Stonebridge

Last year we decided to play a Market Garden game, so there had to be bridges for it. I made couple of simple wooden bridges out of hobby sticks and matchsticks, but the stonebridge wasn't as straight forward as those "daycare-centre-glue-the-sticks-together" -bridges.

From the start I decided the stonebridge to be modular or in three pieces. That way I could field it in full 40 cm (16'') length or in shorter 20 cm (8'') length, considering the width it is supposed to gap; or I could just use the central piece between terrain features. There remains a possibility to build a piece under it if needed (which I will do, as long as I get around building that hill-top village I have planned).

I started by cutting the pieces out of styrofoam. I measured the width of the bridge to be wide enough for Tigers.

The centre piece in plain styrofoam.

Next, I used renovation filler for about a 1 mm  (1/25'') layer that I textured with a toothpick. The toothpick needs to be wet or moist so that the filler doesn't clut on up it.

The texturing in close-up. The stones could have been smaller in size.

I used normal corrugated cardboard for the sides. I cut them higher than the body of the bridge so that they form railings.

Jagdtiger for size.

All the three pieces.

I repeated the filler and texturing for the sides.

The whole bridge textured.

The pieces did't fit exactly, so there remains little gaps.

When everything had dried, I sprayed the bridge with hardwarestore "Gray" that is sort of dark gray and gives also a great base for German Feldgrau. I dry brushed the bridge with lighter gray.

The painted bridge.

In the foreground a matchstick bridge, also painted.

Add some flocking for moss and grass and Gandalf, and I'm done.

Like honey with the bees the bridges draw the Istari.

The bridge was used in the Market Game for our Band of Brothers Total War Campaign that will be addressed in a future post.

"I've had enuff of this, guv'nor!"

Tactica Jagdtiger Chapter 2 - Reluctant Trained

Previously...

We took a look at reluctant veteran Jagdtigers and some ways to use them and lists for 1650 and 1780 points.
...Tactica Jagdtiger Chapter 1 - Reluctant Veterans

Reluctant Trained

In this second chapter we're going to take a look at the 2./512.sPzJgAbt from "Bridge at Remagen". As mentioned before I wont look at the confident veteran list as I have no clear mind over it as of now and no games played with that list. 2./512.sPzJgAbt differents from the reluctant veteran list from "Nuts!" in quite a many ways.

First and the most obvious is that it will get hit easier, a lot. Only being trained you get hit with 3+. Secondly it only requires compulsory sPzJg HQ and one compulsory sPzJg platoon of one Jagdtigers each. That means you'll only need minimum of two Jagdtigers. And thirdly, but no means the worst, you can get Otto "The Laser Beam" Carius!

As with reluctant veterans you need to avoid getting into assaults as you will most likely get into trouble with reluctant rating and eventually get your platoons ran down. And you don't want to waste your platoons in assaults with lists that I have planned.

These lists are made to soak up as much fire as possible and at the same time deliver as big punch as possible. This leads to having a lot of heavy armor which costs you a lot of points but it keeps you alive quite long. Just remember that again you need to work together with your infantry and tanks. Your tanks can't handle assaulting infantry and your infantry can't handle assaulting tanks. And remember to use Carius, get him with a clear lines of sight, just keep him near a forest or house to force those planes to range in on you!

HQ
Compulsory sPzJg HQ 1* Jagdtiger 270
Replace CinC with Carius 85 reluctant veteran

In my lists Carius is a must. With mere 85 points you get to hit everything with their base value at any range up to 120cm/48". You get to ignore concealment and +1 to hit for targets over 40cm/16". And as you ignore concealment your enemy can't benefit of having +1 from Gone to Ground either. This works also inside smoke but here the smoke limits your range to 40cm/16".

He's the ultimate sniper and his primary targets are gun teams and tanks. Also Carius is very useful on taking down enemy artillery.

Combat
You must have one platoon equipped with Jagdtigers and you may have up to two platoons. Al these are reluctant trained so you'll get hit easier but unless you expose your side armor, you'll be fine. Just take a look at enemy artillery and planes.

Compulsory sPzJg platoon 1* Jagdtiger 270 reluctant trained

One individual Jagdtiger can be used to protect one flank with infantry or it can be your platoon in reserve. Won't be nearly as good as Carius but it will still be an asset you can use to channel your enemies movement. Again, remember to use houses and forest against planes as this is just one tank and then the platoon is gone!

Weapons
Here you have an option to get some AAA in a forms of Wirbelwinds or Ostwinds. Ostwinds would be better for their longer range and higher AT and better FP but at the cost of RoF. I think here it's a bit "take what you like" situation so I won't be going any deeper.

