Thought I would share some picts of my Italian Army I am using in my escalation league and explain why I took them at each level and what they do for me.
At the Core of my force, I have my Regular 2nd Lt and his escorts. All of these models are using SMG's as I use them as a small assault force either escorting my Airborne, or protecting a fixed asset like my Elefantino AT Gun.
Next in my core force, a nice 8 man regular rifle section. Nothing spectacular, meant to hold a location and most of the time, with the Italian defensive rule,these guys are chilling out in hard cover.
This is a clone of my first 8 man rifle section. They allow me to set up nice static rifle positions. Rarely do these guys move unless to shore up a weak flank.
My Assault unit, the 7 man all SMG wielding Veteran Airborne unit in their Laffly s20tl french truck! These guys are nasty. 14 shots and 14 attacks in close combat and they are veteran. I added the truck for them in the 1000pt bracket to get them into the thick of it without too many losses by shooting them up the board or coming in outflank quickly.
San Marco Marine Unit. 6 Rifles, and a SMG. Veteran flanking unit, and all around tough guys to take and hold objectives.
Solothurn 20mm Anti-Tank Rifle. This thing is my poor man's second sniper rifle. It really has only fired once at anything armored, relegated to pinging off veteran troops and adding pins is all this rifle team has done, but done well.
Elefantino 37mm AT Gun. This gun is only responsible for a sherman kill and setting another sherman on fire pinning it enough to make it unusable for the rest of the game. After it's work is done, it become a long range veteran plinking unit for kills and pins.
This is my Veteran Sniper Team. They are hot and cold in my games. Some games, they have a crazy death toll, others they can't kill anything, but are still able to throw out pins.
Airborne 81mm Medium Mortar Team. Have yet to field this, but my force has been unable to deal with static weapons, like AT guns and Multi-Launchers, so I needed something to lob shells into them to make them less effective. I like the Airborne models, so I had to get an airborne mortar!
Breda 12.7mm Medium Machine Gun. I like MMGs. I use them extensively to provide long range support for my assault elements. Can't say enough about them. 4 dice is 4 dice, it's a good deal.
This is my L6/40 Light Tank. It fills in the armored car slot of my italian forces. It is a nice secondary tank, with 8+ armor and sporting a Light Autocannon and Coax MMG. It is however vulnerable to the sides and has a one man turret sometimes causing it to sit and do nothing.. it does have Recce though, which has come in handy.
The M14/41 Italian Medium Tank. Two Hull mounted MMGs, A Coax MMG, and a Pintle MMG, along with a Light AT Gun. When not firing at armor (which I have only ever done twice with it) it provides SIXTEEN dice of MMG. It's more an Anti-Infantry/Pin machine. three seperate pins with 8, 4 and 4 dice or 16 dice at one target giving them a bad day. I have lost this tank twice in my league games so far, but it's usually done it's job of shredding infantry.
