German Heer Pt. 4- Teams

After choosing your HQ and two squad options for the compulsory Reinforced Platoon selections in Bolt Action, you can then start to have some fun! First off in any list for me comes the weapon teams. These provide a bit more welly in small games, and give you some options for how you want to play a battle/ scenario, but keeps things cheap points-wise (and £££-wise) before you start adding artillery and vehicles to your force.

I've always felt that the 0-1 option for most team-based weapons was quite low. I completely understand that this was done to limit enormous abuse by some players who, if allowed more, would by inclination go in that direction. I have, however, welcomed the new force organisation charts that have appeared in more recent campaign books that have played around with these number more freely and allowed more scope and variation depending on the scenario or the historical forces involved. For now though, I still have one of each of the weapon teams that I want to include in my German force. I would like to include a couple more MMG/ static MG42 teams in the future- as the German army became more focused on defensive actions (and I have a late-war German force)- it feels like more MMG teams would be acceptable additions.

Panzerschreck Team

I don't like the Warlord panzerschreck models. I quite like the Artizan Designs ones, but when I saw the Empress Miniatures teams (and their WW2 Germans in general), I knew these were the ones. It's the earliest version panzerschreck, before a blast shield was added, so the poor operator had to wrestle on a gas mask and gloves before he could fire it! Not conducive to split-second reactive fire at the sudden appearance of Allied armoured vehicles, but at least they sorted this out in the later versions. Love Paul Hicks' sculpts, whatever he's doing, so these were a no-brainer.

Sniper Team

Artizan Designs sculpts. Love these. Some of the first figures that I painted for this army, trying out the Sumpfmuster camo scheme. Got a bit carried away with the shrubbery that these guys are using for cover, I think, but I've still got a soft spot for these figures.

MG42/ MMG Team

These Artizan Designs models are the very first figures I painted for this force, and to me it shows. I love the sculpts, but I had issues with where the MMG firer positions in relation to the gun itself... I didn't even have Feldgrau for the uniform of the team leader with the binoculars, so he's got random GW grey trousers. I know that's not a big issue, and I know German uniform quality/ colour suffered nearer the war's end, but it's something I immediately see (and you all can now too...)

80mm/ Medium Mortar Team

Artizan Designs models, again. I try to base my teams individually so I can represent casualties physically rather than with counters or dice. Additionally, I really don't like basing teams on 60mm round bases or similar because it limits where they can be placed on the table sometimes. If you want to snuggle them into cover nicely or conceal then in ruins/ buildings, a big base won't let you do that. Just my preference, though. Below the mortar team is the spotter that they can optionally take.