Panzer AA Gun platoon 3* Wirbelwind 110 reluctant trained

With mere 110 points you get a good anti-infantry and anti light vehicle unit. But again you need to remember that these have FA 3 and won't stand a chance if put against anything with a big gun. Also use these to limit the places where your enemy can put his AOP or plane. With RoF 6 per vehicle, they are able to take down a full flight of three planes with ease.

Support

Support platoons will give your force some diversity and serious punch. With 6 boxes of options from reluctant conscript Volkssturms to reluctant veteran King Tigers you have the options to give your Jagdtigers a screening force or add more high anti tank, smoke or AA or even the latest Wonderweapon, the Arado 234 B.

sPz platoon 2* Königstiger (Henschel) 600 reluctant veteran
Panzergrenadier platoon 7* panzerfaust/MG, 4* Sd Kfz 251/1 215 reluctant veteran
Air Support Sporadic FW 190F 100

I've chosen to have a bit of all in my list to cope with different situations.

First I've taken Panzergrenadiers as a screening force. They have MGs and half-tracks to stop enemy infantry from assaulting and panzerfausts to stop those tanks even before they think about assaulting. Half-tracks also helps to redeploy if needed and gives me the option to use mounted assault. As veterans these are hard to dig out but as reluctant you may want to stay out of close combat unless you are 100% sure of winning.

My second option is to have some more AT with two King Tigers. With TAS these guys can be a real pain in the ass and can hold out their own on one flank until reinforcements arrive. Also against Soviet tank hordes it helps to have some impenetrable hulls, even SU-100s will have a hard time against these. Just stay near forests and houses and try to position them so that enemy spotters can't get a clear line of sight on you without moving.

With only 100 points left I've opted to take some indirect fire from Luftwaffe, FW 190F. This will force my enemy to spread out and it can be sent after artillery batteries to give them something else to think about. It will have a really free time operating as my forces will most likely not to attack with Defenders of the Ruhr special rule so I won't be going to end up to close to it to stop it from doing its job.

There you have a 1650 points force with 4 platoons and air support. It can assault but it must be done very late in the game. It can dig out guns and infantry and defeat tank hordes to some degree, 20+ T-34s and long table edges deployment would be a very bad thing though.

Up to 1780 points
Now lets take a look at on one way of upgrading the list to 1780 points. 130 points more to use, you could take one more platoon to get 5 platoons. But as with most of the missions the defender has reserves in many of them and that makes having 5 platoons a bit bad thing.

Instead what I've opted to do is, I dropped one Wirbelwind and the FW 190F air support to get one more Jagdtiger and opted to have it as 2iC. This way I will always have two Jagdtigers to put on the field (enemies be afraid!).

I can now have 4 (or 5 if I like) tank killers on the field when facing tank hordes with 50/50 missions. The other options are all good but very dependent on the enemy. For example 5 tanks on the field against combined arms may be a bad idea.

And there you have it, 1780 points and still with 4 platoons.

Thanks you for reading and as always comments are welcome.

15th Panzer division, 8th regiment, 4th company. EW

Here a quick photo about my EW lists. Will do more about this, but these are mostly from gamodls. 8-rads BF.

The List will have 88's with Huebner plus what you see here. Gotta love the compactness of the EW Panzer, now let's meet those T-34's :) And not meet those unarmed sappers. :)

German Mittlere Panzer

Tank Company, from Hellfire and Back, page 62

Compulsory Mittlere Panzerkompanie HQ (p.63) - CinC Panzer IV D, 2iC Panzer IV D (300 pts)
- Sd Kfz 9 half-track (5 pts)

Compulsory Mittlere Panzer Platoon (p.63) - Command Panzer IV D, 2x Panzer IV D (450 pts)

Light Panzer Platoon (p.63) - Command Panzer II C (late), 2x Panzer II C (late), 2x Panzer I (245 pts)

Heavy Panzerspah Platoon (p.73) - Command Sd Kfz 231 (8-rad), Sd Kfz 231 (8-rad) (95 pts)

Luftwaffe Heavy Anti-aircraft Gun Platoon (p.89) - Command SMG, 2x 8.8cm FlaK36 gun (390 pts)
- Replace 8.8cm Flak36 gun with Arnold Hubner (60 pts)
- Kfz 15 field car, Sd Kfz 7 half-track per gun (5 pts)


1550 Points, 4 Platoons

Tactica Jagdtiger Chapter 1 - Reluctant Veterans

Prolog

Hi all!

