Paracadutisti Nembo Month 2 - The Merchants of Menace

After two victories from two games (including one where my opponent made a do-or-die grab for the demolition objective, only to be destroyed by my HQ!) I'm feeling pretty pleased with Paracadutisi Nembo. Granted, I got a rather salutary lesson in the damage that 'Hitler's Buzzsaw' can wreak even on Veterans on the way, and am yet to play Tom's extremely broken Jeep list yet. But nonetheless I'm feeling confident enough to be the first to post the army list for my next 500 points, and risk ceding the meta to lesser players like Darren and Ed...

Now that's the obligatory trash-talk out of the way - on to the list.

Month One ist Kaput!

So month one has drawn to a close and in true Italian style Jon swapped sides for his second game to take on and beat the HG Division.

Gaming Results Month 1

The Inception of Jeep Meta: Getting the Airborne on the Ground

When Jon first mentioned the idea of getting back into Bolt Action I was all for it. Having built and painted a decent-sized U.S. force, it sounded like a good chance for them to see some action once more. However it wasn’t to be, as it quickly became apparent that the ‘scale shift’ had struck again and we were going to go for a 15mm escalation league.

Of course, you all know that if you have been reading everyone else’s posts, but I decided to stick with the U.S. for now – since I already had the army book (and a rather tidy-looking U.S. dice bag).

Bolt Action First Action

So everyone got at least one game in tonight with their 500pt lists, some of us had the pleasure of playing losing two...

	US Airborne	184th Italian	Gebirgsjager	H.G. Division	US 3rd Infantry
Win	2	1	1	0	0
Loss	0	0	1	1	2
Draw	0	0	0	0	0
Played	2	1	2	1	2
Points	6	3	3	0	0

Luckily the US Airborne held up their end for the Allies

Campaign

Axis 2 

Allies 2

US 3rd Infantry Division Painting Guide

US Infantry

All paints from the Vallejo Model Color range. Started from a black Army Painter spray undercoat

Bases
Foundation 826 German Cam. Medium
Dry Brush 876 Brown Sand
Dry Brush 819 Iraqi Sand

Boots and Rifle Straps 984 Flat Brown
Puttees and Jacket 988 Khaki
Trousers 873 US Field Drab
Skin 815 Basic Skin Tone
Helmet 887 Brown Violet
Rifle 875 Beige Brown

Everything was washed with 203 Umber Wash which is really nice and then the webbing was highlighted with 886 Green Grey.

Initially fiddly to paint, as usual the wash bought everything together nicely.

Month 1 500pts completed!

5th Gebirgsjäger Division

"Who said that?"

By the time it was sent to Italy in 1943, the 5th Gebirgsjäger Division had already fought in the Balkans campaign and as part of army group north in the push towards Leningrad on the Volkhov front.

The Gebirgsjäger were light infantry and specialists in mountain warfare.  Identifiable by the edelweiss insignia on their sleeves and on their distinctive mountain caps, they were (and still are) recognised as one of the elite units in the German army. But the main draw for me has to be the pack mules (which I am reliably informed carry shoulder mounted panzershreks and are also commonly known as 'PAK mules').

Pack mules apparently have some serious balance issues in Bolt Action

As a newbie to the game of Bolt Action I was at a loss as to which force to build for this campaign.  I wanted to play axis, as I could tell there were plenty of allied players already, and I quite fancied an elite infantry force.  After some reading, the idea of veteran mountain infantry really caught my imagination, and the fantastic models battlefront have released for these troops sealed the deal.

The List

Building a list for a game you don't know is always interesting.  To give myself a starting point, and to hopefully be more forgiving of my early mistakes while I learn the game, I decided that my list would focus on versatility, redundancy and resilience. I then had a play on easyarmy.com and came up with the following for my first 500 pts:

German Reinforced Platoon

Order Dice: 5

Officer

Second Lieutenant  (page: 20)    Veteran               78

Qty         Weapons             Range   Shots     Penetration        Special Rules

1              Second Lieutenant                                                         

                 with Rifle            24"         1              n/a        

                 with Pistol          6"            1              n/a         Assault

                 with Submachine gun   12"         2              n/a         Assault

                 with Assault rifle             24"         2              n/a         Assault

1              Infantry (equipped as modeled)      

                         -              -             

Infantry Squads

Heer Veteran Grenadier squad  (page: 22)           Veteran               126

Qty         Weapons             Range   Shots     Penetration        Special Rules

