Amongst the walkers, weird science and creatures that go RRRAAAAAARRRR! in the night, Konflikt ’47 has given the major powers a heavy infantry unit each.

If you are of a German leaning, you can see James’ review of the German Heavy Infantry here.

As for me, I got my hands on the USA’s own version as part of the starter set and thought I’d share my thoughts.

The models

The kit is metal, and in 4 parts per trooper; body, each arm and head. The heads look like they’d be an easy switch with other warlord heads, an excellent feature of the range overall, however the ones provided give plenty of variety and of course include a cigar chewing sarge!

The figures had minimal flash and tided up really easily. The only issue is the shoulder joints, with them being so bulky sometimes its hard to get a clean contact.

The troopers are clearly bigger than normal guys but not cartoonishly so, the scale fits them well.

When it comes to painting, I’m sticking with US Army green, trying to make these boys look like their bigger brothers as much as possible!

The Rules

If we turn to page 148 of the K47 book, we will find the unit entry for everyone’s favourite example of Detroit engineering.

Highlights

• Not Slow – unlike the heavy armour of other nations, this unit doesn’t have the slow rule. Although this seems a small thing the difference is very important over a couple of turns. This makes them ideal for a late game push to snatch an objective as between their speed and sticking power they’re going to be hard to get rid of.
• Resilient rule – first thing to remember is that this doesn’t apply in close combat, so don’t get cocky. Against shooting though needing 6’s to kill is a massive advantage. As I said above, get them in cover and hunkered down and you are business.
• Assault rifles – the main armament of the unit basically makes them very hard to ignore for your opponent. With decent range and output even on a unit of 5 they can’t be ignored.

Drawbacks

• Not tough – Unlike some of the other Heavy Infantry in the game, the US Army infantry lack the tough rule. This doesn’t both me too much, as my dice hate me, but it is worth highlighting that they don’t get that sweet 5+ save.
• Limited access to other weapons – having assault rifles is good, but whereas the Germans can add anti tank with panzerfausts, the Russians have multi weapons and the Brits make the bell curve cry with output, we have the one tool and very little flexibility in armaments. (That being said, i want my super bazooka team!)

Overall

In my view these guys are the solid core to a flank, or the very annoying objective holders. If you can get them some cover the opponent is going to need some very lucky rolls or will have to divert big chunks of his firepower just to get the hits needed.

Use their speed early game to get in position then camp out like the boy scouts, using fire orders to harass if you can or down and rally to minimise pins for when the casualties eventually arrive.

Either way they may lack armament flexibility but are still a very useful tool.

Let me know your experiences with the unit.

HQ out.