WW2 – Fallschirmjäger – First Engagement

A battle report on my first game using the Fallschirmjäger, for images of the figures and discussion on squad builds see WW2 – Squad Optimisation – Late War Fallschirmjäger, WW2 – More Fallschirmjäger, WW2 – Fallschirmjäger recruits, WW2 – The End of My Fallschirmjäger and WW2 – Bolt Action – German Vehicles.

This was a 1000 pts – friendly game at the October Wargames Club – Below is the list I built for the game

Easy Army List

All I knew about my opponent’s list was that it was to be Late War Soviet 1000 pts, as such I was expecting some armour and hopefully have sufficient to deal with it.

So the table was set – the Soviets got to choose side and the random scenario was Double Envelopment – My opponent had 15 units and I had 9 – so not a great start for a Scenario where winning is based on number of units Max I could achieve by getting all of my units off his table edge was 27 points ( 9 * 3 VP) whilst he could beat this by just getting all of but 1 of his units into my Set-up zone.

So I held back both my vehicles, the Panzerschreck team and the Squad with Panzerfausts, the team and squad were to be mounted in my SdkFz 251/1.

I placed my Pak 40 on the high ground in an attempt to deny my opponent easy placement of his vehicles, however due to the scenario I had to spread my forces out in an attempt to stop his progress across the table, the sniper, Officer and 1 squad were on the left hand side to take the village. Then was the PAK 40 and behind the forests on the right my last squad of my initial deployment.

During the first turn, my opponent opened up on my PAK 40, with his mortar, howitzer and sniper – with some unlucky roles he only removed 1 team member and put 2 pins on it.

Instead of moving forward as I had intended, my sniper returned fire on his gun

One of his squads on my left managed to PIN my Sniper

On the right my unit moved forward and fired trying to pin his artillery, but the dice were not with me.

The soviets on my right hand side of the table, an inexperienced squad, Inexperienced mortar, Lease lend M3, Commissar and snipers.

The soviets advance through the town on my left of the table, 2 veteran squads, and hidden by the vehicles another M3 and a jeep with flamethrower team.

My defenders for the village, Officer, Sniper, SdkFz 251/10 and Squad with 2 LMGs.

I brought my SdkFz 251/1 on the right with the Panzerschreck and extra squad on, it advanced with a view to disembark the contain troops into the woods over the road. My reinforcements on the right came underfire from his Lease Lend M3 got hit with a crew stunned result and pinned.

In turn 3 a recce universal carrier and truck containing the office and engineers arrived, I got the first 2 order dice – and managed to disembark a unit with 2 LMGS in to the woods in front of the truck – 10 dice of LMG fire, 1 hit, it damaged and caused the truck to be destroyed – the officer was killed in the truck and the engineers only got a pin.

The Howitzer and sniper continued to bombard my PAK 40

I pushed the non LMG team forward, with a hope of pinning/routing the engineers, 4 rifles,2 Assault Rifles and an SMG – no hits.

The lease lend M3 on the left opened up and wiped my veteran squad off the table, managing to kill 4 even though only 1 was visible and the squad then failed its moral.

My officer was wiped out by the Veteran squads in the village, my SdkFz 251/10 was the left un attended and was removed when the Jeep and flame throwers became the /closest unit. The PAK 40 was wiped by the continued barrage of fire. At this point I had an SdkFz 251/10 with 8 pins, containing a Panzerschreck team with 6 pins, a sniper team and 1 squad of Veterans only with rifles and assault rifles, in return I had blown up 1 Truck and killed an officer. I toppled my king and called it a day.

So what were my learnings, well I hate M3’s too many shots for so little prices, I potentially need some new dice or at least better prayers to the god of dice and the LMG assault rifle heavy squads have an issue when they start taking casualties – you either have to lose an operational LMG or an assault rifle. Also possibly I should have played a more defensive game and forced him to throw his troops at mine, however I am not sure that this would have changed the result.

I do believe that the outcome of my IMPACTFULNESS calculator regarding the difference between Veteran and Regulars is true – possibly next time I take these out for a match I may use the Green Fallschrimjager option with the hope of getting a few regular troops but definately being able to field more squads.