Springtime for Germany: Germans in Blitzkrieg

By Michael Rafferty

Look it’s Springtime! The long-awaited and much anticipated release of Early War is finally upon us. I know it’s not the late-war Italy book that literally tens have been clamoring for, but this is a solid release. We’re starting things off with Blitzkrieg, covering the invasion of France. Sorry Poland, someday you’ll have a list again. Blitzkrieg contains lists for the Germans, French, and British all themed around the forces that fought in France. Today we are going to look at the German forces.

The Germans bring four tank, three infantry, and an armored car formation into battle. An interesting note is the armored car formation is specifically limited to one formation per force. Let’s look at that one first, since this is an interesting rule.

Without this rule, a German player could spam out a ridiculous amount of 2cm guns. With AT 5 and FP 5+ they would have messed up a lot of allied armor. Combined with the scout rules and spearhead, this would have been a ridiculous force to face if you could bring multiple formations.

The base formation is an HQ Sd Kfz 221 and one unit of three Sd Kfz 221 and one unit with one Sd Kfz 221 and one 222. That’s a lot of machine gun dice.

From there you can bring three units of 6-rad or 8-rad. The 6-rad are one point cheaper for two, sacrificing one point of front and side armor.

Let’s look at the tanks. The Germans have four tank formations: light tanks, medium tanks, 38t, and StuG. The light tank formation is made up of the machine gun armed Panzer I and the 2cm armed Panzer II. The Panzer II may be one of the better tanks at this time. It has a front armor of three, which puts it solidly in the middle for this time period. AT 7 is about the best you’re going to see on the allied side and this can save against it. It’s relatively mobile with ten inches of tactical movement and has 3+ skill. Combined with being hit on a 4+ and this is a survivable tank. It’s relatively cheap as well.

Most of the Panzer IIs in this force will come from the mixed Panzer I and II platoons. A mix of three Panzer II and two Panzer I gives you a two point saving over five Panzer II and at least has some extra machine gun dice. From a test game I played recently, tanks are very tough in assault. Their only real counters in early war are AT guns, which you have to neutralize somehow.

The medium tank company is an HQ with several options, a Panzer II platoon, and then either a Panzer III or a Panzer IV platoon. There is no option to mix Panzer III and IV in a platoon, though you can bring both platoons in a formation.

After the required two platoons there is the option of another Panzer III or IV platoon. The fourth platoon option is a Panzer II, III, or 38t platoon. You’re capped at two platoons of Panzer IVs and up to two in the HQ. The Panzer IV isn’t cheap and you’re already going to be struggling on points with two units let alone a third.

The Panzer III and IV share front armor three with the Panzer II. The Panzer III has side armor three while the Panzer IV has side armor two. Both tanks have protected ammo and the expected abilities of German tanks. They’re pricy and I’m not sure how much the improved gun and side armor will be worth it over the Panzer II. I’m curious if we will get a full Panzer II company, maybe in the command cards.

Speaking of command cards, we know we are getting one for Rommel as he is in the book. Sadly, it doesn’t look like his old model is coming back. At least I still have mine.He’s expensive, but he gives you an additional force commander in a 38t for double the cost of a standard 38t. The Rommel formation commander lets you use his leadership with any German unit in the force. Additionally, formation commanders have their leadership range extended from six inches to eight inches. Unlike in third edition, there is no extra victory point given to your opponent if he kills Rommel.

The 38t company is interesting. They’re a bit more expensive than Panzer IIs but have one more AT and FP though with an overworked gun. They keep the same good German skills and can mix in Panzer I to reduce the cost of the platoons.

The formation is an HQ with two 38t, then two platoons of 38ts. After that you can bring a third 38t platoon and then a fourth platoon option with either a 38t, Panzer I and II, Panzer II, or Panzer IV option. No options for Panzer IIIs in this force.

The book also shows the 35t command card. I think this may be the way to go if you want to field the most Czech tanks. Front armor two is going to die to any sort of decent AT gun but will at least survive the low-end options and heavy machine guns. You save a few points over the 38t, losing a point of side armor and two inches of movement. You can’t mix and match the 38t and the 35t. In a formation it’s one or the other.

Finally, we have the StuG formation. This is the simplest in the book. It’s an HQ with two StuG and then one required platoon with two StuG. A second platoon of two StuG is optional. The StuG is tough for the time period and has a powerful gun, though this comes with a large price tag.

Onto the infantry. We have three formations here: a motorized rifle, armored rifle, and rifle company. Remember, these formations were not called Grenadiers yet, that didn’t happen until 1942. These are still the Schutzen formations, with the rifle company being part of an Infanterie division. It will get a lot easier when we can just call them all Grenadiers. Also interestingly, the motorized and armored rifle formations wore the pink waffenfarbe you’d normally see on Panzer crews instead of the white of the rifle companies or the green of the later Panzergrenadiers. History aside, let’s look at their stats.

The standard Motorized Rifle Platoon is eight stands, seven Rifle/MG and one 5cm mortar. You have the option of adding an AT Rifle team and an HMG team to this platoon, making a beefy platoon. At full strength, these are going to be hard to move off objectives.

