Tactica Jagdtiger Chapter 2 - Reluctant Trained

Te second part of my Jagdtiger Tactica has been published and you can read it here.

Tactica Jagdtiger Chapter 1 - Reluctant Veterans

Hi!

I did a little tactica for Jagdtigers on my friends blog. It's a two part tactica with the second part coming out soon. For the mean time you can read the first part here.

Hope you like it!

AAR: Estonian 20.SS - Fusilierkompanie vs. 2./512.sPzJgAbt !!PIC HEAVY!!

The other day we had a training game with a friend to prepare and to familiarize him to his forces for the coming EGT.

Last time we played we had Breakthrough as a scenario and for this time we randomly selected a new one. Last match was a victory for the Estonians 6-1 and I was sure to give my friend a steep uphill struggle this time.

Mission: We rolled with a random generator (aka die) and got Hold the Line.

Forces:

Board & Deployment

Board from the side of 512.

2./512.sPzJgAbt

Estonians

1. Turn

Estonians make an all out attack throughout the sector.

Carius and 2iC open up. 2iC missing the pioneers and Carius claiming a victim from full SS-Grenadier platoon (First blood!)

2. Turn

Estonian advance continues and Tigers try to hit Carius and force him to join the Tiger platoon, only one hit and it bounces. Estonian air support targets the panzergrenadiers and pin them.

Carius and 2iC continua to fire, this time 2iC claims a victim from pioneers.
Carius fires at the Tigers but miss.

3. Turn

Estonians rush to the forest with tanks. One Tiger opens up on dug in panzergrenadiers and kills one team with a HE round

512 gets its first reserves, a Jagdtiger rumbles forward and shoots high and wide on the move.

Carius claims another victim from full SS-Grenadiers and 2iC shortens the life of another pioneer.

Tigers fight with Tigers but cause no damage!

4. Turn

Estonians rush through the forest with tanks and open up on Tigers destroying one. Hs129B pins the panzergrenadiers

Tigers assault the panzergrenadiers but cause no deaths but force them to fall back after failed motivation test (that 5+ save is a killer in assaults!).

Full SS-Grenadier (now redused) assaults the panzergrenadiers but is forcet to fall back with a bloody nose.

512 gets its second and last reserves. Carius retaliates and destroys a Tiger, 2iC shortens yet another pioneers life. Panzergrenadiers make their motivation test and are no longer pinned. Lonely Jagdtiger takes yet another high and wide shot... have they calibrated their sights?!

Pioneers and short SS-Grenadier platoon advance

A lot of fire coming

4 hits

And the Tiger burns

SS-Grenadiers lined up for assault

SS-Grenadiers pushed back

SS-Grenadiers have left the battlefield

Wirbelwinds arrive to aid Carius and 2iC

5. Turn

Tigers shoot a lot at Tigers and bails two, with one destroyed and no operational tanks the Tigers take a motivation test which they fail sending them packing. Yet again Tigers assault my panzergrenadiers but this time they are met with fire, one destroyed Tiger and one bailed stops the assault dead. Full SS-Grenadiers try to assault too but are beaten back by hail of MG fire. Short SS-Grenadier platoon makes its move and tries to assault with 1 team which is being killed by defensive fire.

Wirbelwinds come to aid 2iC and Carius. 2iC yet again shoots at pioneers. Carius takes out another Tiger and panzergrenadiers open up on full SS-Grenadiers. redusing them and forcing a motivation test which they fail. Short SS-Grenadier platoon is being shot down to 2 teams, they pass their motivation test. The last Estonian Tiger is being captured in the assault.

Tigers fire at Tigers

Tigers run away

Tigers take some panzerfausts

"Incoming!"

Pinned SS-Grenadiers and all that is left of the Tigers

At this point I ran out of power in my phone so no more pictures :(

6. Turn
At this point there is half strength pioneer platoon, few stands from short SS-Grenadier platoon and leIGs left from the enemy. Pioneers flame the wirbelwinds that have moved to protect Carius. 2 last members of the short SS-Grenadier platoon assault and are being killed in counterassault after panzergrenadiers receiving no hits.

Panzergrenadiers move up to take the pioneers head on and blaze them with MG fire, killing 1. 2iC and Carius kill 1 more forcing a motivation test which the pioneer pass.

7. Turn

In a last desperate action the pioneers try to assault the panzergrenadiers, they make it through the defensive fire but cause no hits in close combat so panzergrenadiers can jump up and mow down the pioneers in a few rounds of close combat Also the CiC of hte Estonians is lost in this melee. The last brave pioneer decides it's best to quit and leaves the battle.

In their own turn panzergrenadiers pour a lot of shots to the leIGs to no effect.