Now I have been a big fan of Jagdtigers for as many years that I've know these Kitty-Cats and once they were introduced into FoW in "Nuts!" I knew my time had come.

There are only two books which lets you to field these mighty Kitty-Cats on the fields of battle, in "Nuts!" and "Bridge at Remagen". In these books you have many ways to field the biggest FVs of the history, be that a schwere panzerjägerkompanie or infantry company with Jagdtigers as a support choice. Many of you have also read different articles on using and building lists with Jagdtigers in them.

As a fan and keen to help fellow gamers I want to bring to the light some formations and tactics of mine when using Jagdtigers in a schwere panzerjägerkompanie. Now there are three possible variants, reluctant veterans from "Nuts!", and confident veterans and reluctant trained versions from "Bridge at Remagen". I only have experience with reluctant veteran and reluctant trained versions of these so I'll stick with them here.

Further more I'll divide this tactica into two chapters so it'll be easier to follow.

This first part will concentrate on reluctant veteran version from "Nuts!".

Reluctant Veterans

 

For reluctant veterans I have two different lists. We're first going to take a look at the 1650 points list and how to use it. And finally we'll take a look on how to upgrade it to 1780 points.

As your force has been rated as Tank Company, you'll be attacking a lot. You'll need to have assets that can pull that off while still being able to defend your own end. Jagdtigers are a good force to pop dug in infantry and guns with their long range and breakthrough guns before your infantry assaults them. Just be careful with flanking TDs and tank forces as your Jagdtigers will get beaten badly from side shots. Take them out first or block their movement with your infantry.

In Nuts! you'll have to have HQ and 2 compulsory platoons with Jagdtigers. Minimum count for FVs in HQ and platoon is one so that gives us 3 Jagdtigers minimum.

HQ
Compulsory sPzJg HQ 1* Jagdtiger 345

Combat
Compulsory sPzJg platoon 1* Jagdtiger 345
Compulsory sPzJg platoon 1* Jagdtiger 345

This gives us a good start for long range anti tank work. But the cost is great, 1035 for three Jagdtigers, so we'll need to keep other platoons cheap.

Weapons
PzJg AA gun platoon 2* Wirbelwind 100
 
Next up is the weapons platoon. What I've though is we need some cover from all of those AOPs and tank hunting planes so I've invested into two Wirbelwinds for 100 points. This unit can also be used against light vehicles and infantry who are trying to harras my Big Cats. Just try to keep them out of the line of AT fire.

Support
Last we have our support options. You can have two infantry platoons in your force. These include Volksgrenadier Sturms, Volksgrenadier Schützens and Volks pioniers, both as confident veterans and reluctant traineds. And SS-panzergrenadiers and SS-panzerpioniers as fearless traineds.

You have one box for artillery. Here you have a wide range of options from 10.5cm leFH18s through 15cm NW41s to 15cm sFH18s. These come as infantry RT, CV or FT Volks troops or SS troops.

Then we have some more AA in a form of FT SS 3,7cm FlaK43s or 2cm Flakvierlings 38s. And last but not leas we have either FW190 or Sturmvogel as Sporadic Air Support option.

SS-Panzergrenadier platoon 225
SS-Panzerpionier platoon with supply truck 220
Volks Rocket Launcher Battery 3* 15cm NW41s 70

For my list I've gone for SS-Panzergrenadiers for their possibility to use as an assault force and thanks to their MGs for defensive work. In offence you'll need to be careful because your being only trained but in my view it's not that bad on defence.

For my second infantry platoon I've gone for SS-Panzerpioniers with a supply truck. This gives me barbed wire or a minefield and an option for flamethrowers which are always handy if needing to attack.

Last I've filled my list up with some ever usefull nebelwerfers. These are to block LoS from enemy AT assets or some other threats or to rain HE shells into the mids of infantry.

That's it, 1650 points on a nose and 6 platoons.

Up to 1780 points
So what would I change to 1780 points. Not much as with 130 points more to use I'd not take a one full platoon as that'd take me to 7 platoons which is not preferred with this list.

I'd either think about upgrading SS-Panzerpionier platoon to CV Volks pionier platoon to have more assaulting bodies. This would then come my primary assault force.

Second upgrade would be SS-Panzergrenadiers to be upgraded into CV Volksgrenadier Sturm platoon. They'd be my close support unit for Jagdtigers with their assault rifles and panzerfausts.

And here we have 1780 points.

Hope you like it.

In Chapter 2 we'll take a look at reluctant trained version of 512. Schwere Panzerjäger Abteilung.