1              NCO with Submachine gun          12"         2              n/a         Assault

4              Infantry with Rifle            24"         1              n/a        

3              Infantry with Submachine gun   12"         2              n/a         Assault

2              men have Panzerfaust in addition to other weapons        12"         1              +6           One-shot, Shaped Charge

Heer Veteran Grenadier squad  (page: 22)           Veteran               132

Qty         Weapons             Range   Shots     Penetration        Special Rules

1              NCO with Submachine gun          12"         2              n/a         Assault

1              Infantry with Light Machine gun (requires loader)            30"         4              n/a         Team (2 men)

6              Infantry with Rifle            24"         1              n/a        

1              men have Panzerfaust in addition to other weapons        12"         1              +6           One-shot, Shaped Charge

Heer Veteran Grenadier squad  (page: 22)           Veteran               98

Qty         Weapons             Range   Shots     Penetration        Special Rules

1              NCO with Rifle   24"         1              n/a        

1              Infantry with Light Machine gun (requires loader)            30"         4              n/a         Team (2 men)

4              Infantry with Rifle            24"         1              n/a      

  

Sniper team  (page: 32) Veteran               65

Qty         Weapons             Range   Shots     Penetration        Special Rules

1              Sniper team (rifle)           36"         1              n/a         Team (2 men), Sniper

Platoon Points: 499

The entire force is veteran, so hopefully that should give me some level of resilience.  I have also gone for relatively large numbers for such an elite force, with very few weapons teams present.  My hope is that the high ROF German LMGs in two of my squads will grant sufficient fire power to compensate for a lack of any MMG teams or vehicle MMGs.

As the entire force is veteran already, I chose the basic second lieutenant leader to save points.  I couldn't bring myself to make him anything less than a veteran though, that just wouldn't be right!  I also gave him a buddy/bullet sponge for some added protection.

The first squad is meant to be my main forward operating squad, with a total of 4 smgs and 2 panzerfausts to make them a threat to anything up close.  From perusing a couple of forums, the total of 8 men seems to be a generally accepted 'good number' for veteran troops (always trust what you read on the internet!)

The second squad is designed to be flexible.  One LMG, one SMG and one panzerfaust should make it a moderate threat in quite a few situations, and with 8 members again it should be fairly resilient.  I expect this units role to change depending on the situation I am faced with each turn.  Early on it might be giving covering fire to the 1st squad, but later on when my brilliant leadership gets 1st sqaud killed to a man, this squad might move up to grab an objective or pop a tank with its panzerfaust.

The last squad is lower strength at only 5 men, so I will probably try to keep them back a little out of harms way.  A single LMG will be useful for giving covering fire to 1st or 2nd squad as they advance.

To finish off the list I have added in a sniper.  My logic here is that in small 500 pt games most players will not have much redundancy in their plans, and a well placed shot form a sniper could take out that MMG or mortar team which is ruining my day.  Whether this translates to the tabletop remains to be seen!

Models

I have used the Gebirgsjäger infantry models from battlefront to represent this force. A single company box was all I needed for this months troops and all the basic infantry, machine guns, command and light mortars I could want for the entire campaign.  In fact, I now realise a single platoon box would have been plenty!  Plans are however already afoot for some of the spares...

I should really look at the back of the box before concluding this is how many models you get...

In an inspired flurry of painting I managed to get my first 499 points painted this afternoon.  I have gone for a fairly straightforward (read 'quick and dirty') dipping method.  The minis were all primed grey (Halfords grey primer) then had greatcoats picked out with army painter 'fur brown'.  A dry brush of vallejo 'green grey' over the entire model produced a nice German uniform colour before details like skin, weapons and boots were picked out and army painter strong tone was used to shade/do all the hard work.  For basing I used a mix of dark grit and some ash colour flock topped with modelling snow, grass tufts and some tiny bits of clump foliage to give a spring thaw mountain theme.  I mainly chose this as it can be hard to make drab colours stand out on brown or green bases. The dark grey and white help the models stand out nicely.


Without further ado, I present to you the first instalment of the 5th Gebirgsjäger Division!