8. Turn
As the Estonians are below half strenght the last possible thing for them to do to stay in the game, company morale, 3+, but oh no it's too much for the Estonians and they flee the field of battle.





End

4-3 victory for 512.sPzJgAbt!

This was a close one. If my panzergrenadiers had stayed pinned when those Tigers assaulted I would have been slaughtered.

2./506. Schwere Panzerabteilung reinforced!! UPD. Now also 2./512. Schwere Panzerjäger Abteilung reinforced!

"Sir, we have replacements. Two PzKpfw VI Ausf. B "Tiger"s has just arrived from maintenance. Company is now at full strength."

Old KT in the middle, new KTs on the sides

This means my troops for Oosterbeek are now ready. Let those British and American dogs walk straight to our trap!

My oldest KT was made long ago and you can tell. But somehow now that all the KTs are ready and I put them side by side, I like the camouflage on the oldest KT is the best... strange! I thought I'd have learned to paint better by now. Perhaps I need to redo some of the camouflage on the new KTs. Perhaps some fading is in order.

Anyhow I wanted these to look that they have had some repairs in the rear areas and hastly sended to aid in the defense of Oosterbeek. That's why there are replaced guns and turrets etc. without camouflage paint (though should have bought the non-zimmerit ones, these look awful with zimmerit!).

Now to finish some Jagdtigers(done!) and 3,7cm FlaK43s!

UPDATE: 2./512 Schwere Panzerjäger Abteilung

Carius with his company

Now we have more Jagdtigers to deploy to the fields of battle. Their leader is the most famous Otto Carius, better known for his actions leading a Tiger I E tank.

My Carius' model is not the BFs Carius but rather a normal Jagdtiger that I use as Carius. No need to buy one more Jagdtiger when I have 3 already!

Here again, as with KTs, I went with a worn look. Also some fuelcans and other stowage was added to personalization.

Enjoy!

EasyArmy version 2.0

So after a long silence Battlefront has come to tell us the big and waited news concerning EasyArmy.

"Forces Of War!
For many years one of our play testers and proof readers Gregg Siter has in his spare time been running Easy Army. He created it out of a personal desire to have a tool to manage his armies but it has grown so that many other people can now do the same. For those of you who don’t know this is a force building software package that helps you create and use army lists. When we gave Gregg the okay right at the start to do this we always assumed this would evolve into something more and now that time has come.

Easy Army is going to evolve into Forces of War. This will be an official FOW army builder that at its core uses Easy Army but now will have more features and graphics than ever before. We still have a little more work to do until we can show you the final version but our goal is to have it up and running before our next book, Barbarossa, is out in October. Stay tuned for more news as we will be showing you what it looks like and how it will work in the coming weeks.

~John Paul"

Few questions arise.

1. What will happend to those books already bought from EasyArmy, can we keep them or do we have to buy them again and for what price? 

2. What will happend to all our armylists in EasyArmy? This relates directly to the question 1 as I think if the books will be gone so will the lists.

3. What will the new pricing be? Once for a book, monthly or annually for whole content or some other. What level will the price be for one book?

4. Updates, this is perhaps the easiest. As it's going to be a software (mentioned in John Pauls post) it can check updates via internet every time it's started.

Well we'll need to wait for now. All I hope for is that we can keep our bought books and armylists.

Mid War Madness

Today I saw some great looking MW DAK Panzers on FB. This gave me a kick to the balls to think about having my own MW DAK Panzerkompanie some day.

As I don't own North Africa book nor have it available in EA I turned to fowlists.

As I like tanks a lot, and my first ever FoW game was played in the desert with MW Panzerkompanie, I had only one thing in my mind. TANKS, lots of them! Strike hard, die hard!

After some thinking and mixing and matching I came up with this:

German Panzer
Tank Company, from North Africa, page 54

Compulsory Panzerkompanie HQ
- CinC Panzer III L or M, 2iC Panzer III L or M 230 pts
- upgrade to Panzer IV F2 or G 30 pts
- Sd Kfz 9 half-track 5 pts
- Warrior Josef Rettemeier 45 pts

Compulsory Panzer Platoon
- Command Panzer III L or M, 2x Panzer III L or M 345 pts
- upgrade to Panzer III N -5 pts
- upgrade to Panzer III N -5 pts

Compulsory Panzer Platoon
- Command Panzer III L or M, 2x Panzer III L or M 345 pts
- upgrade to Panzer III N -5 pts
- upgrade to Panzer III N -5 pts

Panzer Platoon
- Command Panzer III L or M, 2x Panzer III L or M 345 pts
- upgrade to Panzer IV F2 or G 30 pts
- upgrade to Panzer IV F2 or G 30 pts
- upgrade to Panzer IV F2 or G 30 pts

Heavy Panzerspah Platoon
- Command Sd Kfz 231 (8-rad), Sd Kfz 231 (8-rad) 85 pts

1500 Points, 4 Platoons

It has no big 5 tank platoons, a problem when having to assault, but it's fast and has recon. But I can always attach Rettemeier to one of the PzIII platoons while 2iC is going to spend his time with other PzIVs.

