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Panzerkompanie - 1500 points

HQ - 2 - Stug G
CP - 3 - Stug G
CP - 5 - Panzer IV
DSP - 2 Tiger 1E
DSP - 1 Tracked Panzerpah Platoon (Panzer IIL)

Game 1 against USA
Turn 1 - Tanks Advance


Turn 2 - Right Side won


Turn 3 - Sweeping Left


Turn 4 - Holding the Left


Turn 5 - USA Charges the Left

Turn 6 - Left Side won



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Game 2 Lost against Germans ( Tiger vs Jagpanthers)
Turn 2 - Panzers sit and shoot

Turn 4 - More sitting and shooting


Turn 5 - Field is lost



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Game 3 Lost against UK
Turn 3 - Epic fails on Stormtrooper rolls

Turn 4 - Firefly's on both flanks decimate my tanks

In retrospect I think your list would've benefited from some artillery and infantry. I haven't played in any FoW tournaments yet, but I find that it favors more of a combined arms approach when it comes to building a sucessful list

I try to play with painted models only and my Panzer Grenadiers (primed) and Heavy Artillery (still in box) were not ready to be fielded.

Nicely painted figures... but...

The tables! Why?! This isn't 40k, where you can slap down 3-4 pieces of terrain and call it a day. Where are the hills, the forests, the fields, the roads, the rivers, the battlefields?

Unless this was a tank-on-tank only tournie, I would have felt bad for any infantry company that had to go against a tank company on those boards.

infinite_array wrote:The tables! Why?! This isn't 40k, where you can slap down 3-4 pieces of terrain and call it a day. Where are the hills, the forests, the fields, the roads, the rivers, the battlefields?

Can't do it with 40k either.

I played on the same table in my first and third game. There were 3 other tabes which had forests, hills and roads but no rivers. There were infantry armies but the tank heavy armies performed better. In fact the second place winner (a Soviet all tank army) had some many points that the only way any of us would have been able to catch up was if he epic failed and we epic won. There was even a Soviet army with fortifications that just sat behind his fortifications and just bombarded the center objective everytime some one came close. In my game 3, my opponents Piat infantry came charging thru the fields into my Tigers and popped them. My Tigers were too busy trying to reinforce the right flank against the Firefly. My Panzer IIL's were chasing the the infantry down but had to duck for cover when the right flank Firefly started to charge in.

infinite_array wrote:The tables! Why?! This isn't 40k, where you can slap down 3-4 pieces of terrain and call it a day. Where are the hills, the forests, the fields, the roads, the rivers, the battlefields?

This table looked much better than 90%of the WH40k tournament setups I've played on or seen. It's obviously a long way short of the sort of thing that some posters have been displaying in some recent threads, but at least it looks a bit like a battlefield.

I have noticed that FoW has a lot of rather WH40k-like clumping of tanks. One of the distinguishing features of WWII late war armoured combat was the dispersal of the forces involved. FoW seems to encourage ridiculously concentrated tank units.

I think that one of the main problems with the tables is not only is the terrain sparse, but the tanks can see over about half of it (since there are many open fields and very low hills)

It is not surprising that the tank armies preformed better if the other 2 unseen tables were like this.

Tailgunner wrote:

infinite_array wrote:The tables! Why?! This isn't 40k, where you can slap down 3-4 pieces of terrain and call it a day. Where are the hills, the forests, the fields, the roads, the rivers, the battlefields?

This table looked much better than 90%of the WH40k tournament setups I've played on or seen. It's obviously a long way short of the sort of thing that some posters have been displaying in some recent threads, but at least it looks a bit like a battlefield.

I have noticed that FoW has a lot of rather WH40k-like clumping of tanks. One of the distinguishing features of WWII late war armoured combat was the dispersal of the forces involved. FoW seems to encourage ridiculously concentrated tank units.

I clumped my tanks together to defend the objectives on each side of the table with the Tigers holding the center objective. Had there been more Artillery, I would have spread them out more. Also, with the sparse cover, I needed to maximize cover with my stormtrooper moves (ala Tau shoot and run tactics).

