List Building from Avanti - Damo's Carri Compagnia

-with Damo 

 *Disclaimer: My phone takes really shitty photos...

 When I started using the Italians as my very first Flames of War force (beta testing v.1!) they were always one thing to me; Hilarious. 

 Under-gunned, outmatched by most opponents and no-one else in their right mind fielded them. Good enough for me. (I won Natcon 2003 with them. Heh.) I wanted a "Ferrari tank rush" army. Full speed ahead and die for the glory of Il Duce!

With Flames of War v.4 coming out last year, I decided to bide my time until the glorious Italians got their own book. It's (almost) here now and we at Behind Enemy Lines are grateful Battlefront NZ allowed us early access. Chur Pete!

 All my Italian armies through the ages have had one common theme. Tanks. Lots of (little) tanks. It's my jam and so my V.4 list carries on my obsession. I've started by building a single formation to 85 points. It simply gives me room to move, either to 100 pts or less.

 HQ- no brainer here. 1 M14/41. (Are you surprised?)

Next, I take 3 combat platoons of five M14/41's. One can never have enough MG's to get the job done on the PBI. With six MG shots per tank, that's a lot of hurt on anything caught unprepared. Hard luck for them. The main gun is only AT6 but has HEAT rounds. Cool. I can live with that. Armour is a relatively low 3-1-1 so they might survive a round or two of shooting. However, no matter what rating they get on the new 8 Million Bayonet table they will always remount on a 2+. (This is good.)

So that's my compulsory choices sorted along with the optional 3rd platoon of M14/41's because ...well... MG's.  I desperately wanted a platoon of Semovente 75's as well and for about a minute I was panicking that I'd have to ditch a platoon of m14/41's until Dan pointed out that I could take those bad boys as an optional support option. Wahey!

One platoon of 6 Semovente 75's in the mix and I'm almost a combined arms force! These can fire as artillery and the 75mm main gun is AT8. They also have a self-defence AAMG. That's pretty good firepower and with their 4-1-1 armour, they're almost a real tank! Can't wait to get some side shots off on some Shermans or T-34's....

With a tread count of 22 "tanks" so far I think it's time for something different...

AA is still a thing in V.4 so I better include some of that I guess...

One platoon of 4 truck mounted 20mm Breda dual purpose AA guns fills another support platoon. I only ever owned 2 of these trucks but luckily I found two Sahariana jeeps with the same gun. Proxy in those fantastic looking vehicles and away we go. I still have points left over to get to the 85pt limit I set for myself so let's head over to the coolest thing in the Italian arsenal.

One platoon of two Lancia 90's- the truck mounted 90mm beast of a gun. Just like an 88 but Italian made. Bene! Just awesome!

4+ save, a move or shoot built in, the gigantic rule. Who cares? Not me. They have AT14, shoot at planes, shoot at tanks, head shot some infantry teams, just take them! Trust me!

The last thing I need is some airpower because, let's face it, I need it to pretend I have some form of artillery (ignoring the fact my Semoventes can fire as arty too.)

One flight of two Falco bi-planes- I only have one biplane but that's no problem as I still have an Italian Stuka to sub in as a proxy biplane. What a nutter.

Well, that's my list. I have a few things to paint up but 90% of my Italians are good to go. (Thanks Monkey, your paint job is still brilliant.) Of course, as I've already said I can go up or down points-wise and perhaps use some of the card options available now or when the Italians get their own ones. 

I do have the quick option of adding 2 platoons of 5 L6/40's as well which will take me to 95 point, leaving 5 left over for card shenanigans as well, pretty quick and simple as it is!

See you on the battlefield...