Golden Journal No. 56
Kiwi Armour
Publisher’s Preview
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
January 2024

In October 1940, before his troops had even seen combat, New Zealand Expeditionary Force commander Bernard Freyberg asked his government to add a tank brigade to the infantry division already deployed to the Middle East. Getting hold of tanks for a new brigade proved very difficult, and only a year later did the first 30 Valentine tanks arrive in New Zealand, allowing formation of the 1st New Zealand Army Tank Brigade to begin. The brigade would never see action, with its trained personnel eventually transferred to convert the 4th Infantry Brigade into an armored formation.

Golden Journal No. 56: Kiwi Armour corrects this oversight, at least in cardboard form. It’s in our usual Journal format, with 24 new pieces (all of them die-cut and silky-smooth) plus eight new Panzer Grenadier scenarios so you can play with them. And of course, the story of the 1st Army Tank Brigade, and of New Zealand’s armored formations in general.

This Journal’s tied to our Campaign Study, New Zealand Division, which added 88 New Zealand pieces and ten scenarios (in two chapters, each with a battle game) featuring the New Zealanders’ campaign in Tunisia to Panzer Grenadier: An Army at Dawn. The Kiwis had rested following their huge losses at Alamein in the summer and autumn of 1942, and in late 1942 they resumed their role as one of the British Eighth Army’s shock divisions, despite now having two rather than the usual three brigades.

When the Kiwis had tank support, it came from British brigades, and one such outfit (usually 8th Armoured Brigade) often replaced the missing infantry brigade in offensive operations. But Freyberg believed that his division (he commanded the division as well as all New Zealand forces in the theater) should have its own, organic tank component. He asked for 1st New Zealand Army Tank brigade in August 1942, soon after the destruction of 4th Infantry Brigade.

Britain’s Churchill government did not agree; the ready availability of 8th Armoured Brigade appears to have been a calculated message that the New Zealanders did not need their own tanks. The reasons seem to stem from the perceived prestige of armored formations and a desire to keep what tanks were available for British units. The Australian 1st Armoured Division would likewise be declined.

Only after the New Zealanders agreed to deploy their division in Italy did they receive modern Sherman tanks and the needed support to create an armored brigade; the South Africans saw their own requests finally met once they had agreed to fight in Italy as well. The Australians would not commit their troops to continental Europe, and so they did not get vehicles and equipment for their division.

First New Zealand Army Tank Brigade would not be sent to Europe as a formation; its trained crews joined the former 4th Infantry Brigade, now re-titled as an armored brigade, and this formation received new Sherman and Stuart tanks. The Valentine and Stuart tanks with which the Kiwi tankers had trained remained in New Zealand, with a few seeing action in the Pacific theater with the 3rd New Zealand Division. Only a handful of Stuart tanks issued to the New Zealand Divisional Cavalry to replace their obsolete Mark VI light tanks would enter combat in Tunisia.

Kiwi Armour includes those Valentines and Stuarts, plus a Matilda close-support tank (the New Zealanders had thirty of these, modified in New Zealand). They also get some pieces that we asked players to pull from other games, and pretend that even though they were British they were Kiwis, now in their proper New Zealand livery. This fulfills one of my goals for Panzer Grenadier: I don’t want to use generic pieces that represent multiple nationalities, or ask players to pretend. Part of the attraction of Panzer Grenadier is supposed to be the colorful sweep of many nationalities involved.

Those include 17-pounder and 6-pounder anti-tank guns, and some Brean carriers. Plus, additional Bren carriers that allow the Kiwis to mount a pair of infantry companies to accompany their tanks into battle. First New Zealand Army Tank Brigade did not include a Motor Battalion, the infantry component of Armoured Brigades, though 4th Armoured Brigade later did. The Kiwis, always quick to adapt, no doubt would have corrected this using their own resources.

Kiwi Armour is a Golden Journal, meaning that it’s published exclusively for the Gold Club (sometimes we do sell older volumes to the general public, but the core audience is always going to be the fanatics of the Gold Club). As the designer of, well, all of them, I take that as license to do things I might not in a general-release expansion, like draw maps and pieces from more than one or two games or books.

There is armor support in the New Zealand Division scenarios, but not a lot of it – the British allotted tanks to the New Zealanders in company-sized detachments or less. To add sufficient fun, the Kiwi Armour scenario set couldn’t just be a re-making of New Zealand Division with different-colored pieces. There’s not much British armor in An Army at Dawn (a Valentine and two Crusaders), which matches up with the relative lack of anti-tank guns on the Axis side. But the much larger New Zealand tank contingent from Kiwi Armour will overwhelm those German guns, so our new scenarios draw pieces from one of a number of other Panzer Grenadier games (any one of Burning Tigers, Liberation 1944, Elsenborn Ridge, not all of them) for better-armed German defenders.

And we also draw on Parachutes Over Crete for extra Kiwis, so we can have a couple of extra-large scenarios. It’s a minority of players, as best as I can tell, who like the very large scenarios (which allow easy team play), but I try to include at least one in each Golden Journal with a Panzer Grenadier theme, since we’re addressing the hard-core audience.

Like most of our Panzer Grenadier Golden Journal themes, Kiwi Armour indulges in some alternative history, but it’s a very plausible premise. The 1st New Zealand Army Tank Brigade existed, and new Zealand’s battlefield commander asked for it. If not for Churchillian meddling and the sheer distances involved, it probably would have seen action in Tunisia in 1943. So we can do that, while also adding some properly Kiwi-colored pieces for New Zealand Division scenarios.

To play them all, you will need:

● Panzer Grenadier: An Army at Dawn.

● Panzer Grenadier: New Zealand Division.

● Panzer Grenadier: Parachutes Over Crete.

● Any one of Burning Tigers, Liberation 1944, or Elsenborn Ridge.

The Golden Journal is only available to the Gold Club (that’s why we call it the Golden Journal).

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and new puppy. He misses his lizard-hunting Iron Dog, Leopold.

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