Playing with the cats – Flames of War Bulge Germans on the tabletop

By Tom Gall

With the release of the Battle of the Bulge German forces by Battlefront, the German player is granted a luxurious set of choices for new units to play with for version 4 of Flames of War. This article is about putting together a Volksgrenadier formation with the addition of some of the fun thematic late war German super weapons and playing it against Americans on the tabletop. What works well? What doesn’t?

For a game like this, winter terrain seems perfect for the theme. Pulling out my Gale Force 9 winter trees, and snow banks gives it all a great look. Additionally, the bare fields are just corduroy, simple, cheap, and easy to cut to size. The burning building is a new scratch build so obviously that just HAD to be on the tabletop! There are flicking tea lights inside to give it that fresh burning look.

The game was set at 120 points. My only formation is the Volksgrenadiers along with the all-important command upgrade card to promote the assault and the rifle platoons to be veteran. As each platoon was full strength along with tow panzerschreks added, this hopefully would make for great deterrence against American tankers or other armor.

Bask in the glory that is this card, the core infantry of a Volksgrenadier formation becomes veteran skill, hit on a 4+ and goes to confident motivation. This leaves the rest of the formation to be cheap while giving your core units punch. At +4 points for an as built nine stand platoon (counting the two panzerschreks), this feels like a steal. Remember you have 2 panzerfaust and 2 panzerschrek shots in this platoon.

(Post publishing edit) Wayne from Battlefront has ruled that when it comes to the 12. Volksgrenadierdivision cards, they must be taken all together, this means you can’t have a mixed formation of some cheap Volks platoons and some experienced skilled platoons. It’s an important clarification. For the purposes of this list, it means that a platoon or two would have to be dropped/rearranged to make things fit in the available points.

Also core to the formation are four 12cm mortars, and a platoon of four heavy machine gunners. A Panzer III as an observer, along with four Panzerwerfer 42s in support, round out what should be reasonable artillery.

One item open for interpretation is if the other 12. Volksgrenadierdivision cards must be taken *IF* you include types of units in the formation. For this game 12cm mortars are in the formation, but the heavy weapons card wasn’t taken. It’s not clear as of yet if you have to take the other command cards for the 12. Volksgrenadierdivision. If you are playing in a tournament soon you’ll want to check with your local TO until we get a ruling from Battlefront.

Next are a platoon of three Jadgtigers for a massive 47 points, they probably haven’t been on the tabletop since an AdeptiCon long, long ago when Tom Burgess whooped my butt with what I remember as an American list of some sort that was great at infantry assaults. Nonetheless, the time was now to bring back the big kitties.

Next are a group of three late war Brigade Panthers which are 20 points for three.

We both choose defend and ended up rolling up a Scouts out. Given that I have no Recce in this list, that makes it a little challenging. Winning the initial die roll, I took the far left corner in this picture, which put the Americans on the near right corner.

As the objectives are immediately alive in Scouts out that makes for a strong need to get on the move before reinforcements show up. I put my 3 JadgTigers out as reinforcements, at 47 points, a one-drop unit is great. Not so great, they aren’t exactly speedy units with an 8″ tactical move so chances are they aren’t going to streak across the table and win the day…. let’s call it a slow mosey.

Deployment nearly complete, I put the Rifle Volksgrenadiers in charge of defending the objective next to the graveyard. It’s the tree in this picture and if you look closely there is a parachute with airborne equipment needing to be retrieved.

The assault Volksgrenadiers I put just behind the White House. From there, they should be able to hop building to building and cross across the shell holes to threaten one of the objectives. The panzerwerfers and 12cm mortars setup to work with the terrain as best can.

Not a lot of great sight lights to drop artillery far across the battlefield. The Panthers have yet to drop but I ended up putting them behind the treeline so they could either push up towards the red destroyed factory or move into the center.

My opponent was playing American airborne with a host of tank destroyers, both M36s and M10s, recon in jeeps and priests for artillery. With approx four bazookas per platoon not exactly something to drive a Panther or a JadgTiger into if you can avoid it.

Closer view of the rather awesome airborne objective next to the ruined graveyard.

The Americans ended up with the first turn, the M-10s moved up to cover the American left flank, respectable guns but less than effective at range versus late war Panthers with their 10 frontal, going to an 11 for shots over 16″.  Obviously worthless versus a JadgTiger front, but still effective against the side. The HVAP cards for the Americans are in theory auto includes now…

Bottom of turn 1, the Volks assault platoon push into the building and get ready to assault the Americans. While having a veteran skill 3 is great, if you can’t get into assault by taking less than 5 hits, it doesn’t matter how great of stats you have on the cards. This battle over the next few turns went for the Americans with the Germans unable to capitalize on the opportunity. The Volks assault platoon went combat ineffective with a couple of turns. Sad trombone. (HOWEVER, in a later game against a nearly all tank formation they positively romped)

End of movement turn 1, fairly static front save for the brewing assault in the middle that the Germans would lose.

The Americans managed to take out a Panzerwerfer and the Germans counter with the Panthers. While these are reluctant and hit on 3s, if they can roll 6s they will make quick work of American M-36s. In a later turn, the M-36s would take a hit, blow up one, and then the remainder fail their morale. With their better AT, they’ll definitely be a good match against Panthers.

With the entry of the JadgTigers the nature of the game was largely tipped towards the Germans, even tho the Volks assault platoon was essentially no longer able to do much. The American infantry platoons were both beaten up. Note the American unit in the picture above by the blue ruined building. They were getting werfered pretty hard. M-10s were not going to stand up against JadgTigers without getting on the side and the Panthers likewise could make a run for the objective.

We picked it up and would get in another game this time dialed down to 100 points. Stay tuned for that article.

What are the lessons learned from this game?

The JadgTigers, given their slow speed (8″) and slow firing modifier, are not a great offensive weapon. Given the points cost, fielding 2 at 31 points or 3 at 47 points is trading away a lot of capability into one unit. They are an impressive sight to behold. When they hit a target it really feels the love, with an anti-tank of 18 and 2+ firepower. When facing American tank destroyers hit on 4, usually in cover and further than 16″ away, you’ve got to roll a few 6s to get much work done.

The German Bulge book offers a number of Panther variations that gives you the player some really great options. The Late version with a 10-front armor is well worth it. The downside of course is those forces you might be facing bristling with anti-tank options. Assaulting an American platoon perhaps armed with 5 bazookas will not end well for you. Regardless, with this new book Panthers are something to be excited about.

The Volksgrenadier formation is a really great historical unit on the tabletop. Given the flexibility from the command cards to be trained or veteran for various portions of your list is fantastic. If you don’t have infantry units of these in your German force you’ll want to be painting them up! Again, another set of units to be very excited about.

What about on the American side? American artillery with Time on Target is a great counter against infantry. The role of the tank destroyers becomes all the more important and the HVAP cards to increase the anti-tank capabilities are critical. Jumbos are another good option. American infantry with bazookas is a good way to keep the German cats away. The Bulge American book has a lot of great tools to make for a balanced game against Bulge Germans.

In summary, the Bulge German book by Battlefront brings a lot for the German player and is evident by the performance of the units on the tabletop. You’ll be looking forward to a lot of fun with all the new units as the releases are made over the next few weeks.