One interesting thing is that for the third platoon, you can bring either a motorized rifle platoon or an armored rifle platoon. This gives you some options if you want to bring some half-tracks but not a ton of them. From my limited experience playing Early War (one game I’ll have a battle report out soon on) the extra machine guns on half tracks are rather nice. Beyond that, you can bring a HMG platoon with two or four teams, a mortar platoon with two, four, or six teams, a two-man 7.5cm infantry gun platoon, or a two or four team 3.7 cm anti-tank platoon.

The armored rifle platoon is incredibly similar in organization, except you can bring a motorized rifle platoon for your second mandatory platoon in addition to your third platoon. You can also bring either two, three, or four Panzerjager I instead of the 3.7cm anti-tank platoon.

The platoon is similar, except you can’t attach the HMG team though you can still bring the anti-tank rifle team. Since this is early war, the half-tracks are expensive. A base platoon is more than double a motorized rifle platoon. They are MG teams at least, so they have some improved firepower. At the same time, they are probably going to stay in their half-tracks most of the time. Mounted assault is still around, and I see the armored rifle platoons being brought as part of a motorized rifle company or as a black box unit.

Finally, we have the humble rifle company. This is a classic rifle company, nothing fancy and giant units with a lot of good support options. The 15cm infantry gun and my personal favorite the 15cm SP gun are support options, along with both 8cm mortars and 10cm chemical mortars.

The rifle platoon is ten stands base, nine Rifle/MG and one 5cm mortar. You keep the options from the motorized rifle platoon to add an anti-tank rifle and HMG team. A 12-stand platoon hit on fours with a 3+ last stand and that level of firepower is going to be hard to move.

You also get the option to use the early infantry organization. This drops the platoons down to rifle teams for a slight decrease in points and adds a rifle team. The attachment options and stats remain the same. This must be done for the whole formation. For a slight point decrease and half the firepower, you get an extra stand and can still bring the HMG and anti-tank rifle. This seems like a good deal overall as I’m a fan of the larger platoon and the points savings help cover the cost of the attachments.

The SS are coming in command cards. Looking at the examples in the book, it seems like 3+ morale, hit on 3+, and 4+ skills. The StuG platoon comes out a bit cheaper with this and that could be interesting, but we will need to see the rest of the cards and stats. Kurt Meyer is a command card character, upgrading a formation commander. His ability allows you to pass a Blitz Move order on a 2+ when within six inches of the formation commander.

The wildcard unit is fun, though I’m not sure of its utility. I also know most tournaments hate wildcard units with a fiery passion so it’s unlikely this will get used much. It does look cool at least. The Neubaufahrzeug was a prototype German heavy tank. Three production models were made and you can bring all three. They had limited use, but seemed to be effective. The armor isn’t great, being the equivalent of a Panzer IV with better top armor. The rear MG means this hits on a 2+ in assault, which is where this tank shines. It does have the short 7.5 cm and the 3.7 cm for some decent gun options, but this is an assault tank. I think if you can pronounce the name accurately, you should be allowed to use it.

Support units are where the controversy starts. So far, I don’t think the Germans have anything crazy. Most things seem similar to how I remember third edition early war. Units seem to have fair points costs, though I wait to be proven wrong once tournaments start. Then we get to the 8.8cm.

We all know the 8.8 cm was a good anti-tank weapon. I’m not complaining about its AT 14. That’s their normal stat and I’m not sure if they received an upgraded AT shell later that could justify an early war reduction in AT. It’s the points cost I’m concerned about. They’re way too cheap. Additionally, you can bring one, two, three, or four of them. Being able to take one for a low cost is a way to deny a zone to enemy tanks until it is neutralized. I checked the previous Blitzkrieg book. You could bring one or two 8.8cm guns and they were 370 points for two. A standard game was around 1500 points, so this is almost a quarter of your points. In this edition, that number is closer to a tenth of your total points for two. I think this is one area that may receive a correction later. Personally, I’d like to see Battlefront continue their dynamic points to every system. Games need occasional updates and errata to stay fresh and deal with unforeseen problems.

Bunkerflak are back. Unlike the 8.8 gun teams, these are more expensive and have no moving rate of fire. They also have the gigantic special rule, which means they cannot be placed in Ambush within 16 inches of an enemy team. They’re interesting and look cool, but I think the gun team version will be more widely used.

Rounding out the support is the long-serving 10.5cm gun. If you’ve seen one German book, you’ve seen these. Cheap and effective long-range artillery.

The Luftwaffe brings their 8.8cm guns along with SP 2cm AA guns and Stukas. The Stuka seems cheap for what it does. This isn’t late war, so there won’t be piles of AA guns or .50s everywhere. This might make the Stuka an effective artillery piece.

That’s the German line-up for Blitzkrieg. Personally, I’m excited for early war. I’ve played one game so far and it flows really well. I need to play around with lists and will spend some time in Forces once this is out. I’m iffy on if Panzer II or 38t will be my primary tank used in the list, I’ll need to try them both out. Then again, I could just bring a horde of German infantry so we’ll see.