[Mike]

I disagree. There is no assault on the vehicle. If the man makes contact then remove the dude and resolve the penetration. Contact with the vehicle is all that is required and generally the vehicle never knew the guy was coming to tell the guys inside to get out. If he was going to fight out an assault then sure the dismounts get to intervene but since its just contact and no actual assaulting I think the AT dudes rules over ride the normal assaulting a transport rules. It can go both ways though and would need a ruling from warlord and I am surprised it hasn’t been FAQ’d

[Mike]

I am using the small 2nd edition book that came with band of brothers. I know that units cannot voluntarily go off the table. So the vehicle will hit the edge of the table and then start driving backwards across the field along the table edge until it finally passes an orders test? Seems a bit weird that a unit would drive in reverse around the field continuously even possibly towards the enemy. (She failed 2 rally orders and three advances with only 2 pins)

[Mike]

The Russian dude only effects experience level to wound. Kieffer flat out says it takes a 6 to wound him. Thus RAW it takes a 6+.

[Mike]

As someone who has crewed a weapons team and has seen how much damage period ones can take before being unusable(capture from ww2 ) its not that easy. Hell pretty much everyone in a US infantry platoon when I was in knew how to operate a 50cal. The driver of my 113 who was stuck in a maintenance yard was hit by OpFor and he jumped on a 50 he never previously messed with(he was in the yard literally to babysit it). But thats why we have the 4+ roll to roll to see if the gun or the gunner died, similar to the German NCO rule if someone is motivated or experienced  enough to take over.

I do really like the switching it to an artillery status. That makes it useful while not negating snipers at the same time.

[Mike]

Think my wife would shoot/divorce me if I flew 3 thousand miles across the country, got a hotel room in Las Vegas, just to play a wargame I could play on the dining room table all weekend. 😛

[Mike]

Obviously the way you get around this rule is to have two five man fire teams and say they are a squad and have two transports. That’s generally how it was doen when I was in mechanized infantry. One fire team in one Brad and another fire team in the other. Due to us being chronically undermanned, each platoon only had one over strength squad of either two big fire teams or two teams and a hunter killer team riding in a third Brad.

[Mike]

Its not that game breaking. Troops can simply shoot from an open topped transport. 40k has been doing it for many editions now. Transport moves, then guys inside get the penalty for moving. Vehicle gets pins, so do the guys inside. You can measure from the troop compartment for range. Its not hard at all.

I also cant stand the stupid capture thing on transports. The drivers were trained to defend themselves with submachine guns. They didn’t just casually roll over and die plus you have the gunner on the top with a machine gun and cover from the vehicle itself. At a minimum if there is going to be a capture then the squad doing the capture should have to take an action to move base to base, not simply be closer than friendly models. “Oh no, there are enemy troops 24″ away and my allies are 25″ away. I surrender!”

[Mike]

Well that’s stupid. That was the standard doctrine for Panzer Grenadiers. They didn’t get out of their transports unless absolutely needed and were taught specifically to fight from them using the armor as a mobile pill box to keep up with the tanks.

Not sure if that was American doctrine for its armored infantry.

[Mike]

Cool well defined scheme.

I looked at your website, some really great looking models and battlefields on there. I see you guys doing the African thing, ever try to pull off a Monte Cassino style assault?

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Mike.

[Mike]

So essentially I can paint the camo portions pretty much the same? Trying a different method with my heer than I have my current FJs, but figure I will get to my several boxes of FJs eventually and my new method appears to be much faster and easier.

[Mike]

I have home ruled in my Italian campaign book that artillery observers after they pop their main blast can switch freqs to the company frequency and act as additional spotters for friendly on board artillery and mortars that get them. Makes for more realistic use of the dudes you spent 100+ points on to actually have a job and isn’t game breaking.

[Mike]

So there are multiple opportunities to hit even though you have to roll no better than a 6 each time to do it. I have found against me, 6s come up with frightening regularity. A big building is going to have a very large area of effect as well.

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Mike.

