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I've got a 101st Company and enough tanks to fill out a British/US armored company as well. So given that I can build armies relatively cheap compared to GW games, I'm in the market for a third now, and Germany made sense. I was looking at an armored company with some mech infantry support. Was going to buy this.

Open Fire box set
8 Panzer IV's
4 Stug G's
4 Half Tracks


I'm not looking for a tourney winning list or anything. Just something to have fun with, and break out when my group is looking for a break from 40k for a week or so. Any suggestions on what to add to that?

So many directions to head.

You have enough for a tank company right now, you also have an infantry company.

The grenardiers can be condensed from two grenardier units into one Gepanzerte Panzergrenardiers. Thus you have some flavour with your Panzerkompanie and a legal core for Infanteriekompanie.

Thus I suggest you buy elements that complement both.

For Panzerkompanie I recommend a pair of loose sprues of Tigers, because they are different.
For Infantriekompanie you need more fresh meat, I would search ebay for more sprues of Open Fire infantry, one more platoon is sufficient. You could also get a boxset of PSC heavy weapons to net you an MG platoon and some mortars, both of which you need.

You need some AAA, the half tracked variants work with both lists so I suggest you go with that.

Beyond that point you will already have all you need, and advice is less valuable than 'which toys do you want'. Germans have such a wide range of fun equipment, splash out now in resin, or wait for stuff to appear n plastic. The variety is increasing monthly from various companies getting in on the 15mm plastics scene.

PSC will have some 8.8cm guns soon in 15mm plastic soon.
They ought to be fun.

Which books are best to fill these types of lists out? It's been over a year since i've gotten to play, and i'm not up to speed on which books are current now.

For Armored lists, Panzers to the Meuse (now Devil's Charge (Digital)) is well-regarded as being fairly competitive LW German lists. That it's available for free at Forces of War is also nice. Not sure the viability of the Panzerkompanies applies to the foot-slogger lists though.

One additional "toy" I would suggest is the 15cm Nebelwerfers. They're a fairly cheap smoke unit which can generally be taken by armored companies.

 Krinsath wrote:


One additional "toy" I would suggest is the 15cm Nebelwerfers. They're a fairly cheap smoke unit which can generally be taken by armored companies.

Nebelwerfers are cheap popular and effective. However Panzerwerfers are superior in every way. They relocate after firing so the smoke trails rule doesn't apply, and while they are expensive they can have extra crew doubling rate of fire for very few points extra, so on a cost per (effective) launcher they are even cheaper than Nebelwerfers.
You should only ever buy Nebelwerfers in threes, because its very cheap, if you want a battery larger or more powerful than that upgrade to Panzerwerfer immediately.

Alternately get Grille, PSC will have them in plastic soon, so I would wait if I were you. Powerful but only available in pairs so its a bit random, or if you can jump through the hoops to get them, Stuka Zu Fuss, which are awesome. Other than the ubiquitous mortars, which are the same for everyone, and generally good, dont bother with any other arty for German.

You raise excellent points, but the nice thing about the Nebs is that they're cheaper in money terms and available to a larger number of lists. Going off of Easy Army's inventory, the PW is available to 162 lists from Mid-War on, while the Nebs are available to 305 in all three eras. The newer books that aren't on Easy Army (Remagen, Nachtjaeger) do not seem to include PWs but they include Nebs.

Now, that being said with the OPs main interest in Armored lists it's a fairly safe bet they'll be available unless he wants to go into those new books (I have not seen mention if Berlin includes PW or not), but if there's a later expansion to other lists the Nebs may be able to serve their role in a new list while the PW become (incredibly nice) shelf decor.

I'm sure the OP can make his own determination depending on what he thinks he's likely to do.

Nebs can have other advantages though, especially in an infantry list - they can dig in which can be useful, and are easier to hide generally.

the armoured ones work better with tanks as they avoid becoming "the only thing this platoon can kill" and thus a target simply because nothing else can be hurt.

Likewise the armoured ones in an infantry list can become the only thing for enemy anti tank stuff to fire at.

not a pure case of which is best on its own, but depends on the rest of the force and what you're going to be doing with them.

8x panzer IV are ok, 10 is better, plus makes a better panzer company, the Stugs can support this as can grenadiers or armoured grenadiers.

Indeed with that lot would suggest a panzer company, get some flak half tracks, armoured ones if the list allows - ideally magnetise the gun turret - can swap them about later as well as remove it for storage.

Won't be an amazing list, but can be fun, panzers are glass hammers

As Orlanth says if you only want three go for the Nebs. They're the go to option for cheap smoke producing artillery and only want the minimum. If you want arty that does other things than bombard infantry (reasonably well) and smoke then there are better options but they cost more.

I'm not a fan of Grilles (or any other two team artillery) purely because of the overly harsh two gun artillery barrage rule. If you don't want the lacklustre barrage then Brummbars are a better choice if you can field them.

I've played s lot of German panzer lists over the last 12 months, my personal favourite is from the Italy book.

At 1675 it's something like
HQ 2 panzer 4
4 panzer 4
3 panthers
4 semovente 105/25
2 8-rads
3 Nebs
2 AA half tracks

To me this covers all the bases you need as a panzer player!
You have the panzer 4 workhorse it kills, it dies, it holds. The panther is great vs enemy tanks, the semovente (other options according to personal choice) are RoF 2 breakthrough guns - great killing infantry! The 8-rads are obligatory recce to stop ambushes and lift GtG, the Nebs drop smoke (you have enough MG's to pin) and the AA keeps AoP away.