"FOW Newbie and Required Books" Topic

I recently lost the fight I had been putting up for years and have drunk the FOW Kool-Aid. Now I feel like a crack addict. Went out and bought the new version of the rules and then traded some unused items for the US Airborne company and some supporting elements. What supporting books do I need for the Airborne and for the forces they fought against? Or do I need them at all?

Hell's Highway or the new book on D-Day would be the best bet.

My main force is the US Airborne so I'll give you some of my recommendations.

Market Garden and Overlord/Turning Tide are a must. I'd also add North Africa for some Tunisia and Sicily battles (although you will need more US Army support options) and finally Nuts, the Bastogne book.

Thanks guys. Will those also give me a run-down of axis forces they fought against?

With D-Day, you can put almost any kind of late-war German company against them. Atlantik Wall has them all but the main ones would be Panzergrenadier and Grenadier infantry companies if you're playing 82nd Airborne and Grenadier and Fallshirmjager if you're playing 101st AB. The 101st seemed to be drawn to Fallshirmjagers if you read their battle history in WW2.

My recommendations for good US airborne opponents would be Panzergrenadiers and Fallshirmjagers. Atlantik Wall and Bridge by Bridge are both worth investing in. With North Africa and Nuts you get German companies in the same book as well.

EasyArmy would really help. Maybe get one book to cover the campaign/period you like best and use EasyArmy to cover the rest.

Borrow somebody else's, I have the whole set from the first book, so somebody nearby must have them too.

Well I will tag into this thread and state I am planing to come back to FoW having left it during the second edition. I want to do late war American infantry with armor support. So in addition to the rules which of the mentioned supplements do you recommend?

Thanks

You can field LW US rifles with just the Forces book. They'll be Confident Trained and because they're cheap will have a ton of points left over for artillery, air support, TDs and some tanks if you want.

There's also the Citizen's Soldier PDF.
From it you can field Trained and Veteran level forces depending on what division you choose to go with.

PDF link

Both sources are also available for free on Easy Army. Most of the hard cover FoW books for leg infantry I've seen don't give you appreciably different options/performance.

kallman, Citizen Soldiers is perfect for your plan, and free.

Market Garden lets you give the 82nd Panzerfausts (with Mission Tactics, just like the unkillable German Platoon HQ Faust). Support is British tanks, CV with or without Guards morale reroll, and two Fireflies per platoon with AT15 armor-piercing shells.

Nuts, however, is different. All support is American, and later-model (like Hellcat TDs). Only 101st is represented, and can take the full range of Easy Company heroes. Can downgrade platoons to Rifle (no MG) for a points discount, and can field ridiculous numbers of bazookas by swapping rifle or rifle/mg teams for bazooka teams. I tend to do this to two platoons and field the third as fire support with R/MGs.