Smoke could be usefull but that would mean I'd either have to had nebelwerfers, which would ruin the idea of this force being fully mobile, or a platoon of Panzer IV F1s.

So here's my idea for MW DAK. All comments and ideas are more than welcomed.

AAR - 512.sPzJgAbt in Caen (FS Caen)

Last night we had a friendly FS Caen game. My friend gave me a chance of fielding 512.sPzJgAbt from BaR and build his American tank list to counter it. The mission was No Retreat with Germans defending.

German forces were:
Carius with JT
JT
2 Wirbelwinds
2 Panther Gs
Panzergrenadier Platoon
3 PzIV H (12.SS FS troop)
Mortar platoon with 4 tubes (CT Heer FS troops)

American forces:
M4A3 (late) CiC
M4A3 2iC
M4A3+2 E8s
6 Sherman105s
Recce on foot (dismounted)
Recce M8+mortar jeep+.30 cal jeep
2 Sherman75s+Firefly (Brit FS troops)
Priority Typhoon

DISCLAIMER: before you start complaining about unfare lists, my friend knew I was about to bring Jagdtigers as I asked a permission to test 512.sPzJgAbt.

Germans started the game with Carius, Panthers, Panzergrenadiers and PzIV Hs on table. Carius had chosen the place for defence carefully and deployed his forces in good concealed positions.

Amis first tried to infiltrate their recon forward to try to blast on dug in panzergrenadiers but only managed to pin the platoon by recon. This didn't matter as being reluctant was not an issue and panzergrenadiers soon rallied.

After this it was all about Germans making their stormtrooper moves to stay hidden and Amies missing with 98% of their shooting.

With Carius leading his 2nd company, Germans took a heavy toll on Americans with no casualities in return. The game was all over by the end of turn 4 and my friend conceded the game. The Americans had lost all of their big tanks that they could have used to flank and kill 2 JTs, 2 Panthers and 3 Panzer IV tanks and my force was coming on with full force.

American priority Typhoon support was more of a speedbumb for Germans as those flyboys couldn't do a thing, always missing their target.

Thanks for reading.

2./512. Schwere Panzerjäger Abteilung - Defending Ludendorff Bridge

Finally received my price book "Bridge at Remagen" for Best Painted in Ace of Aces contest from Battlefront, big thanks for them!

This book is The Book for every player wanting to field a mix of Big Cats with Big Guns. And as you might have quessed from my previous post, I'm the kind of players to like and want them. From the first time I read that Carius, Jagdtigers and King Tigers were going to be in a same list I knew I just wanted to have this book ith all the sweetness.

Now that I've had my first look on the book I've come up with a list where I can have them all. It's not a competitive list in any way but you just can't have it all! ;)

This is 1650 points list using 2./512. sPzJgAbt. Nice thing with this is I only need one compulsory combat platoon.

This gives me 5 platoons, 4 which counts when counting for reserves. From the list you already might quess which platoons would go to reserve, unless there is a damn big tankrush coming my way and I need to bring as much long range AT into bear as possible. Reluctant isn't that bad when you still are veteran or have high armor value.

Bridge by Bridge - 2./506. Schwere Panzerabteilung in Oosterbeek

Lately I've been thinking heavy, and I mean German heavy. I have a lot of planned lists of German Heavy Tanks that I'd like to run given enough heavy tanks (right now not nearly enough).

One of these units is the Schwere Panzerkompanie from Bridge by Bridge. It's currently the only heavy tank kompanie that I've planned with full King Tiger (another list that I have King Tiger is Schwere Panzerkompanie from Atlantik Wall with one KT).

With only four platoons and such a limited numbers I'll be always outnumberet and outgunned. But what this list gives me is heavy anti-tank weapons (88mm KwK43/L71) with excellent armour with infantry support that can scare a s**t out of enemy armour trying to flank my Big Cats. Lastly there is my Coup de Main, 3 StuH42s ready to take out any gunteams or soften up dug in infantry before my pioniers or King Tigers make the assault.

I didn't take recon as four fearless veteran teams for 155 points is kind of a lot. Also no artillery as not enough points, but for that I've my StuH42s.

Lastly with points limited and after checking multiple times that I couldn't get anything else useful, I took Bergepanther. No obvious use for this but it nicely works as a bullet-magnet, and it has AA MG.


This all drops me few points short but I think I can manage that. All in all this list needs to be played in concert, each element supporting and protecting the other (an obvious thing!).

All ideas and comments are welcomed.