2016 – the year reluctant became the new fearless! Are you tired of rolling 2’s for your fearless motivation tests? Does Von de Heyte just leave you rolling 1’s? Embrace reluctance where you’ll fail almost every time anyway!
Coming back from Corrivalry with my reluctant boys, I noticed I did best when having to attack! Crazy I know, both loses I had were when defending, so it got me thinking, how can you mitigate reluctant in your game plan. I’ve used a couple of examples so hope it helps!
Keep your IC close – now this is not full proof as a couple of times eve with the reroll my platoon has failed to unpin, but having the extra roll really helps, again taking lists like the British 51st where you get rules like ‘cautious not stupid’ to do the same thing helps.
Multiple platoons on the same mission – why send one platoon, when you have three! This is something I learnt from RT lists, just overwhelm your opponent, if he pins three platoons, one ‘should’ unpin!
Stay mobile – reluctant infantry will not be moving far, they’re slow and are easily pinned, my panzer 4’s could always move 12. It helped with the advance and the pressure on my opponent – like wise with reluctant tanks, protected ammo is worth its weight in gold!
Why assault tanks when you can shoot them – nothing spells disaster more than failing tank terror, don’t need to assault if you have guns, bazookas and panzerschreks work great here.
Bring a super hero – a couple of heroes allow the platoons to use their motivation – hi lorni torni- great way to mitigate reluctant.
Bring a non reluctant unit – cheating this idea! But sometimes having a fearless/confident unit mixed just so you can ‘do’ something helps – the down side is often they’re lower quality or too expensive negating the reluctantness of the army.
High front armour – if you’ve got a decent high front armour, it doesn’t matter what they throw at you, you should be able to withstand a significant amount of punishment – the RT Kingtiger/jagdtiger lists are great here, the down side is that your top armour is still vulnerable to arty and you can only survive so long there!
Extra numbers – the nice bit about reluctant is the points break, you can just get more bang for your buck. Whether that’s bigger platoons with combat attachments etc to avoid those platoon morale tests for longer, or to increase your offensive output, the extra bodies can really help. (and if you’re RT just swarm your opponent!)
Playing a reluctant army is one of those things which I would recommend to anyone, knowing that you only have a 1 in 3 chance of your force doing what you want them to do makes it such a challenge. And the added difficulty of playing them as trained or Vet really forces you outside of your comfort zone. If you like consistency in your force doing what you want them too, then don’t go this way, but the challenge of using them, having to change your tactics on both attack or defense (for example I deploy my infantry guarding objectives much further forward so i don’t get driven off by one bad round of combat) and is worth exploring.
Anyway I hope you enjoy my random musings on reluctance – till next time
Coxer
Good read, I love the challange of Reluctant infantry. Extra mobility from APCs/halftracks and extra cover from rules like night fighting really help you overcome some of the issues.
with my mid war fucilieri africa army (50% chance of reluctance due to 8-million bayonets) i found deploying a wall of bodies miles in font of the objective is effective, takes ages for them to break through front line then they still have to clear one or more massive platoons of an objective! all the while my elite artillery and heavy AT kills them off. in my last game my opponent was only able to kill one platoon before i killed the last of his units on my table half ending the game due to the mission. if we kept going he would have to cross a bit of open ground with infantry facing HMGs, mortars and two artillery platoons and a light tank platoon. then still have to clear two full fucilieri AS42 platoons and propbably more off the objective!
I’ve been in a same vboat for a few years now with my Jagdtigers. I love running the 2./512.sPzJgAbt. Though I tend to take support ar reluctant vets just to have a laugh when my enemy tries to shoot my dug in panzergrenadiers from 40,1cm away and I can tell him that ‘Nope, you still can’ t roll a 7 with D6.’