With John Lee
I love building recon Formations and with the release of D-Day: Waffen-SS, I was pleasantly surprised to see one of my favorites from Mid War – the Armored Car Company. So, I was excited to see how I could build a list for Late War.
The formation comprises the following:
- 1 HQ Unit
- 2-6 Sd Kfz 221 & 222 SS Scout Troops
- 1-3 Sd Kfz 231 SS Scout Troops
- 0-1 SS Reconnaissance Platoon
We end up with a relatively strong formation with a minimum of four units and a maximum of eleven units! So, if we max out the light scout troops and take the infantry platoon, we should end up with a unit count of nine – difficult to break especially if we take some command card upgrades. The light scout troops have three vehicles in each platoon as per Mid War.
Now bear in mind that everything in the Formation will be Fearless, Trained, Aggressive. Fearless means they are more likely to stick around however they are easier to be hit on 3+ so you want to optimize the Scout attribute with the armored cars as much as you can so they are hit on 5s or 6s.
This is how I would look at building the base Formation (which you can tailor depending on points required):
This comes in at 32pts and has nine units in the Formation and seven units capable of Spearhead. Giving the infantry the “Best Infantry” Command Card upgrade, they are now Fearless, Veteran, Careful. This unit is now harder to hit, can Blitz and Stormtrooper on 3+ and being Fearless make them dangerous.
With the core formation done, we now need to look at what support options could be taken. With the ability to choose from either D-Day: Waffen-SS or D-Day: German black box units, you can mix and match what you want to suit your playstyle – especially when choosing between either Fearless and Confident and/or Aggressive and Careful. Support options need to be taken from the D-Day: Waffen-SS chart.
So, let us look at what we need to consider from a support perspective for this list. They should be supported by tanks, high end AT, artillery and what we need to cater for around reserves. Most games are 100pts, but several tournaments are smaller in points – some one-day games have even gone to 50-60pt games to get four or five quicker fast paced games. This is where Armored Car lists shine – more flexibility with smaller points than other formations. Looking at a standard 100pt game we have 68 points left to play with.
I like to look at combining a high-end AT unit as close to 40pts as possible to have one unit in reserve. The Tiger SS Tank Platoon is awesome – 2+ Morale, Veteran, Careful, 2+ cross checks, FA9, SA8, TA2, and AT14 with 40” range. This iconic monster tick’s multiple boxes for me. High-end AT, Assault beast, moves easily through difficult terrain and range of the gun is 40”. A platoon of three comes in at 37pts. Add the “Tiger Ace” command card for 3pts and you now have your single reserve unit.
Artillery next and I am looking at the 15cm SS Nebelwerfer Battery of three for 7pts with the Command Card Upgrade of “Best Guns” to make then Careful hit on 4+ for an additional 1pt per gun.
We should add an observer for 1pt – take your pick here of the Panzer III OP or Sd Kfz 250 OP.
We need to keep our opponent honest if our Tigers are in delayed reserve so let’s take a 8.8cm SS Heavy AA Platoon for 10pts and add the “PAK Front” Command Card for 6pts to give us the ability to spread them out across our deployment area. Being Nests means that your opponent needs to re-roll Firepower tests to take them out. You can control and deny areas of the board with these and with multiple spearhead units in certain missions, expand your kill zones.
That makes 100pts – Here is the full list:
For a smaller sided game or tournament, you can change out some of the formation units, remove some of the command card upgrades, change the Tigers for Panthers or Panzer IVs or StuGs.
Here is an example list for a 60pt game:
This command card formation can provide some interesting options and can take on the British and American recon formations with similar numbers. I hope this has given you some food for thought. Happy list building!
~John