My Take on 109 Point American lists

It’s been a while, but it’s time again to dig into some Flames of War list building. This time it’s for 109 points. Just like last time it’s thanks to an upcoming tournament. The Canadian Tabletop Championships are less than a month away and I need to prepare a list.

At 109 big cats are going to be much more common, especially now that Ghost Panzer and Red Banner are out. After seeing all the hordes of Italian tanks at the 71 point Canadian nationals, I can’t imagine how many there’ll be at 109. So what’s a yank to do? Well at 109 a lot of American toys become

The List so Far

more viable.

The big difference between my 109 and 71 lists is giving my infantry halftracks and tons of bazookas. Other than that I’ll still be relying on Lees, T30’s, Stuarts and recon patrols. So i’ll have no AT above 10, but there’ll be a lot of At 10. I could take M10’s but i’m still unconvinced that they’re worth it. AT 12 is not stellar on an 8 point vehicle especially given their shorter range than similar vehicles in the German arsenal. Of course they can do the blitz/shoot and scoot combo but their 4+ skill means that they won't be winning peekaboo fights with Germans reliably. The thing is, M10’s do one thing, shoot tanks, and they do it fairly poorly compared to the anti-tank assets of other nations. Instead I prefer to capitalize on the US’s strengths, lots of smoke and lots of bazookas to take on the big cats.

Similarly I’ll be sticking with Lees instead of Shermans, 2 points for better cross, a .50 cal and one more FA feels lackluster. I suspect there is a place for Shermans in someone’s list but to me they just seem inefficient when the focus of my list is not to win head on tank fights. That said, I feel like my setup affords me a decent chance against tank lists where I can bid defend and dare them to deal with my wall of bazookas.

I’m much less worried about tank and armoured car lists, Soviet and Italian gun lines however are worrying. At nationals a soviet gunline handed me one of my two loses. At our Kursk event I was able to muscle my way through a few of them but that was thanks largely to excellent artillery and a tiger. The Americans have no “shoving” unit that can assault and shift blobs of infantry and light guns the way heavy tanks or solid assault infantry can. My Lees can sort of do this job if there are only PTRD’s to worry about but if there are any AT 7 or higher guns kicking around it would be suicide for my Lees to conduct a charge. I wouldn't trust my infantry with such charges either unless there is only a small rump of a unit left given how terrible they are at actually fighting an assault compared to...well anyone.

The fate awaiting all marders

So it’s up to the artillery, american artillery is pretty bad save for the Priests but there is a lot of it. I’ll have 4 single mortar bombardments, 2 T30 barrages, the priests, and maybe even some bombs from the P-40’s. Three smoke barrages feels a little light but should be enough to get through a game. Driving around in halftracks, trying to shove a bazooka up a tiger’s tail pipe is a lot easier when the tiger cant see.