FOW PRIMER: Attacking with Infantry in a Defensive Battle
What’s So Special About Attacking With Infantry?
New Flames of War groups often find that, in Infantry v. Infantry defensive battles, both players are hoping to roll low and become the defender because they think it will give them better chances. This is because infantry are very durable when stationary and very vulnerable when moving, leading to the conclusion that they are a defensive unit.
I can tell you right now that as your group gets better, this problem will go away on its own. Defense with infantry is perhaps an easier puzzle to begin with than attacking with infantry, but at the highest levels of play most players are ambivalent to the Defensive Battle roll-off and many go-getter types would actually prefer to attack.
So, having told you that it WILL get better, let’s see if we can hasten that along, shall we? I loathe spending time restating the rulebook, but I will briefly cover the basics of what attacking and defending really mean in FoW before explaining what I think that analysis bodes for how to attack successfully.
Defender’s Advantages
Defenders begin the game in Prepared Positions. Defenders can get to the objectives first (or start on them). Defenders sometimes benefit from Ambush.
Attacker’s Advantages
Attackers generally have a greater proportion of forces available at some critical point during the mission (eg beginning for Hold The Line, end for Fighting Withdrawal, turns 2-5 for Cauldron). Attackers set up second. Attackers go first. Attackers need only focus on one objective.
Making A Plan
First things first: as the attacker, you need a good plan BEFORE you deploy your miniatures. If your plan changes radically after deployment with infantry, it may be too late. In general, the only thing common to a good plan for infantry attacking infantry is that it always ends in assault – your opponent is bulletproof, you outnumber him, and no amount of MG dice is going to get him off that objective by itself.
How Your Force Affects The Plan
Obviously, your force will have some strengths applicable to attacking in Defensive Battles. Fearless Veterans are scary dudes in assault, for instance, whereas Confident Trained can probably count on a lot of artillery and/or pressure on all areas of the front simultaneously. Play to your strengths – if you outnumber the enemy substantially, deploy along a broad front to attack multiple objectives so his forces cannot move from their positions and reinforce each other. If you are a small force, concentrate on one objective with furious determination and conserve your forces for several continuous end-game assaults.
If you’re packing a modest amount of armor, don’t treat it as your attacking element just because it is armor. Think about how it can support your infantry in *their* attack. Even at TA2, SA8 and 215 points, the most important thing a Tiger does in a game might be to blast a dug-in LMG. If you are packing a lot of armor, you benefit from the ability to switch your axis of advance to respond to defender reinforcement or unexpected success or disaster in a particular area of the board.
If your Division has seen fit to grant you a lot of artillery, embrace the versatility that provides you. You can play a grinding game, ranging in on the first turn(s) and using All Guns Repeat to increase your force superiority. On the other hand, you also have unmatched ability to advance early with infantry, thanks to your redundant smoke bombardments that can shield you from enemy fire even if your Range In rolls aren’t the best. The ability to take either approach is helpful, but which is best in a given situation I must leave to your judgment.
How The Enemy Force Affects The Plan
Obviously playing to your strengths is most effective when you also play to the weaknesses of the enemy. If the enemy is Veteran, his weakness is his comparative lack of firepower and his strength is that he’s hit on 6’s. Reconnaissance effectively denies him that strength and allows you to pretty much pin and smoke as you please. If he is Trained his strength is in numbers and firepower, so see if you can isolate portions of his force and ignore others to achieve local superiority.
When making your plan, assume that the enemy around a given objective will get one good round of shooting at you in the open, plus a round of pinned Defensive Fire, before you get into the assault and plan accordingly. Often you can stick to terrain and do better than this, but planning for the worst is good insurance. Usually this means sending 2 infantry platoons to deal with 1 of your opponent’s. Luckily, a lot of the missions let you do just that!
If the enemy is heavy on artillery, this favors a quick strike before it can have time to be effective. Remember that moving At The Double does not increase your vulnerability to artillery, only to direct fire. Advance in a spread-out formation and only close up your ranks on the turn you plan to send your assault in. Except against Reluctant troops, don’t bother with counter-battery fire; smoking and pinning for your own assaults is much higher priority.
