Awake the Fuhrer, The German D-Day book is Spoiled
By Mitch Reed
What a summer for the Late War fans of Flames of War. First, the Fortress Europe book moves all of the Mid-War forces into the LW period then the US D-Day book hit the shelves and now those Yanks have an opponent, the has arrived.
Having seen the book in the proofreading stage I knew that this title would be one that German players like myself would just love. I know a lot of questions have been floating around online so let me answer those first. Yes, the Sd Kfz 250 half-track is back and is in the new Recce list and sorry, No the 21st Panzer is not in the book or represented in the cards.
The other thing to keep in mind that this book is the first of two books on the Germans in June of 1944, the second book will be a volume that focuses on just the Waffen-SS.
The Beach Defense and Fallschirmjager are two of the three “leg infantry” lists in the book. The Beach Defense unit is less “static” as its predecessor from Atlantic Wall and is a decent Confident/Trained list. The FJ’s jump into Late War with the 3rd FJ Division, with a card to downgrade the unit to the FJ in name only 5th FJ division. Another cool FJ unit is the 12th Stug Brigade which has STUG and STUH SP guns that can support your fallschirmjagers.
The Armor lists focus on the Panzer Lehr Division, a unit I loved playing. You can take a mix of Panther, PzIV and Tiger tanks. These are backed up by some mobile armored AAA with the Moblewagon which returns to the game.
If Tigers are your thing the 503rd Panzer Brigade is back and with the Command Cards, you can use the Tiger Ace upgrade.
The real beauty of the Panzer Lehr in both Atlantik Wall and the new book is the infantry. You get three types here, Armored Panzer Grenadiers, Grenadiers on foot and my favorite the Recce Armored Grenadiers. The recce unit is mounted in the smaller Sd Kfz 250 half-track and as a guy who owns 24 of them, I am excited to have this back in the game.
The only bad thing about the Recce formation is that the infantry cannot add the three Panzerschrek stands as the other two units can. The 250 also can only transport one stand of infantry unlike the 251 which can transport three. The Recce unit can also take the Puma, which seems to be a fan favorite.
When it comes to support options gamers will love the choices and the ability to take the Jagdpanzer IV once again. For artillery, all of the units you expect to find are here and the only thing that seems to be missing from the V3 Atlantik wall list is the 21cm Nebelwerfers, but I never saw anyone fielding them.
The Command Cards also really expand the game and lets you take a Pioneer, Puma, or Brumbar unit. Named heroes are back and I like taking them as a card as opposed to having them in the force selection. Along with these cards, you get some cards to represent other units that were at Normandy like the 2nd, 9th, and 116th Panzer Divisions.
A few months ago we had the chance to review the US D-Day book and many of us were blown away with how broad and deep it was. I will be honest, the US book scared me, so many options, so many units, and so many upgrades.
The new German book makes me less scared of the US lists now. At first glance, the book didn’t “wow” me as the US book did. once I went back and re-read it closely my opinion started to change. A lot of this was from how I look at a book of a force I do not play, it seems really good as an outsider since I do not really know how the forces play in US and USSR lists.
The other factor I realized is that this book is historical and some of the glitz the US book had is just not an option for the Germans. Over a short period of time, I really started to get more excited about this book. Another thing I need to realize is that the Waffen-SS book will complete the German presence on D-Day.
Another question I saw a lot on forums was comparing what was in the Fortress Europe book and what folks were speculating about the upcoming D-Day book. It is unfair to compare the two since each book stands alone. Ferdinands are one example of a unit I love to play that is not in the D-Day book. So if you play German lists, having the books and cards for both give you some great options. While you cannot take units from FE and play them in D-Day (the formation support box seems to really confuse players) and vice-versa the flavor of the two books together gives the German player some love and gives us some great lists to play.
Stay tuned for a whole series of articles on the German D-Day book where we cover the book in great depth.