"Bolt action Blitzkrieg German army options?" Topic

I have the excellent blitzkrieg Germany starter army but not the BA rules. What should I think about when assembling the army? I wonder if I understand the 1000 point list as given, and what to do with spares to hedge my bets.

There are two ten man squads NCO with SMG, LMG.
One ten man veteran squads with NCO with SMG, LMG.
Lt. With TWO SPARE riflemen
One more SPARE guy
Then other things that don't have options; IG, sniper team, mortar, 251, Pz IV. Nothing think about there.

I think one of the spare guys should be an LMG as I read you can have 2 in a veteran squad and that is supposedly useful.

Is it one SMG per squad? What to do with my 3 spare guys?

I'm very new to BA but here is my take.

Warlord games have a suggested breakdown of the 1000 points (just visit their website – easy to navigate and with an fairly active forum section where good advise can be found)

But for convenience, here is their "given" breakdown:
Your list, Officer + 2; Vet quad; 2 regular squad; sniper team; Hanomag; mortar team; artillery Pz IV. (this should be 33 men + the sniper team?) = 1000

For the 3 spare, think about a Medic (some advantages for reducing wounds) and a Forward Artillery observer if you want to use the artillery bombard rule. These will of course take you over the exact 1000 points. I am a solo player and actually do not field exactly balanced forces. I "draw cards" for the exact units' profile, and sometimes this does have an odd "result", but war can be unpredictable. (I'm not a tournament player, so can please myself)

I have one man in each of my squads armed with a LMG (no vets) as this is useful in assault action.

If you want to play around with the army set up, they I can recommend one of the online sites. I tend to use Bolt Action "Easy Army" link you can even get the OOB sent to you by email for printing.

Anyway, not sure that helps much!! But good luck. It's a great little game.

Easy army looks interesting. Thank you.

Early war Germans can only have one LMG per squad, Veteran or Regular.

The extra guy may be a Spotter option for the Mortar team.

Seriously, if you're assembling a force for a specific set of rules, why not buy those rules? If you do so all your questions should be answered.

Seriously, if yours assembling a force for a specific set of riles, why not buy those rules? If you do so all your questions should be answered.

Tin Soldier Man,

Not sure I'll actually use them to play BA. But I'd like to keep them compatible just in case. I've never looked at the BA rules. I also have the boxed starter sets for Americans, Brits, Soviets. That would mean getting the main rules plus, I guess, each of the codexes for that army. I also have SS, the Italians….

Thanks for that vital piece of info Battle Phlox.

You'll find that hardly anyone who plays BA runs full sized squads. What happens is that unit size vs points are tweaked to have the optimum amount of guys per unit for the points cost and all set against the amount of orders dice each side has. It naturally falls that way for most people especially if you end up going to clubs with your pre written army list. It's great for a pick up and play tournament style game that way but irks the heck out of people that would want a more 'historical' view to building their forces. Saying that some players ignore the lists and points and go scenario based over army points list method.

Typically players would have unit sizes roughly like the following for the unit's experience level;
Veteran = 6-7 guys (13pts each)
Regular = 7-8 guys (10pts each)
Green = 8-9 guys (7pts each)

This is very general guide but some will run with bigger vet squads of 8-9 for real robustness or will go with lots of 6 man inexperienced guys to get as many order dice as possible. So your 33 guys will likely give you an HQ, and up to enough models for 5 x 6 man vet squads.

Historically very early on in the war the Germans had some formations with 13 men per section/squad so for flavour you could go they way if you wanted to too (they abandon this fairly quickly due to the 13 men being too much fir a section leader to control in battle) SMGs were barely seen very eay on due to being given to platoon HQ level only, but obviously that changed considerably through the war. How this relates to the rules I don't know but whatever you do have fun! Like every system theresca few quirks with BA but the core game mechanisms are great fun, enjoy!

Very helpful. Thanks. I am glad to know the one SMG per squad will be OK.

I like the grey pants field grey tunic.

Does anyone paint the coloured flag on the helmet? My toy soldiers from childhood had them. I haven't even checked when it was used.