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Hi all, Here's hoping to get the Historical part of Dakka Dakka moving a bit more as there are so many good games out there.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on Bolt Action German squad setups as I'm tweaking and adjusting the army lists I play with.

I have 45 German soldiers (the starter set plus a box) to play with and they are armed roughly as follows:

6x Assault rifles
5x LMGs
4-5 SMGs
29 Rifles

How would you set these up in squads?

My feeling is to put the assault rifles in a single squad to get the veteran mobile element in the game. For the others, I think I'll have two smaller squads with double LMGs to give fire support. With the extra shot on German LMGs I think they'll be quite a good overwatch/cover element.

Then I plan to have a couple of larger squads who advance closer for objectives and firefights in rifle/SMG range.

Any comments?

Pete

I tend to run my German squad as follows:

Full squad of ten, NCO w/SMG, LMG and 2 Panzerfausts. I use my Germans defensively and try and make the enemy come to them. Doesn't always work due to mission selection but when it does I don't care about move or fire penalties because I'm not moving.

Putting two LMGs in one squad might seem like a good idea but I've found that opponents ignore those units and take out the squads with lower firepower or worse they become targets for Mortars and FOOs. The way I set up means that every single squad I run is an equal threat.

I'm in agreement that I only put assault rifles in one squad and equip all members with them and they're always veteran. It's expensive but it means that this force can advance without move or fire penalties and being veteran they are more survivable.

That's a fair point. I'm going to see how it pans out and force the enemy to come towards the overwatch squads. If not, I'll bulk up the regular squads and play it that way.

I like the idea of making all squads equal or near equal, though. Time to get some game in I think :-)

Little Pete wrote:

My feeling is to put the assault rifles in a single squad to get the veteran mobile element in the game. For the others, I think I'll have two smaller squads with double LMGs to give fire support. With the extra shot on German LMGs I think they'll be quite a good overwatch/cover element.

This idea is something one of our german players capitalized on in his lists. AT 750 his army consisted of three 5 man SS units all with assault rifles and then two 5 man units of regular germans with two LMGs and that was the core of his army. The SS units move forwards while the Heer squads sit back and provide cover.

I run my SS squads like this:

Late war SS squad-65pts (vet)
+1extra man-13pts
Nco-Smg-3pts
+2AR'S-10pts
=91 pts total

Late war SS squad-65pts (vet)
+1extra man-13pts
Nco-Sma-3pts
LMG-20pts
101pts total

And have an equal number of each, 1 for laying down fire and the other for moving up.

Lewis

Thanks for the advice. I think that the moving and firing penalty is a real challenge for the non-American nations so it's better to have an overwatch and a moving element.

That said it's equally fun to play the movement game with the Americans too :-)