[Mike]

Game I played yesterday, sniper took out an HMG team, ranger sgt and LMG, and came close twice to killing another HMG team. Snipers are deadly to teams. The rule should be if the gunner is taken out, on a 2+ a loader takes over and the team now suffers the pin and a -1 for missing a team member.

I understand the need to prevent the half tracks from being mobile MMG boxes, but not all of us play hyper competitively and we shouldnt be punished for the actions of a few. They are already open topped giving an auto pin if hit and a 6+ for even non penetrating weapons to do damage and kill on a 3+. So they are incredibly easy to kill or reduce efficiency to the point of uselessness. Having a squad arbitrarily be closer auto-killing them is too much of an additional penalty to people who want to field a mech list. Or give them a bonus for suppressing units that threaten their infantry squad but now we are turning them into 40k tau.

[Mike]

Having a unit and wanting to paint cool uniforms does not make one obsessed with a particular army type.

I played today using FJs in place of the SS both in points and models(also making me wonder why I am bothering since I already have the army with FJs)

The engineers managed to get out of their transport, kill a big nasty US tank(bigger than a Sherman I think) with their panzerfausts and then fail to hit at point blank with a flame thrower a nearby ranger squad who later just shot them to pieces. Managed to pull a either a tie or slight win on taking a bridge when the panzershrek team ran to a ford in the river for a victory point after not having fired a shot all game. Despite all the MGs my FJs and their transports could not dig the rangers out of cover or their downed condition, conversely when they were pinned and down they werent doing anything either except contesting the main bridge.

I did not realize my half tracks could be killed by having other troops near them. I thought they were considered armored carriers and not in the same category as trucks. Makes no sense as they have crews and machine guns more vicious than most squads coming at them. One of many rules that needs to change. Ill start a new thread on that, there are some goofy rules which make zero sense both in game and in real life.

Going to switch and do a Panzer Div grenadier force. I dislike open topped vehicles so I am changing some odds and ends based on silliness in the rules I observed that I didnt know or think about.
2nd lt + guy
Heer grenadier vet x9 ,2 LMG, 1 faust
Heer grenadier vet x9, 6 SMGs, 2 fausts
Heer Grenadier vet x8, 2 LMGs
Heer grenadier vet x8, 2 LMGs 2 fausts, Assault rifle on sgt
Assault Engineers x10, 6 SMGs(including sgt), flamethrower, grenade launcher, 2 fausts, AT grenades
Vet Sniper
Medic + guy (to extend the buff)
Medium Artillery regular + spotter
Medium Mortar regular + spotter
Panzer IV with side skirts. It was this or a Stug. 5 point difference, 1 extra non coax machine gun, tiger fear(however you feel about it)
250/1 to drive the engineers where needed.

I would love to use a Jagdpanzer instead of the Pz4 but for less weapons, no turret, same main gun, no tiger fear, same chassis, but costs another 20-30 points more for no reason. Oh well, I have a PZ4 mostly painted I have never used. Pz4s were fairly common so it works. I took out the Puma I had and added another grenadier squad, threw in an assault rifle on the sgt just because. I didn’t spam them at least. Thinking about tossing a pair on the LT and his assistant so they can contribute a little more.

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Mike.

[Mike]

There was one SS Panzer Recon regiment in Italy. They committed some reprisal war crimes against the local populace. Yeah a 75mm gun is nice but kind of goes against the rapid deployment idea. I was actually thinking of adding in the SdKfz with the mortar in the back and ditching the one on the ground. I only made the transport with the AT gun a vet vehicle, everything else was just a regular just to help it a bit. I also added the fausts in all the mobile squads while the LMG squad sits back and provides fire support. At this point in the war, with Germany refusing to send further reinforcements to Italy, under strength and under equipped squads were the norm, not the exception, and these guys had been taking part in the Anzio battle.

In the TO&E I read which is linked on my computer at work and not here, all of these vehicles were pretty standard to an SS recon unit. I tried to go as fluffy as I could under the constraints of the reinforced platoon system. I am actually fielding this list over the weekend using my FJ army since they have the exact same equipment options but I am working on making new guys SS since I am tired of painting Splinter 😛

[Author]

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