Tailgunner wrote:
This table looked much better than 90%of the WH40k tournament setups I've played on or seen. It's obviously a long way short of the sort of thing that some posters have been displaying in some recent threads, but at least it looks a bit like a battlefield.

I have noticed that FoW has a lot of rather WH40k-like clumping of tanks. One of the distinguishing features of WWII late war armoured combat was the dispersal of the forces involved. FoW seems to encourage ridiculously concentrated tank units.

This is a direct function of the Defensive Fire aspect of the game and one of the game mechanics you just have to accept as probably not historically accurate. I mean the idea a PaK crew might not fire at an incoming T-34 rush because they were 10 feet "out of range" but within the range of their guns just isn't "real life".

Tanks clump to decrease the number of teams drawn into fire at them, or available to counter attack should the initial push fail.

Also, I wanted to note that the Panzer IIL's are clumped together like that as they were trying to hide using the destroyed tanks and each other as cover. Poor little guys only good for killing infantry.

Tailgunner wrote:
I have noticed that FoW has a lot of rather WH40k-like clumping of tanks. One of the distinguishing features of WWII late war armoured combat was the dispersal of the forces involved. FoW seems to encourage ridiculously concentrated tank units.

That's more on the players than the game, I think. If there had been more big gun artillery, clumping up like that would have been a really, really bad idea.

And it's not just in FoW - take a look at this picture from a game of Cold War Commander, in 6mm:



Those thanks are about 1/3 the size of Battlefront's tanks, and look at that clumping!

Clumping is a bad idea when aircraft or artillery are bombing as the top armour of most tanks are really low.

Don't stay out in the open against superior Tanks (76mm shermans or JAGDPANTHERS). First round fire at Full ROF but ensure cover is within 4" (use command distance to maximise each vehicles chance of cover) and use your storm trooper move to stop Enemy shooting at you.

Okay your ROF is 1, as you need to move from Cover, shoot, and then stormtrooper back. However if he cannot see you he cannot shoot you.

If you are in the open against Jagdpanther's with a Tank force, conceed because it will be embarassing how easily he will destroy your tanks.

mwnciboo wrote:Don't stay out in the open against superior Tanks (76mm shermans or JAGDPANTHERS). First round fire at Full ROF but ensure cover is within 4" (use command distance to maximise each vehicles chance of cover) and use your storm trooper move to stop Enemy shooting at you.

Okay your ROF is 1, as you need to move from Cover, shoot, and then stormtrooper back. However if he cannot see you he cannot shoot you.

If you are in the open against Jagdpanther's with a Tank force, conceed because it will be embarassing how easily he will destroy your tanks.

That was my original plan. My Tigers were placed behind what is supposed a row of thick vegetation to give me cover making the Jagpanthers need a 6 to hit. But lo and behold during the set-up phase the terrain tile got moved AND I did not announce that the Tigers were supposed to be positioned so that they could get the cover OR mention that the terrain tile is supposed to be 12 inches from the edge of my side (giving me the cover as the max deployment zone is 12 inches out). That 1/8th of an inch, negated my cover as per the house rules, the vegetation would only give cover to tanks IF the tanks were right up against it. I honestly would never position my tanks that way in the open.

As you can see, my Panzers were behind a terrain feature usuing a similar tactic which would have also forced a 6 to hit. So, on my first turn, I fired my 2 shots each and hoped for my stormtrooper to put them behind cover. BUT I kept failing my stormtrooper move. The following turns, instead of moving my Panzers for cover, I opted to fire at full ROF and hope that stormtrooper would again put them behind cover. Dice were not good to me and failed every stormtrooper roll for all my Panzers and Stugs. Only my Panzer IIL's benefited which really did not help since they cannot do anything to my oponents tanks.

Considering this was my first tournament, I am getting a feel of my tanks and have Elefants on order since Panzerkompanies do not have any access to Jagpanthers.

Just bad luck then. I rolled 7 x 1's for my AAA platoon last week, and the aircraft laughed at me.

Stormtrooper is really good WHEN it works. Hahahaha! I know now not to depend on it much on it.