Category: D-Day: Waffen-SS

With Adam Brooker

This time I’m going to be looking at a fun list for me. Ever since I’ve seen the D-Day: German books came out, I have been really tempted to start an Armoured Panzergrenadier list. I just really like the models, an almost entirely mechanised force, and its fast aggressive play style.  Because it is essentially light armour, you will need to find a weak spot in opponents’ line to exploit. You do this by using your excellent mobility to manoeuvre around defences or focus your firepower to blast through it. To do this you will need tanks.  Now Tigers may be ideal for this, but Tigers are easy and everyone takes them, I like a challenge, and I’ve never been one for doing what everyone else is doing!!

I really enjoy playing fast maneuverable lists with, good attacking power (glass cannons), using the terrain and movement orders to get the best from your forces. But it is a hard list to play, you may lose a few battles until you really perfect your list and the play style, but it is ALWAYS FUN!! Which is why most of us play right!!??

So I’ve gone with Panthers, they are a bit faster and a bit cheaper compared to Tigers, and you just have to watch their flanks, but they do have great frontal armour and excellent guns!! But they are vulnerable to getting shot in the side in defensive fire when assaulting, and against anything with high AT weapons in assault, so they have their limitations. But they are not there to do the assaulting, they are there mostly for blowing shit up and looking awesome!!

Assaulting is what the HQ, Armoured Panzergrenadiers, and Flame Thrower Halftracks are for!! But you will need to soften the enemy up first, as you don’t have the numbers to have a slog-fest of attrition. This list is very much about picking a target, focusing it, destroying it (or making it combat ineffective) and then moving onto the next target. You will need to have a plan here for your target selection, both for what units you want to attack and what enemy attacking units you want to take out first.

The idea here is that your aggressive unit placement and movement will put your opponent off balance. He will probably have a plan against the objective you are going to defend, but will need to pull more and more forces away to deal with your attacking units.

Also, an easy option for Reserves is the Panthers and Jagdpanzer IV, a quick 40 points if you do have to put forces in Reserve. Although you are lacking the normal Lucky card I take to try to make sure your Reserves turn up when you need them to.

So let’s talk about the units….

One different unit here I don’t normally take is the Flame Halftracks. The Armoured SS Flame-Thrower platoon is very cheap for the amount of devastation they can cause. Normally flame tanks cost almost as much as normal tanks, but don’t have the large main gun, but a very short ranged flamethrower. But at 6 points for 4 Half-tracks, capable of spitting out 16 shots a turn (at 4” range), that require the enemy infantry to re-roll any saves they make, and auto destroys any dug in infantry or gun teams, I’m prepared to see how it works out! Now admittedly they cannot charge into combat, but they can shoot in defensive fire if an infantry unit is dumb enough to charge you.

But what they can do is roll up to the defended position and unleash hellfire all over it, pinning the unit automatically and hopefully significantly reducing the defenders. These are the perfect unit to soften up the enemy before your main assault, the auto pin is especially useful. The only thing to be careful of is protecting them as they advance as they have very little armour.

The defending units for you will be the Panzergrenadier platoon, the mortars and Wespes, the 7.5cm anti-tank guns. You should have a solid base with those units to defend one objective. Units like the Jagdpanzer IV and 7.5cm Armoured Gun Platoon can be used as either in an offensive or defensive way, and once the enemy attacking units are blunted, can be quickly repositioned in attack.

Also the great thing about your artillery units, the mortars and Wespe, is that they are mobile, so if they do try to counter battery you, you can easily move once they have ranged in on you. If you are lucky you can even attempt a blitz to move, and still fire or bombard in the same phase.

I do have to let you know how much I really like the 7.5cm Armoured Gun Platoon, and that it’s one of my favourite units of this list. It pretty much exemplifies the ‘Glass Cannon’ unit type. They have almost no armour, reasonable manoeuvrability, and a good cross check. Strapped to the half-track is an AT9 HEAT cannon with 24” range and 3+ Firepower check, and 6 of them can SPAM 12 shots a round with a good Blitz roll. Put them behind a hill, and a quick Blitz, a salvo and a Scoot and Shoot will give a lot of tank lists headaches. Also as they are part of your formation, they can be affected by the Old Hand rule, so a 3+ Tactics check instead of 4+ as long as your HQ is within 6”.

I also want to add how much I like the Old Hand rule for the SS in Late War. The improved 3+ Tactics roll, as long as the Formation HQ is within 6” of the Formation Unit Leader, is a great mechanic. It has a lot of character, with the core veteran SS officers having to pass on years of hard won combat experience, not in the practice fields with time and patience, but having to pass it on to barely trained replacements in the crucible of battle. It really represents how many veteran SS Divisions from the Eastern Front had been bled dry or had troops re-assigned from veteran units to form new ones (eg. 17^th SS or 10^th SS Divisions, and 1^st SS replacements). It also shows how the Germans were really struggling for both man-power and experienced troops at this point of the war. They were reaching their limits, and it was starting to show, and this simple rule illustrates it well,

So your Formation HQ unit is very important in SS Formations, and to me it suggests using them aggressively, to keep them moving around the battlefield, so your formation units can get the best out of their movement orders and tactics rolls, as well as the normal HQ benefits of re-rolls.

I will say this list will not be easy for a beginner to use, it requires you to know not only the strengths and weaknesses of your own list, but your opponents as well. But…. once you get the hang of it, I find these kinds of lists immensely fun to play.

So if you want to play a different sort of list, with a bit of a challenge, I suggest you give it a go. But most importantly always have fun!

~Adam

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

With Wayne Turner

Chris challenged me to put together a Waffen-SS force from the models I had already painted for my D-Day: German force. As I had already painted well over 100 points this might give me an opportunity to get more of my painted  models on the table.

The rating of the Waffen-SS troops are different than those of the Heer Panzer troops featured in D-Day: German, with lower Skill rating of Trained 4+, and Aggressive Hit On 3+, but higher Motivation with Fearless 3+. However, their commanders are Skill Veteran and have the Old Hands rule that gives units in 6”/15cm Tactics 3+.

The bulk of my collection so far is made up of Panzer IVs, so the starting with the Panzer IV SS Tank Company is a good starting point. How many Panzer IVs can I stuff in this force.

That’s uses all 14 of my Panzer IV tanks for just 64 points (compared to 77 points from D-Day: German). Adding my Panthers to this will cost 26 points bringing the total to 90 points.

So what to spend the last 10 points on? I have Sd Kfz 250/9 Scouts, 8.8cm Heavy AA, Nebelwerfers, or Panzergrenadiers.

Some artillery seems like a good idea and with the last points, Three more points to spend, so how about some reconnaissance.

To get me to 100 points I’ll add the Lucky Command Card. I still had Tigers, 88s, or Panzergrenadiers I could have added.

~Wayne