I'm a huge fan of TV. More importantly, the American Heroes Channel, formerly the Military Channel. They have an abundance of quality shows and movies that outline moments in history, that may otherwise be forgotten. It's a little like the Panzerjäger Tiger 'P' (Ferdinand), just a blip on the windscreen amongst the tons of armor available to you on the German side of Flames of War. Now with the Italian compilation being released, there are new and shiny lists available, the Elefant as it is now referred, is making a comeback on the table in our Italian escalation campaign. With each Devil making a list to play throughout the next few weeks, I've decided to go with this new beast in my attempts to thwart any Allied attempts at scoring any major victories for their side.
Once again, I found myself wanting something a little different. I watched the Tank Overhaul episode on the restoration on one of two existing Elefants left in the world. It's amazing at some of the things that are left on a battlefield and is then transported a long way back to North America and restored years later to it's original condition. After the Petawawa tournament, I decided to buy four Elefants and do them up in Italian paint scheme for a new LW list. Having played only one game so far, some of what I thought would be weaknesses of this ginormous tank have yet to come to the forefront. With the slow mobility and bogging down on a 1-2 due to it's unreliability, I thought maybe hiding this monster near buildings and tree lines would cut down on artillery spotting and aircraft. I quickly figured out in my first game that the Elefant and it's mobility limitations are more than ok when it comes to toting around a front armor of 15 and an Anti-Tank rating of 16. They took constant artillery fire from 105's and 155's during my game with Andrew in 'Hold the Line', his SSF performed well against my small platoon of Grenadiers that I took as a small compliment to my list. We played 1000 points and I took two Elefants, one Tiger E and a platoon of infantry to round out somewhere just under 1000. I've yet to give full thought to a 1650 LW tournament list for these books yet.
So far it looks like they need some more table time, but with the next few weeks of Friday Night Fights and the upcoming Italian WWPD Campaign, it looks like this circus will be making the rounds and offering up some good 'ol whoop ass in the coming weeks. Not sure which side of the scores I will be on, I did end up failing a Company Morale check against Andrew and lost that game 5-2. With some other options and a few more platoons, I think I can get both more competitive and have some fun in the meantime. The only models I had left on the table after our game were the two Elefants......
Once again, I found myself wanting something a little different. I watched the Tank Overhaul episode on the restoration on one of two existing Elefants left in the world. It's amazing at some of the things that are left on a battlefield and is then transported a long way back to North America and restored years later to it's original condition. After the Petawawa tournament, I decided to buy four Elefants and do them up in Italian paint scheme for a new LW list. Having played only one game so far, some of what I thought would be weaknesses of this ginormous tank have yet to come to the forefront. With the slow mobility and bogging down on a 1-2 due to it's unreliability, I thought maybe hiding this monster near buildings and tree lines would cut down on artillery spotting and aircraft. I quickly figured out in my first game that the Elefant and it's mobility limitations are more than ok when it comes to toting around a front armor of 15 and an Anti-Tank rating of 16. They took constant artillery fire from 105's and 155's during my game with Andrew in 'Hold the Line', his SSF performed well against my small platoon of Grenadiers that I took as a small compliment to my list. We played 1000 points and I took two Elefants, one Tiger E and a platoon of infantry to round out somewhere just under 1000. I've yet to give full thought to a 1650 LW tournament list for these books yet.
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| AOP 'Safari' Spots an Elefant in the Wild! |
I've seen that episode of Tank Overhaul, great programme. Just getting the tracks off something that big was a major effort if I remember correctly. Running Elefants at 1000pts is always going to be tough, but they just look so cool :-)
ReplyDeleteThey are a great looking model, they have a nice weight to them and were such a simple one to put together. Two tracks, a gun and hatches.....done! I know on one I messed up the hatch covers and reversed them, but this may be a blessing in disguise, it will be easier to distinguish them from one another, as I have ZERO luck with water decals in numbering my models. Even the country markings are a pain sometimes.
DeleteThe new Italian books are excellent!
ReplyDeleteCheers
The Russians at Kursk soon found the Elefant's weakness - no machine guns. Unless protected by infantry or tanks with MG's the Elefant was ridiculously vulnerable to infantry. I'm not sure if FoW rules account for this though. In Spearhead the common practice is to stick one behhind a ring of friendly armour and let it pick off the oppositions' tanks at will. The frontal armour makes in virtually untouchable and artillery doesn't dent it. However, get infantry anywhere near it and its doomed.
ReplyDeleteYeah, they have made up for a modification in the rules. Historically, when they were pulled off the line, one of the things they did was add a MG and rename them the Elefant from their former 'Ferdinand' namesake.
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