All primed and ready for painting

The first 499 points ready for battle

A sniper team lines up a shot

2nd Leiutennant Hans Mueller and associates

HG Fallschirm-Panzer-Division 1 Hermann Göring

Any suggestions as to what this Divisional insignia is supposed to represent?

In the battle for Monte Cassino, the Hermann Goring division's Oberstleutnant Julius Schlegel displayed either an estimable respect for renaissance art or his unit's namesake's deserved reputation as Europe's most proficient looter by having the division's workshop department fill their trucks with all of the Abbey's irreplaceable artworks and 'deposit them in the Vatican.' This prevented their destruction when the Allies flattened the Abbey but doesn't begin the explain how they were eventually found on a train in Bavaria at the end of the war....

Tempting though it was to field a platoon of  Kunstschutz - or 'Art Protection' troops, it seemed to me that a division of elite paratroopers probably contained some more effective options on the tabletop.

HG Division Kunstschutz 'protecting' some art

Like the monks of Monte Cassino, I'm under a vow. I have sworn off buying any new gaming related stuff for the calendar year 2015 while I concentrate my time and money on a much larger painting project, a new extended kitchen diner. Imagine how hard Salute was, then multiply it by 10 as all of my chums embark on a shiny new WW2 project in 15mm.

So I've had to confine my plans for a Canadian detachment to paper for a while and will field a force of Hermann Goring Fallschirmjagers using some of Jon's copious collection of late war Germans. I will eventually look to buy, assemble and paint this list too, but for now I'll be proxying in.

So with the force comp rules understood, and a quick look over the options for the late war German paratroopers, I got cracking on working up a list using BoltActionEasyArmy.com's force selector.

Given that I'm up against the most devious and down right dirty players I know, I would have abandon my usual strict adherence to historical accuracy and craft a really optimised list at 500pts, thus depriving me of my best excuse for inevitable defeat.

So for starters, all core troops choices are Vets which, while nice in itself, does mean that they are reassuringly expensive. They also possess some interesting late war German weapons choices, including the useful 4 dice LMGs and the intriguing Assault Rifles.

After much consideration, my core choices ended up as a suitably wizened Veteran 1st Lieutenant commanding two minimum sized squads of Fallschirmjagers. The first has an NCO with a rifle and two LMG teams. They will act as a firebase. The other unit of 5 consists of an NCO with an SMG and 4 Assault Rifle toting troopers. They will be my (fragile) offensive arm.

Keeping the core units small and thus cheap leaves me with a few points to throw around on support teams. First up is a Vet MMG team to lay down more suppressive fire. They will be assisted in the backfield by a Regular Medium Mortar team.

My final choice is a Vet Sniper team cos why not? Everyone hates snipers. They can reach out and touch your opponents best unit, no matter how much cover they have and are hard to hit in return.

This left me with 37 points to play with and I considered bulking out the troops choices but decided I'd like both another order dice and to get with the light vehicle meta we're developing on the Axis side. So in goes a Kubelwagon with a pintle mounted MMG. You can never have too many German machine guns in a list right?

This gives me 7 order dice, which may give me a slight edge over my opponent, 4 machine guns with a range of  at least 30", a mortar and a sniper. My basic tactics (which I HAVE to try to remember) will be to pin the opposition in place, potentially pin them out, and then clean up with my assault squad.

I've got the flexibility to mount up either the Mortar team, the MMG team or the sniper/lieutenant in the Kubelwagon if I need to move up/out.

I'm noticeably short in anti-tank but I suspect that this wont be an issue in the first week with no vehicles with armour over 7+ and at 1000pts I may have space for a heavy ATG wielding Panzer.

I'm also going to argue that this is not too cheesy a list. It's not got any flame-thrower jeeps for a start. Or deep striking howitzers. Or Terminators. By this stage of the war, German units were typically below strength. They were masters of defensive tactics, utilising their widely available and excellent machine guns and possessing the experience that is reflected by a sniper team. Fallschirmjager units were better equiped than other units - although not that many were packing the StG 44 in Italy in 1943/44.

So I'm relatively happy with this and have already considered the options for the next 501pts. I suspect that with relatively few models its going to be a bit of a glass cannon and will rely, sadly, on me remembering how to use it properly. So that's that fucked then.

Fallschirmjagers in action, prior to me ruining their day with my tactics