With John Lee
I love building recon formations and with the release of D-Day: Waffen-SS, I decided to explore all the recon formations available in the command card pack. The Half Track SS Scout Company looks interesting and similar to the Armored Car Company.
The formation comprises the following:
- 1 HQ Unit
- 2-8 Sd Kfz 250 SS Scout Troops
- 0-1 SS Reconnaissance Platoon
We end up with a relatively strong formation with a minimum of three units and a maximum of ten units! So, if we max out the scout troops and take the infantry platoon, we should end up with a unit count of eleven – difficult to break especially if we take some Command Card upgrades. The scout troops have three vehicles in each platoon so can hang around if you are not too reckless with them. For this article though, I am going to take six of the scout troops not eight.
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 27pts and has eight units in the Formation and six 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 recon unit lists shine – more flexibility with smaller points than other formations. Looking at a standard 100pt game we have 73 points left to play with.
We want to have some high-end AT support and artillery and there are some cool upgrade cards to make some interesting combinations.
First, we take a full unit of 8.8cm Tank-Hunters for 18pts and apply the command card “8.8cm Tank-Hunter” for an additional 1pt to make then dual purpose by giving them an ability to bombard like an artillery unit. Confident, Veteran, Careful 48” direct fire 48” range AT17 guns, with 88” artillery range for bombardment AT2 FP4+.
Second, we take the 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 and being nests means they need to re-roll Firepower tests to take them out. We can also add the Command Card Upgrade of “Best Guns” to make then Careful hit on 4+ for an additional 1pt per gun.
With both units you can control and deny whole areas of the table including digging out enemy infantry and gun teams as well as killing tanks at range. Having multiple Spearhead units in certain missions, you can expand your kill zones.
Now we really should take some sort of armor – I love the StuG, and as we have eight AT14 or higher gun platforms already, I feel Tigers and Panthers would be overkill. A maxed out StuG SS Tank Platoon of five costs 24pts and upgrade them using the Command Card –“The Best StuG” for an additional 2pts per tank for 34pts. They become Fearless, Veteran, Careful and they can Assault on 4+ instead of 5+. At 34pts, they become your main reserve unit and you can put three of the Scout Troops in reserve with them to get to the 40pt threshold for reserves.
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 Stugs for Tigers, Panthers or Panzer IVs.
Here is an example list for a 50pt 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