Intelligence Report – Armies of the British Commonwealth: South Africa

It’s time for the last instalment in our series looking at the National Special Rules found in Armies of the British Commonwealth. From next week, we’ll start looking at some of the unique units across the book, but we’ve got one more stop to make on our world tour. Let’s head to South Africa!

South African forces are best known for their contribution to the fighting in the North African theatre, where they proved to be tough and capable soldiers who made excellent use of motorised transport and coordination with supporting elements to overcome the foe. This is no different on the tabletop, where they benefit from some rather nice special rules – these ones, in fact!

We can see right off the bat that South African forces lean towards a highly mobile style of play, with Turn the Flank making Outflanking with armour and transported infantry a much more reliable prospect. Being able to put your units where you need them, when you need them, and not having to slog up the table under fire gives you some really interesting options for attacking from unexpected angles. Meanwhile, Close-In Air Support and Shells, Not Lives give a healthy buff to both flavours of Forward Observer team, meaning your off-table support is much more likely to land a devastating blow.

This meshes with Turn the Flank very nicely – to make use of both rules, you need two Forward Observers, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to include one in a Rifle Platoon, and the other in a Recce Platoon. That means you’ll have plenty of transports to exploit the Outflank bonus!

Continuing the vehicle theme, Up-Gunned Italian Campaign Vehicles gives you great access to pintle-mounted HMGs, ideal for laying down supporting fire, clearing out Veteran units, and threatening light vehicles. This also leads us nicely to a special rule that isn’t technically army-wide, but definitely belongs here. It’s also a nice little spoiler for some of the unique units!

Fire-Belt Action is really interesting little rule that rewards fielding plenty of the iconic South African armoured vehicle, and allows them to unlock their machine guns and put a serious volley downrange.

South Africa rounds out Armies of the British Commonwealth nicely, with its particular brand of motorised mayhem ideally suited to players wanting to field plenty of vehicles and off-board supporting fire. It’s a great excuse to get your armour out and on the tabletop (as if you needed any more encouragement!), and a fitting way to end the Army Lists section of the book. The fun doesn’t stop there, though – we’ve got a lot of unique units to go through ahead of launch!