This is a mid war paratrooper list based on the Afrika intelligence handbook.

HQ 105 points

• command +mortar team + 3 bazooka teams

Parachute Rifle Platoon 255 points

• 2 rifle squads + mortar + bazooka

Parachute Machinegun Platoon 150 points

• 1 section + bazooka

Parachute Mortar Platoon  75 points

• 1 section

The idea of this force is simple.  Hit tanks with bazookas, use smoke from your mortars to cover your assault, and use your machine guns to give covering fire or to munch up infantry when defending. Sure you don’t have a lot of long range anti tank, but this is a paratrooper force that can deploy their entire force via the air. Starting close to the enemy shouldn’t be too much of a problem. When attacking dug in opponents,the 60mm mortars in the command and rifle platoons give you some nice firepower to dig out machinegun nests and the like.

Every force in Flames of War has static anti tank guns available to it. They possess an enormous amount of anti tank firepower but are fixed in place unless you tow it with a vehicle, wasting a lot of time. Some are able to rotate to face any direction but many, once set up are limited to firing at arc in front of them. Highly effective yet vulnerable to flanking, it is essential to know how to use these properly so they don’t become a waste of points.

This type of weapon is used to deny areas of the battlefield to heavy tanks. In a good strategy you want to dictate how your enemy moves throughout the battlefield. The guns do not necessarily need to have a field of view on the enemy from turn one. In fact this is a great way to have them blasted into little bits by artillery. Flames of War is an objective based game, so using these guns to catch your opponent in a vulnerable position like when they are approaching an objective is key.

They need to be protected from aircraft and light vehicles too. while excellent at stopping heavy tanks, they are going to be terrible at halting an infantry assault or attack from the sky. How you achieve that is up to you but it needs to be done in order to prevent them from being destroyed prematurely.

Position is everything for these weapons. Deny areas of the battle field from your opponent and force the enemy to move how you want them to, to engage on your terms. This is the best way these sorts of weapons are used. They’re not for every mission or every play style, but when used properly they can be a force to be reckoned with.

A static gun may be moved by a vehicle using a tow hook or horses etc, but repositioning your guns takes time to do  and they wont be firing when this happens. The difference with light/heavy guns is that the crew is able to push the gun around without needing support.

The Italians are the only infantry that can move instead of shooting. This ability is called Avanti and can be used to assault an enemy position or move towards an objective faster. While their support weaponry is average, the randomness of their skill levels makes the italian infantry a lot of fun to play. Take out any machine guns with your own infantry support weapons as you charge, you can risk it all and hope all your forces make it, knowing full well that those that don’t will miss out on all the fun. This keeps your opponent out of assualt range too as they know that the italians are capible of hitting their infantry first.

T-34 (mid/late war)

The backbone of a soviet tank platoon. The T-34 is fast, not particularly well armoured but also very cheap. Great for flanking the enemy or engaging infantry, these fast tanks are best used in numbers. Like all soviet forces taking losses is just a part of winning, you just need more tanks than the enemy can kill!

If you are playing mid war you may opt for the up armoured version. it loses its fast tank ability but gains an additional point of armour on the front and sides around. Against very highly armoured tanks the faster version is sometimes the better choice as even with the stronger main gun you will still need side armour shots to destory them.

T-34/57 (mid war)

If you need some extra firepower to take out heavier armour the t-34/57 can give you that extra punch. It is still a fast tank which makes it useful for flanking.

T-34/85 (late war)

This is the late war replacement of the T-34/57. It has better anti tank firepower and slightly better front armour, but it loses its fast tank ability. Given that in the late war you start seeing some very heavily armed and armoured tanks, this is a good trade off.

The Sherman has a hull mounted , turret mounted and  50 cal-AA machine guns. The 50 cal is particularly useful for destroying armoured personnel carriers as it has an antitank value of 4. Using it though puts the crew at risk as the hatch is open, destroying the tank outright if the crew rolls a 1 for a save.

The only difference between the 75 and 76mm guns is point cost and anti tank value. If you need the extra anti tank then taking the 76mm guns can be a life saver, but if you don’t expect a lot of heavy armour then your points are better spent elsewhere in your army. Only by knowing your opponent will you be able to make this call effectively.

When taking Soviet infantry it is always a good idea to take the maximum size of company available. The reason behind this is twofold. Since during the early to mid war they have a skill rating of conscript, they will get shot very easily. If there aren’t sufficient bodies to soak up the damage they tend to get scared and run away. Remember that if your company drops below half strength this forces a morale check. With only 2 platoons in an infantry company and the conscript level of training, wiping out a platoon isn’t terribly hard to do. Increasing the number of platoons in a company to  3 means that the enemy must destroy 2 of them before a company morale check is forced.

The second reason to take full companies is to put enough fire on the enemy to cause some damage. When fighting against highly trained troops the Soviets will need a large volume of fire to take down the enemy. A veteran unit that is concealed and gone to the ground is only hit on a 6 while the equivalent Soviet is hit on a 4. The soviets need to keep up their volume of fire to inflict damage or they will find they are dying and running away much faster than they can kill the enemy.

Soviets are strong when they have the numbers but their effectiveness quickly drops off as they take losses. They need to act while they still have critical mass, for everything else is stacked against them.

It is worth noting that the Soviets become trained in the late war. This opens up a lot of flexibity since their troops become a lot harder to hit.

Panzer IV

The panzer IV is the newer model of panzer available to the German forces. Its main gun has an anti-tank value of 11 making it well suited to punching holes in your enemy’s heavy armour. Since it only gets to shoot twice its best used to engage heavy armour. Leave the infantry and light tank fighting up to the older panzer models, they are better suited to it. Since this tank is very expensive you want to avoid taking losses at all costs. There is an excellent strategy article available talking about the panzer and how it fits into an army.

Panzer III M

The Panzer III M has a higher rate of fire than the Panzer IV and one less firepower. Even with the firepower reduction on average it performs better vs infantry in bulletproof cover and lightly armoured vehicles than the Panzer 4. Depending on your opponent taking some of these guys may be well worth it.

Panzer III H

This model has one less shot than the panzer 3 M but one more firepower and all of its other stats are the same. Unless you really need to save the 5 points, the panzer III M is a better all around tank. This panzer, on average, is worse at killing troops in bulletproof cover despite the better firepower value.

Conclusion

The Panzer IV is your all out heavy tank killer while the panzer III M is better able to handle light tanks and infantry. When devising a strategy make sure you’re using the right tool for the job, Panzer IV’s are wasted points going up against lightly armoured vehicles and infantry just as the Panzer III M will have many of its shots bounce off heavy armour.

With so many guns available the brits are able to fire them in two different ways. The Stonk gives a double wide artillery template with no to hit rerolls, while a murder fires all guns at the same location granting the re-roll to hit. Both of these are useful depending on what sort of position the enemy is in. If they’ve dug into cover firing a murder is the way to go, but if you have just successfully grounded an enemy force in a weak defensive postion then the double wide stonk can be more effective.

The Stonk is also useful for hitting multiple platoons if they happen to bunch up. Your opponent will never make the mistake twice of placing their infantry close together after having two platoons grounded by a well placed stonk.

Should you be fortunate enough to be able to use “all guns repeat” after using a stonk on your target you have the option of calling “mike target” which brings the entire regiments guns down on the same location. This forces your opponent to re roll any missed saves, very powerful against dug in troops. This threat can cause a dug in opponent to abandon his line or face death by shell.

British artillery is fearsome and is the backbone of many successful British army lists.