Magyar Királyi Honvédség - The Plan

There is a Bolt Action tournament coming up on February 6th and I decided to use get some Hungarians done for that!

You might remember that I got a a whole bunch of Magyar Steel from Mad Bob Miniatures, and my first idea was to field as much of it as possible. A quick check of the army list showed me that I can get a Toldi I as my armored car and then use the Turan III as a count-as Panzer IV H. The army special rule "Axis Support" allows me to take another unit from the German army list, and the Marder II was a good match for Szebeny's Tank Destroyer.

That would leave me with a couple of hundred points for infantry, so my first list looked like that:

Regular Second Lieutnant - 50
Regular Squad (10) - 100
Regular Squad (10) - 100
Regular Squad (10) - 100
Regular MMG Team - 50
Regular Sniper Team - 50
Regular Panzerschreck Team - 80
Regular Panzer IV H - 235 (Turan III)
Regular Marder II - 160 (Axis Support, Szebeny's Tank Destroyer)
Regular Toldi I - 75
Total: 1000

Solid army,but sadly I completely neglected something I am still not used to here in New Zealand - up to 28 days delivery time for almost anything that is not in stock...

So I was limited to what I could get from the local retailers... And my budget isn't that large, either.

I decided to go for Blitzkrieg Germans as infantry. These pics here show that they should be a good match if just painted green:

I would have preferred great coats (or maybe SS-Smocks), but there was no way to get them in time and for a reasonable prize... So Blitzkrieg it is.

Checking availabilties showed me that this would be a viable list:

Regular Second Lieutnant - 50
Veteran Squad (9) + SMG - 120
Veteran Squad (9) + SMG - 120
Regular Squad (9) - 90
Regular MMG Team - 50
Regular Sniper Team - 50
Regular Medium Mortar Team - 50
Regular Panzer IV H - 235 (Turan III)
Regular Marder II - 160 (Axis Support, Szebeny's Tank Destroyer)
Regular Toldi I - 75
Total: 1000

I tried it today against Soviets with OT-34, Siberians with truck, Combat Engineers with truck, Sniper, Medium Mortar, ZIS-3 and inexperienced squad. We played Hold Until Relieved and Maximum Attrition, and I lost both quite significantly. The message I took home was that my army is too small and too slow (and that I absolutely positively hate vehicle-mounted flamethrowers...).

So there is not much I can do about mass (unless I happen to find another box of Blitzkrieg infantry in some dusty corner of my FLGS, in that case I might drop the Panzer IV to get two more squads), but I realized that a Sd Kfz 234/2 Puma costs exactly the same as the Marder II, but seems to be much more effective. And I am sure I saw one on the shelf the other day... Additionally, I can reduce the quality of one Veteran squad to get a truck in.

New army list:

Regular Second Lieutnant - 50
Veteran Squad (9) - 117
+ inexperienced Truck-  31
Regular Squad (9) - 90
Regular Squad (9) - 90
Regular MMG Team - 50
Regular Sniper Team - 50
Regular Medium Mortar Team - 50

Regular Panzer IV H - 235 (Turan III)
Regular Puma - 160 (Axis Support)
Regular Toldi I - 75

If my miniature get delivered on Thursday as promised, I have to paint a squad, a weapon team and a vehicle per week - Not too crazy ;)