer

A common discussion on various online groups for Flames of War is the unpopularity of Late-War Soviet forces. The Soviet lists do have their weakness, yet players have had success with them here in New Zealand. We have seen tournaments won by Hero Motor Rifle Battalions and Engineer-Sapper Battalions, so there are definitely ways to make them work.

The release of Berlin: Soviet provided me with a good excuse to try them for myself. The challenge I set myself was to build a competitive Soviet force and run it at our club’s 2023 Late-War tournament.

Building a List

As a player who prefers infantry forces, my plan was to buy a starter box and expand it into a Red Banner Rifle Regiment. You might say that this is a cop-out, as Careful Veteran infantry is not your stereotypical Soviet force. However, the smaller, more expensive Red Banner units are an excellent first stepping stone on the path to building a Soviet force.

To build an infantry list in our current Late-War meta, I am looking for two things:

• Lots of anti-tank weaponry, because armored lists are very popular at the moment.
• The ability to cross the table to assault and capture an objective, because I am likely to have to play lots of meeting engagements

Flicking through Berlin: Soviet, the unit that stands out to me for assaulting punch is the IS-2 (Late). The decision to support my Rifle Regiment with IS-2s led me to choose the Heavy Assault Group box (SUAB13) as the starting point for my collection.

This box includes a good range of units, with the key units for my project being four IS-2s and enough infantry to make a medium-sized Red Banner Rifle Company. I was also able to make use of the 76mm guns and the BA-64 armored cars.

I needed one more infantry company in the formation. For this, I chose a Storm Group as this aligns well with my goal of being able to assault and capture objectives. I also added companies of both 82mm and 120mm mortars to support the infantry and bulk out the formation.

For anti-tank weaponry, the guns from the starter box can be built as either 57mm or 76mm anti-tank guns, which was a good start. IS-2s aren’t a great anti-tank option, with the typical Soviet high-AT problem of being ROF 1 and Slow Firing. That left a gap in the list: I needed a mobile unit with good anti-tank capabilities. I felt the best answer to that was going to be either T-34/85s or 76mm Shermans. I went with the Shermans for the sole reason that they were a recent release that I wanted to check out.

At this point, I had settled on the rough outline of my force:

• Red Banner Rifle Regiment HQ
• Red Banner Rifle Company
• Red Banner Storm Group
• 82mm Mortar Company
• 120mm Mortar Company
• Red Banner 76mm Anti-tank Company
• M4 Sherman (76mm) Tank Company
• IS-2 (Late) Guards Heavy Tank Company
• BA-64 Armoured Car Platoon

That came to roughly 100 points, which left some scope for tweaking options to get to the tournament limit of 111 points. For this, I got together with my friend Bede for a couple of practice games to get a feel for how the list played, and to try a few different things out.

Decisions

Panzerfaust or RPG-6?

The Rifle Company and Storm Group have the option of adding either Panzerfausts or RPG-6 anti-tank grenades. In my first practice game, I ran one company with each weapon, and the answer was clear: go with Panzerfausts if you can afford them. The RPG-6 can only be used during an assault and that doesn’t stop tanks from parking nearby and shooting you to pieces. Not only can the Panzerfausts shoot in assaults, they can defensive fire, and they create a 12″ danger zone around your infantry where tanks fear to tread.

Other Infantry Upgrades?

The Storm Group can add a flamethrower and an extra HMG team. This seems like a no-brainer: the flamethrower aligns with the unit’s assault function, and the extra HMG adds long-range firepower that is desperately needed by a unit that is primarily armed with SMGs. The Rifle Company can also add up to two HMGs, which as well as being a bit more firepower, helps bulk out the unit. This isn’t as critical a need as the Storm Group’s, but still nice to have if there are points to spare.

82mm or 120mm Mortars?

Six-gun batteries of mortars are very effective, however, I felt I should only have one large unit keeping the other at three guns. The question was, which one to upgrade? I tried a unit of six 120mm mortars in the first game, and it became obvious that the better option was to have six 82mm mortars and only three 120s. The 120mm mortar is on a large base, taking up a huge amount of space in your deployment area. Yes, the big battery was very powerful, but it was just too clunky.

Anti-tank Guns

I freaked out a bit about the 76mm guns after the first game. They’re only Anti-tank 9 but are on large bases, making them hard to fit into terrain. I stayed with the 76mm guns because their combination of ROF 2 and Firepower 3+ makes them more effective against spammable tanks like the Chaffee than the other options. I did however move them into a Heavy Tank Killer Company as a support choice, which upgraded them from Confident Trained to Fearless Veteran.

Tank Upgrades?

IS-2s can be run as either Aggressive or Careful. I decided to stay with the Aggressive version because of the value of having an extra tank on the table. To further improve their effectiveness in assaults, I added Bedspring Armour (an additional 5+ save against light anti-tank weapons like the Panzerfaust), and Unditching Logs (discard to reroll failed Cross tests until the end of the turn). The combination of these makes the unit much better at assaulting infantry in difficult terrain.

In the same way, given the choice between five regular Shermans and four Hero Shermans, I went with having an extra tank on the table.

The Final List

After two games and much agonizing over how to spend the last few points, here is the list I settled on for the event:

How Did It Go?

I won three games and timed out on two, scoring 27 points and tying for 4th out of 24 players.

• Round 1: 2-1 timeout attacking Battleweary Rifles in Rearguard. I reached the objective but the attack petered out when a 57mm gun killed my last IS-2 with defensive fire.
• Round 2: 6-3 win defending against Veteran Chaffees in Breakthrough. The Americans struggled to kill the Storm Group and IS-2s on the objectives, eventually being broken by a very late 76mm ambush.
• Round 3: 8-1 win defending against Brigade Panthers in Dogfight. In an unexpected turn of events, the IS-2s turned up from Reserve and immediately killed three Panthers.
• Round 4: 8-1 win against Armored Rifles in Encounter. The combination of Bedspring Armor and Unditching Logs on the IS-2s won it for me as they cleared infantry off an objective inside a wood.
• Round 5: 3-3 timeout against Grenadiers in Encounter. A long, brutal game, coming down my last two Panzerfaust teams from the Storm Group trying to assault two Jagdpanthers off the objective, but failing.

What Would I Change?

The list definitely met my goals. Nearly every unit was able to kill tanks. The Storm Group and IS-2s were assault monsters. It was competitive against a range of opponents, in both defensive and offensive situations.

At times, though, it felt like the list still needed a little bit more offensive punch. Squeezing out an extra few points to upgrade the Rifle Company to its maximum size might have helped there, but really what it needed was a fourth unit that could assault, which I just didn’t have the points for. In the end, I think that the most important thing that could have significantly improved my performance in the tournament was more practice.

It’s a valid comment that this was playing Soviets in “easy mode,” being very different from the traditional large Aggressive forces, so it doesn’t help address the question of how to build a “proper” competitive Soviet list. What I did find was that Red Banner infantry is a nice entry point into the world of playing Soviet forces in Flames of War. I was able to build a tough, capable force around them, which didn’t lose games easily in an open tournament. I’m working on expanding my collection and looking forward to trying a different approach at our next Late-War tournament.