If the enemy is heavy on armor, his mobility is his strength. Threaten multiple objectives so that the tanks are tied to a 4″ bubble around these points and can’t maneuver. When backing up and MG’ing infinitely is no longer an option, they are a lot less scary.
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How The Enemy Deployment Affects The Plan
If deployment is the single most important thing that the defender does in a Defensive Battle, then it makes sense that his deployment is also one of the most important things an Attacker has to think about.
Deployment is easily a Primer or two on its own. For our purposes here we must chiefly consider whether the enemy has deployed in strongpoints or in a line, what is in reserve, and what is in ambush. Sometimes a defensive deployment will deny you flanking opportunities (essential for gun-team based defenses) by deploying a screen of infantry across all “easy going” terrain. In this case it is best to concentrate your forces very tightly and strike hard at a single objective. This guarantees other parts of the “line” will be out of position.
Other times a defending force is smaller or has less fire superiority, and concentrates around objectives in an attempt to deny you them. In this case you have more options for maneuver and should always be actively considering them (I have, for example, seen the defender’s reserves shot up the turn they walk on the board by the attacker’s recon, even though the defender is still thoroughly in possession of his strongpoints).
Remember, you have more forces, you call the shots, and you only need one objective to win. It’s basic tactics, but it bears repeating: don’t fight all of his mans with all of your mans when you could be fighting half of his mans with all of your mans. To that end, evaluate what the defender has in reserve (if anything) and consider whether it’s worth a hurry-up offense to put the knife in before they can arrive, or whether what’s already on the table is the real threat. Speaking of threats, the defender will likely have organized his platoons for mutual support – at least, that is the idea. You do not have to allow it to work that way! Pulling multiple platoons into Defensive Fire in FoW is usually only doable with Independent Team shenanigans, or an inexperienced attacker. Read the assault rules, read the Independent Team rules, and learn how to put assaults in without getting within 4″ of that Observer that is going to attach to the HMG’s (or how to smoke the HMG’s =D).
Lastly, the much-feared ambush. Consider whether the unit in ambush is a “hard counter” unit like tank hunters, antitank guns, or HMG’s, or whether it is a general “counterpunch” unit like Pioniers. If you have no choice but to cozy up to concealing terrain without the benefit of reconnaissance, try to move your units that are either expendable or won’t have much of an impression made on them by the ambusher (infantry vs. ATG’s; tanks vs. HMG’s) closest. Finally, it’s sometimes worth sacrificing a platoon (in non-tournament games) to “draw out” the ambush – double-time a big platoon towards Objective A, watch as the ambush comes out and decimates it, and continue on with your assault towards Objective B, untroubled by the out-of-position ambush.
Timing
As briefly touched on before, some missions favor the attacker early, others late, and others (I’m looking at you, Breakthrough) unpredictably. Timing is important, but not rushing yourself is, too – infantry are a “slow but steady” style of instrument, and since your force takes several turns to get into position, botching an assault badly will often mean you do not get a second chance. Never assault before you are ready (eg sending the infantry in without getting the pin or the smoke first); this more or less just gives your opponent a free Shooting Step. Rather, Go to Ground in front of the enemy lines until your support starts pulling its weight!
Closing Thoughts
Although I would have loved to walk through a game from start to finish including positioning for the vital assaults and so forth, there simply isn’t space – this article had to stick to a fairly macro perspective; you can learn how to move troops or assault positions in other Primers. That said, a VERY good way to learn the micro aspects would be to read a detailed Battle Report (not the video-summary kind, the real kind). Visually experiencing how someone else accomplished a particularly difficult task step-by-step and then trying to apply the lesson oneself is an excellent way to learn.
Do you prefer to attack or defend with infantry? Do you think an article like this can be helpful, or is too much of an attacker’s plan mission-specific? This Primer’s subject was a reader request – would you like to see a Primer on a particular topic? Let us know.
