START COLLECTING: BRITISH EMPIRE

The British Empire - the wall at which the hammerblow of the German Spring Offensive lands. The core of this formation is the British Infantry Division, and in this guide, we’ll cover how to collect a British force for 1918 using the Force Lists and Unit Profiles in the Spring Offensive book.

Choosing a Force List and Doctrine

Firstly, we’ll need to decide what kind of force we want to field and how it will fight. The Spring Offensive book contains one Force List for the British Empire, the British Infantry Division. It is a well-rounded formation, one that does not excel at any one thing, but which is fully flexible.

Now we have a Force List, we choose a Doctrine. In 1918, a player’s choice of Doctrine shapes their force’s composition and how their force will fight. Each player selects their Doctrine during force construction before selecting the units which make up their force. There are three Doctrines to choose from:

• Grand Offensive 

• Lightning Assault 

• Tactical Defence 

To cover all bases, let's take a look at how we can put together an initial core force that will work with any Doctrine choice, and then how we might add additional units to adapt it to suit each Doctrine specifically. 

(Note: For now, we’ll ignore the option to take Allies in our force, after all this article is about collecting the British).

Core Force

In 1918, each force starts with a platoon at its heart. The British Infantry Division Force List requires us to take at least one Rifle Platoon - with up to three more available, enough for a full scale company in larger games. The British Force List in Spring Offensive represents the soldiers of the Regular Army - well-trained and motivated soldiers they can weather any storm. As such, the platoon benefits from an above-average Veterancy 3+. However, the platoon also has the smallest sections (in terms of model count) of any infantry platoon available in 1918: Spring Offensive, so care must be taken to keep every soldier alive. Afterall, they need to be ready for the counter-attack!

The British Rifle Platoon is built around a mandatory Light Machine Gun section, which contains two infantrymen armed with the ubiquitous Lewis Gun. While it does not produce as many shots as the MG 08/15, the Lewis can be fired effectively on the move, which the MG 08/15 cannot. We’ll also need to take the mandatory Headquarters Section and mandatory Rifle Section, and to round out the platoon, we'll also take the two optional sections (another Rifle Section and a Rifle Grenade Section).

The British Army Regiments rule, which applies to this platoon, allows us to choose up to two optional keywords to provide a focus for our force. This represents the varied traditions, training and culture of British Regiments, such as Guards, Fusiliers, Rifles, or Highlanders units. With this in mind, I will give the platoon the Steady and Marksman keywords, representation a solid, dependable line regiment with well-drilled musketry. Lastly, let's add a Stokes Light Trench Mortar. The Mortar is a real swiss army knife unit, able to suppress, illuminate, smoke or gas the enemy as required. This gives us a small force of 150pts, enough to play quicker, smaller games.

Right, now let's expand out our core force, looking at how we might do that for each of the three Doctrines.

Tactical Defence Doctrine

When using the Tactical Defence Doctrine, our riflemen really shine. We can use the Mad Minute Gambit from our Dugout Board to keep pressure on the enemy by significantly improving our riflemen's rate-of-fire.

The second platoon available to the British Infantry Division is the Heavy Machine Gun Platoon. This consists of a single Platoon Headquarters Section with two Vickers Heavy Machine Gun Sections, and the option to take up to two more. With the Tactical Defence Doctrine, we gain the option to mount these inside Pillboxes (the Moir, in the case of the British), providing us with well-protected static defensive fire. We can't afford to take the whole platoon, but we can take the Headquarters Section and two Vickers Sections and mount the latter in two Pillboxes.

Battalion and Divisional Support

To further round out this force, we’ll add a QF 18pdr Field Gun, providing us with long ranged firepower that can pin enemy troops in place and deal with any German tanks that come our way. Finally, we’ll add a Sniper Team to take out enemy leaders and pin down any weapons teams. We’ll upgrade the sniper with the Silent Gun and Marksmen keywords, and equip him with Trench Armour. This gives us a tricky to deal with ambush unit to throw the enemy off balance.

Fortifications

The pillboxes fit the bill, but if you want some flexibility and protection for your infantry, consider replacing them with four sections of Combat Trenches to keep your infantry safe.

This gives us our 300 pts Tactical Defence Doctrine list. If you want further flexibility, a Light Artillery battery could replace the QF18pdr, but I am worried about that German armour...

Lightning Assault Doctrine

If we were favouring a far more aggressive option from our 150pt starting list and thus chose a Lightning Assault doctrine, the next way to go is to replace the Steady and Marksmen keywords with the Swift (1) and Light Troops keywords. This represents light infantry specialists, giving us fast, mobile infantrymen who can shoot on the move without penalty - and we’ll leave the mortar out of this force. However, we’ll certainly need more bodies to help support this advance, so we’ll take a second Infantry Platoon, consisting of a headquarters, Lewis Gun Section and a Rifle Section with the same keywords as the first.

Battalion and Divisional Support

We can then add a Raiding Section from Battalion Support, giving us an extremely powerful, elite section that can Infiltrate onto the battlefield, advance quickly, seize ground and cause havoc. We'll then support this with a QF13pdr Field Gun which we'll also upgrade with the Infiltrator keyword - because who would not want an infiltrating field gun to blast the enemy from close range? To cover our advance with smoke and gas, we’ll finish the 300 pts list with a Light Artillery Battery with the Pre-Registered keyword for additional accuracy.

Fortifications

We’re moving too fast to keep our heads down Tommy! Keep the advance up and keep moving!

Grand Offensive Doctrine

Last, but most certainly not least, the Grand Offensive doctrine allows British players to deploy the one thing we all want - those glorious, rhomboid tanks. We’ll take a full strength British Rifle Platoon, give them the Light Infantry and Warrior keywords (Highlanders anyone?), and keep the Mortar.

Battalion and Divisional Support

We’ll take a Vickers Heavy Machine Gun team to provide ranged support and keep the enemy pinned down as we advance, and then not one, but two Mark IV Heavy Tanks. Normally, we'd only have access to one, and they'd have to be in a Divisional Support slot, for which we have more limited points, but because we are British and we are using Grand Offensive we can now take Mark IVs as Battalion Support choices as well. Lastly, a pre-registered Medium Artillery Battery will keep the enemy's heads down as our infantry take objectives and a Forward Observer will give us full flexibility on when and where to deploy the barrage.

Fortifications

You could mount your HMG in a Strongpoint, but the tanks are moving fortresses enough, surely?

Concluding Thoughts

The British list shines by its flexibility, and this is just a glimpse of what’s available in the Spring Offensive Force Lists. The Doctrines mechanic allows players to tailor their force to their playstyle and to get a lot of variety of play experiences from the same core models. We haven’t even considered the Whippet tank or cavalry… And that's before we even get into the additional units, platoons, Force Lists and Doctrines (not to mention new Nations) we at WFG have planned for the Western Front for the future.