Chain of Command - A Soviet Scout Squad!

Oh dear... I sort of knew that hitting retirement just as the Lockdown came into force was going to result in a few very random weeks as far as hobbying was concerned! I've completed the painting of two Clash of Spears armies and then, I had a burst of activity on some medieval knights, caused by accidentally re-reading my long dormant Lion Rampant rule set and then...

I knew that, at some point, I was going to be digging out my Warlord Soviets again, because I had already decided that Chain of Command was the way forward with World War II skirmishing, rather than Bolt Action, and my Russians would need a little tinkering with to fit in with the Chain of Command army list. Not that I don't like Bolt Action, I just think that Chain of Command is a heap better rule set, as it is, apart from many other things, much more focussed on the sharp end of infantry combat.

One of the decisions I made when I was painting my Soviets for Bolt Action, was to field a squad of SMG armed infantry and these don’t appear as an option when you want to field a rifle platoon in Chain of Command! The list of support squads in the Chain of Command rule book does have a "Scout Squad" however, consisting of a junior leader and two sections, each with two SMGs and two rifles. This would employ five of the SMGs that I'd already painted and would give me four more riflemen to paint. As it is nearly two years since I painted any Soviets, I thought that this would get me nicely back into the painting groove, because I also need to paint up a few more riflemen to complete the third rifle squad required in the rules. 

In Chain of Command, the use of scouts is defined under the Soviet National Characteristics, where they are referred to as Razvedchiki, and each team is allowed to move with 1 or 2 D6 and assume a Tactical stance at the end of the move. For someone who chose Soviets because commanding them means you don’t need to concern yourself with anything as complicated as thinking, this is quite a revolutionary concept and may take some time and cerebral effort to get used to!

Appearing, as they do, in List 5 in the Support Lists, the Razvedchiki might not be fielded too often in campaigns to come, but they are a welcome addition to my Rifle platoon and, at the outset, before casualties are taken, they are composed as follows:

Serzhant Usilov Makarovich – squad leader 

Первый Команда:

Maxim Pavlovich (SMG)

Novoseltsev Fyodorovich  (SMG)

Tarasik Victorovich (Rifle)

Vedeneyev Maximovich (Rifle)

Второй Команда:

Arsenyev Borisovich (SMG)

Dementyev Nikitovich (SMG)

Gavrikov Dmitrivich (Rifle)

Zharkov Filippovich (Rifle)

As you may have noticed, the name generator I am using tends to apply the same four letters to the end of surnames!