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.