FOW D-Day British Airborne

Since the beginning of FOW’s Version 4 I’ve been patient. Taking the opportunity through the midwar releases to buy, build and paint an entire British armored company, and a motor and infantry company. An entire cornucopia of Churchills, Grants, and tin hatted tommies have graced my painting table all gussied up in the Tobruk Finest camo schemes.

What I have been waiting for, however, is the Airborne. Because I have three full companies already painted in their signature smock. And its’ been a long wait.

Let’s see what the new D-Day British book gives us, shall we?

Up until now, in FOW V4, we’ve had Death from Above and All American releases, that allowed for the Americans, Germans, and even Italians to field their airborne forces. Even with the new British book finally in queue, Col. Frost and his intrepid 1st airborne boys have been permitted to drop into Tunisia or Sicily quite yet…we’ll have to wait for Market Garden and the Bulge to see them hit the table.

What we have here is the D-Day crew from the 6th airborne. Accomplishing their daunting objectives quite effectively, their history and after-action story is recounted here quite well by the authors, and a new player gets a good look at their operational theater.

The Special Forces the British bring to the fight include the commandos (which I will leave to the others to discuss, and possibly elaborate on in a podcast) and two flavors of Airborne troops.

You have most of the standard options you would expect in these force diagrams, including a new arrival, and a personal favorite of mine, the 75mm pack howitzer

With the Paras, you’re a bit more limited in terms of integrated support. Three platoons of infantry is the max here, and its only one 6pdr platoon and one 17pdr platoon per customer. The Artillery comes with two batteries of howitzers, and a 3in mortar platoon to dig out pesky infantry platoons.

Without support from tanks or a second formation, this list will struggle against armor. Gone are the days of Gammon Bombs being integrated into the list like back in V3. It’s likely we get that as an option with the command cards.

The command clocks in at a standard 2-pts, but they only pack SMGs and don’t offer an option to bulk up the command squad with PIATs which was fun in the earlier iteration of these guys back in V3.

Ten points will buy you a full fearless platoon of 6th airborne paratroopers. Seven Rifle/MG teams, and a PIAT, with an option to buy another PIAT team, which I would likely always do.

Let’s compare that to the other infantry options we have.

Commandos clocking in at 13 points for nine teams, a regular Rifle Platoon of nine teams for 9-pts, or a desert rats platoon of nine teams for 8-pts. With that small a difference, I don’t see a real reason not to take these guys.

The Airlanding have slightly more options, but an identical price and slight difference in platoon composition, adding in a mortar team but losing a Rifle/MG stand worth of firepower.

The biggest benefit in force organization is an additional infantry platoon and an additional 6pdr platoon as an option.  If you’re trying to run these lists with no second formation, or with only minimal armored support, these give you some more options and a harder company break.

It remains to be seen how tough these guys are to break. I can say that in over 40 games I played with LW V3 British paratroopers and V4 rules, I never had my company break. Not once. I lost games, or suffered draws, but never had a loss due to the Company breaking.  These dudes were tough.

The support guns can be nasty with a fearless rally as well. at 3 points per gun for the 6pdrs, and an upgraded AT 11, these can give Panzer IVs and StuGs a headache.

With solid anti-tank options at a premium in the British army, a 17pdr at 4pts each and an AT of 14 is a pretty welcome option for any aspiring British Infantry commander.

The artillery of the pack 75mm guns is a bit pricey for what they do, but it’s a nice template weapon, and I have all the models, which I think are pretty neat.

I think the change to Gammon Bombs is a bummer for me, but it makes historical and gameplay sense.  My old tactics of literally hunting tanks with infantry isn’t really how things used to happen. Most paratroopers would only engage tanks as a last resort and preferred to fall back behind guns or wait for tanks of their own.  Improvisation being a key paratrooper tactic though, having a card to play to give yourself a round of merrily bombing a tank is a needed addition though.

Artillery Away!

The Mortars are usually an auto-include for me, as I like having the template, and they are pretty cheap at 8 points for 4.

The Pack Howitzers are a little pricey (3 points each) as mentioned earlier, but an AT of 6 with a 3+ FP means a lot of dead small vehicles and halftracks in the German arsenal.

Gone are the weird Polsten AA guns (one of only 2 British blisters from Battlefront I don’t already own), and sadly, my favorite tank, the Tetrarch. You know you’ve got something special when you have an armored vehicle small enough that my Ford Focus could tow it. To be fair, I expect that will show up with the command cards, and I can’t recall ever seeing the recce company fielded.

The Biggest controversy in all this is likely to be their skill ratings, so lets get into their stats in the game.

They are still hit as veterans (careful on a 4+) and are as fearless as we would expect (3+ rally and motivation tests), but thanks to the V4 practice of splitting up unit skills and ratings into smaller components, they are only trained for purposes of making skill tests.

My first instinct was to get irritated about this “THESE ARE PARATROOPERS! RESPECT THE RED BERET”, but on closer examination, I realize 2 things.

1. Historically, while these guys were super highly motivated and very well trained, the 6th airborne had not seen combat until it’s maiden mission “Operation Tonga”. which occurred…you guessed it, June 5th, 1944.
2. I’m actually enjoying getting a discount on elite troops. These British troopers are cheaper than their American equivalents, and still, pack a hell of a punch.

What are you really losing? you have to pass a 4+ motivation to blitz and dig in. That’s it. They still hit like veterans, and are hard to shoot at.  Which are the ratings that matter much more than the skill rating? If that saves me some points, I’m all for it.

My Sample list for these boys would be as follows:

Airlanding

• HQ 2 SMG teams
• Full Airlanding Platoon w 1 additional PIAT
• Full Airlanding Platoon
• Full Airlanding Platoon
• Full Airlanding Platoon
• 2 x 3″ mortars
• 4x 75mm Pack Howitzer
• 4x 75mm Pack Howitzer
• 4x 6pdr
• 4x 17pdr

100 pts, 10 platoons.

More artillery than you can shake a stick at, plenty of punch against tanks. And if I drop the mortars and add in more PIATs, it’s even better in a fight in a closed-in area against armor.

Happy Gaming, and let me know what you think of these guys when you give them a whirl