Panzerfaust traps - the use of weapons

Since Bridge at Remagen has trap teams in the SS Westfalen, I thought I'd share my theories on tactics, based on my experiences with the FJ traps that are similar.

They can be deployed basically anywhere, so if you are facing big tank platoons with craploads of machine guns, it's not necessarily a good idea to drop them in front of them, being trained they will get hurt and be just a 20 points wasted.

But where they excel is in removing bailed and bogged tanks. Enemy has to attack, so he'll have to move, you hit those tanks, some will bail out, some will be bogged. And the enemy needs to either babysit these, or leave em to the reaper ;D

The old trick that involves a lot of good dice rolled is best utilized versus western/German tank platoons. Pick a spot, pop all the traps, and assault the bailed with the last trap. You kill a platoon with Jumbo and 2 E8's with this and the points will be well spent.

It was a late, late war, and the weather wasn't too nice either. Of RT King Tigers and Optimized Americans.

With later BF books the Germany's diminishing war machine is in the process of getting the crap kicked out of it in the historical view, at least. Game-wise this might lead into strange phenomenon of more and better equipment for less motivated/experienced troops. Something like 11 RT King Tigers won't be fun to attack with any tank force, nor will it itself attack too well any infantry, but let's say you can add 4 PZIVJ's with riders to it?

American troopers will probably be RV's as well, possibly with CV infantry to make it the best combination ever.  The question here is what the hell will the Soviets do in that scenario?

Even now you have to built for combined force that can dig out infantry, attack forts, has enough rof for tank hordes and comfortably deals with couple of heavy tanks, surviving the NGFS while at it. Gonna be another kind of list that can also face 6+ super heavy tanks on top.

Fallschirmjäger Pioneers - the best infantry in the game :)

FJ Pioneers - Rifle/Mg At 4 FV/FT, can take flamethrowers, supply truck what's not to like?

• Price, at ~34 points per team, the FJ pioneer is very, very expensive
• Flamethrower at 34 points, will you use it to pin/destroy CT troops?
• Third platoon of infantry, unless you are one of the brave ones, who try out one of the FJ pioneer lists, this will be your third platoon of infantry, I'm not always happy to have 3 platoons of infantry.
• I will try out a FJ pioneer list in future friendly games, but do not see the point in having these elites on any tourney list of mine.

There are a lot of good things to say about the FJ pioneers, that's for sure, but if you could get them as rifle teams, the price might be better... 

Of FJ and KT or 'Big, Expensive things"

Big, expensive things... Again, this can go both way, as one does not want to lose the big, expensive thing, and the other tries his hardest to avoid it...

Big Expensive thing supported by Fearless Veteran Infantry is a another headache for the attacker, you can't flank the beast, for fear of infantry assault and the 2" rule, and if ignoring the combination is really not possible either..

I personally love the effect when the opponent gets the vision of rooting out FV infantry, while getting slapped by BFG fire, it's quite easy to lose the focus, someone asked me if I'll bring the 2 KT with FJs to tournaments anymore but I think I just might, for that reason alone, only thing I'd like to have in that list is something fast, maybe marders... Pak40 is good, but since it's fairly static, you can't have them in reserve or anywhere too far to start with.

Fallschirmjäger Support Options - The LG40 7.5cm Recoilles rifle

7.5 cm Leichtgeschütz 40

The LG40 is another piece of warfare unique to the fallschirmjäger, it's cheap, packs a decent punch, and is man-packed gun, so gets concealment in the open, and can move with the boys, ROF 2 with AT9 and FP3+ is quite decent in DF. in defense you need to keep these dug-in, stationary, gtg, until the tanks assault, then unleash huge black cloud of smoke and some bang...

PROS: 

- Cheap at 55 points in most Late War books, back in V2 you could create KG out of one LG and 2iC for 2 ultra cheap reserve platoons. Even now, having a 55 points in reserve is very good option to have.

- Surprise factor, 2 guns in defensive fire with possible faust added packs quite a punch, they are easy to ignore for some, others thing they are really fearsome... Both effects on the opponent work.

CONS: 

- Fragile 3 teams, 2 gun teams, it is pretty easy VP if you let it be.

- Recoilless rules means the gun does not fire from inside of a building and more importantly if you fire with it, they don't get concealment for the next turn.

STUNTS to try on with the LG40:

• Add the HQ Stummelwerfers to give them protection, and have a nice weapons platoon, guess you could add the schrecks as well to the platoon if you wanted to have ambush platoon from hell :) Should surprise at least...

Fallschirmjäger Support Options - Stummelwerfer

Kurzer 8 cm Granatwerfer 42 aka Stummelwerfer

This is a weapon system that's very hard to get to grips with, but you can't deny the value for price it brings to FV army list, where everything is very expensive.

At 25 points per mortar, up to 3 Stummels can be had in the HQ, to be dished out as needed.

The FJ Light mortar platoon can be  1 command team with 1-2 sections of 2 mortars plus an observer team.

With the HQ stummels, you can have KG with 2 x 3 mortars platoon, 2 x 2 mortars platoon, or just take the short platoon and attach 1 mortar from the HQ, lot of different ways you can play with these. In half-on last time I had 2 platoons of 2 mortars each in reserves, front loading fun if anything and custom.

2 mortar platoon re-rolls hits (big deal, it's veteran) and creates 1 template smoke, which can be very good as you know exactly where the smoke will be.

So, 

PROS:
- Cheapest smoke available
- Direct fire, with V3 you get ROF 2 FP 3+ weapon system
- Direct Smoke, smoke as you go with attached mortar
- Kampfgruppe customization, very adaptable for platoon amount tweaking
- Manpacked Gun

CONS: 
- Short range only 40" in bombardment, Direct Fire is ok with 8" - 32"
- Hard to master really, these seem to be out of range or on the wrong side of the table often enough.

Fallschirmjäger Support Options - the Tiger II

Tiger 2: You can get this beast using list  from the Grey Wolf eastern front LW supplement. It has impenetrable armor from front, goes straight to firepower with anything but the most heaviest tanks.

Have these in Ambush, Immediate Ambush, to make the best of them.

PROS:
- FA15, nothing hurts it from the front.
- AT16 it can hurt anything
- Psychologically this beast can be the worst opponent, everybody is not expert in this game...
- 2 of these are something that can't be ignored.
- Tiger Ace skills
- Looks

CONS:
- 345 points....per tank, and I really think you should take 2.
- It's Tiger I e for Air/Arty/Infantry
- It's slow and cumbersome
- Smoke makes it move, but again with 2 of these, other moves, other shoots with full ROF