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So I am assembling/modeling the german infantry troops from open fire (grenadier platoon I believe).

Looking through some of the online tactical reports list (the free ones from BF) and looking at the documents that came with open fire i noticed that there are many different options for infantry platoons. Things like SMG's for command teams, certain panzerfaust configs, etc, etc. Each one of these different configurations is a different amount of points and what you want to use will change from game to game or list to list. So my questions are:

1. How do I know which options to model? (I am not a WW2 weapons expert although I know the difference between a mauser and a mp40)

2. Are people very stringent about what is modeled vs what is in your list. (Tournaments also as I eventually want to play them at least for fun)

3. Is this going to require me to buy massive amounts of infantry when I want to use the different options? For instance I noticed some of them are MG or Flamethrower squads. My platoon has at least one MG team on a separate base. If I do not want to field this platoon with the MG (point considerations) I will not have a full platoon anymore. So I will have to buy another platoon to mix and match the teams? (I hope this made sense it does in my head)

4. I have seen some list where you can put a light mortar or flamethrower team into your platoon but I have not seen anywhere that these models are sold as a small team but only as a large platoon (i.e full mortar platoon). Can these be purchased separately or how do you guys/girls usually tackle this situation?

Eventually I am going to buy more infantry but I would like to ease into it and try out the different options without making large purchases is what I am trying to sum up here.

Thanks for the help guys/girls!

Also I live by the airport in Philadelphia, PA if anyone is a local player and would be interested in helping someone learn to play let me know!

The specifics about what base has what can be handwaved to a certain extent if every infantry team is armed the same.

IE, if all your command teams are SMG/Panzerfausts, all your infantry are MG teams (maybe excepting foot recon), all your observers are Rifle teams, etc.

If you have two platoons that are full of MG teams and one platoon that has R/MG teams, maybe you need to have representative figures on the table for that.

If your Pioneers are all Rifle teams, then that's a good place to shuffle off the grenadier teams w/o MG42 figures. The pio blister only comes with two squads, so you can expand it by using the three rifle only teams from OpenFire. Or those guys can be the foot recon teams once you buy more infantry.

Panzerfausts may or may not be modeled as long as it is 'everyone has panzerfausts' or 'only command teams have panzerfausts'

Pioneer platoon blisters come with flamers, light mortars are generally early or mid-war only and come with EW/MW infantry blisters.

If you get PSC German infantry pack, get the heavy weapons pack also, it will save you a ton compared to BF blisters.

Thanks for the responses Andras!

That cleared it up some. I was worried I would have to get like 20 infantry boxes and model all the options separately. I'm going to look around to see about making Infantry teams that are changeable on the bases. Like magnetized somehow just for fun.

I'll definitely take you advice about the PSC Infantry and heavy weapons pack. I've been getting all my stuff from PSC not for the quality but because it seems like better deals than BF. More tanks per box etc...also BF's store is awkward to navigate.

Thanks again!

You'll need to pick up some bases, or make your own for the infantry and gun teams. PSC figures don't come with them.

A typical German infantry platoon uses 30 figures, so you could easily make 3 platoons.

MrMcAwesome wrote:
Thanks for the responses Andras!

That cleared it up some. I was worried I would have to get like 20 infantry boxes and model all the options separately. I'm going to look around to see about making Infantry teams that are changeable on the bases. Like magnetized somehow just for fun.

I'll definitely take you advice about the PSC Infantry and heavy weapons pack. I've been getting all my stuff from PSC not for the quality but because it seems like better deals than BF. More tanks per box etc...also BF's store is awkward to navigate.

Thanks again!

The newer next gen, psc infantry are good.but the old sculpts are tru scale and are not the best sculpts.i would stick with BF or use peter pig,PP also work great for different poses and filler. the closet for scale wise that match up with bf are the forged in battle models.If needed i could do some comparsion piks of the manufactors..
Psc do make some of the vehicle kits out their.