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| My company command and 2ic Panzer IV tanks... |
When it comes to gaming, I always try to "plan before I buy". The main reason is that it gives me a specific "to buy" list when I go to the LGS, which helps cut down on buying excess models that I wont/can't use in a given armylist. Flames of War is no different. My first list is a Late War German Panzer kompanie (German spelling). As I stated in an earlier post, I'm focusing entirely on Operation Husky/Shingle, the allied invasion of Sicily and mainland Italy. Through some research, I came across the Hermann Göring Panzer Division, and found their overall history interesting. (Side note: one of my favorite things about FoW is all the research opportunities involved.)
Let me preface this with a couple of things. First, I wanted a list that was fairly historically accurate. The numbers differ slightly depending on which resources you look at, but the Dog's & Devils list the HG Panzer Division as having the following around the time I'm focusing on: 46 Panzer III's, 32 Panzer IV's, 20 StuG G's, 9 StuH 42's, and 17 Tigers were also attached to the unit during the invasion of Sicily, which I kept in mind when creating my list. For my list, I've chosen to focus primarily on the Panzer IV's and StuGs. It's a bit unclear to me exactly which Kompanie held the Panzer IV's (again due to some discrepancies), one of my resources listed them as being in the 2nd Battalion, 7th Kompanie, and the StuGs as being in 3rd battalion, 11th Kompanie, so I ended up going with that. I've started out at 1750 points, as my starting goal, with the hope of being to raise or lower the point values if need be, and I currently do have a total of 2,000+ points purchased. Anyway, enough talk, on with the list...
Late War, 1750 pts. "Dogs & Devils" book.
Hermann Göring 7th Panzerkompanie.
HQ - 195 pts
2x Panzer IV H's + kfz 9 (18t) recovery vehicle.
COMBAT PLATOONS - 1,170 pts
4x Panzer IV H's
4x Panzer IV H's
4x Panzer IV H's
DIVISIONAL SUPPORT - 385 pts
3x StuG G's
HG Heavy Panzerspäh Platoon (1 Platoon)
TOTAL: 1,750 pts
First off, I'm sure this is far from a perfect list, but I hope it comes across as somewhat historical. I'm playing a Panzerkompanie, so my main goal to was field an actual Kompanie! (or as close to as possible) The D&D book caps each Kompanie at 4 tanks each, and there is also the issue/debate of 3 Platoons in a Kompanie or 4 Platoons per Kompanie. For the sake of points, I chose to go with 3 platoons instead of the 4, the idea being that after the results of fighting in Sicily, that they may have suffered a few losses. Should I choose otherwise, I could drop the StuGs and the Panzersäh to fit in a 4th Panzer IV H platoon.
Other issues I can see with the list, strictly from a "theorycrafting" perspective as I have no game experience, is that I feel I'm a bit light on recon with only 1 platoon of 2 vehicles, but I feel I could not really fit more in without sacrificing something like the StuGs. (Which I wanted in the list so that it wasn't all Panzer IV's) Stats wise, there really is not much difference between the StuG G's and the Panzer IV's, aside from 1 extra point of armor. The StuG's gun IS hull mounted however, and does seem to have a slightly smaller model profile. The list caps off at an anti-tank rating of 11, which could make coming up against heavy tanks a bit of an issue, my only hope is that the more the opponent has invested in heavier tanks, the less he'll have on the field. My hope is that should I encounter a heavy tank that my AT 11 cannot tackle, that I'd have the numbers to outflank them, and hopefully catch them from the side/rear. Either way, I think it presents an interesting challenge! Finally, I'm a big fan of the bf 109 planes, and while they do not seem entirely reliable on the table, (along with the fact that there currently is no FoW model) I would have liked to fit one in, just for fun.
There you have it! That is my current LW list that I have bought and am building towards. I hoped I'd be able to transition it directly into a MW list from the "North Africa" book, but I'm not sure if that would be possible, given the points differences between the books. (3x Panzer III's cost almost the same in the NA book as 4x Panzer IV's do in the D&D book) As I said above, it's probably not perfect, and I have no game experience whatsoever. More so, I just wanted to have some direction, some plan to go with in regards to what to buy. It may not be perfect, but it's a start, and I'm pretty happy with it on paper.
PANZER VOR!
Stug Life!
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