This weapon fires bombardments but it only gets 1 chance to range in on the enemy. Should you hit though any infantry or unarmoured vehicles caught in the blast is killed outright on a 5+ with no chance to save. If a tank is unlucky enough to be caught there it is hit with an AT6 hit to its top armour.

You can field these bad boys in the River of Heroes Handbook which is a follow up to Hammer and Sickle.

Their stats are decent too.

Fully-tracked with Armour Front 7, Side 2, Top 1. It is armed with Hull MG and 7.5cm PaK39 gun. The 7.5cm PaK39 gun has a range of 32”/80cm, ROF 2, Anti-tank 11 and Firepower 3+.

The only downside is they are overloaded.

This gun has an AT rating of 16. Yes that isn’t a typo 16. This is enough to make even an IS-2 commander think twice. If you’re running a late war german force that sees a lot of enemy heavy tanks, pick this unit up. Its a monster.

HQ 355 points

2 stuG G

Tank Platoon I 535 points

3 StuG G

Tank Platoon II 730 points

3 Panther D

Mobile Artillery Battery 130 points

1 section

There is very little to say about this list. It will hit extremely hard, The artillery is thrown in for smoke screens (keeping your opponents 13 antitank rating guns smoked will keep your panthers alive). Go after one target, hit it with everything you’ve got, do it as quickly as you can so you minimise your own losses. an extremely brutal list, your opponent will see you coming and there will be very little they can do about it.

Be careful of side shots, this is the weakness of this list. It is weak to ambushes as well, if you find that you are getting ambushed a lot, you may want to add in a recon unit in place of the artillery. It all depends if you’re going to be facing ambushes or really big immobile guns.

Command 240

• 1 Panzer IV F G
• 1 Panzer III G H I (early)

Panzer Platoon 270

• 3 panzer III G H I (early)

Armoured Car Platoon 90

• 2 sd kfz 231

This list gives you some interesting options to play with as you learn the rules. The Panzer IV G H comes with the ability to fire bombardments and has smoke. This is a key tactical tool of any tank commander and learning to use it effectively is key to winning a battle.

The Panzer III’s are well armoured and great at taking out the enemy. Most enemy tanks will go down to their fire and dug in infantry don’t really stand a chance. Watch out for long range guns though they can put some hurt on your tanks. This is what the smoke and the fast armoured cars are for.

The armoured cars are very fast and pack some punch. They can be used to quickly flank your enemy, getting side shots on their armour or engaging their guns. They are fragile but perfect to learn flanking and hit and run tactics with.

This force is something you can put together over a weekend very easily. Great way to get your feet wet as a german panzerkompanie. Remember you can pick whichever tank looks cool from the letter ranges, if you want to create a historically accurate force the descriptions of where each model was used is on the packaging.

Panzer IV

The panzer IV is the newer model of panzer available to the German forces. Its main gun has an anti-tank value of 11 making it well suited to punching holes in your enemy’s heavy armour. Since it only gets to shoot twice its best used to engage heavy armour. Leave the infantry and light tank fighting up to the older panzer models, they are better suited to it. Since this tank is very expensive you want to avoid taking losses at all costs. There is an excellent strategy article available talking about the panzer and how it fits into an army.

Panzer III M

The Panzer III M has a higher rate of fire than the Panzer IV and one less firepower. Even with the firepower reduction on average it performs better vs infantry in bulletproof cover and lightly armoured vehicles than the Panzer 4. Depending on your opponent taking some of these guys may be well worth it.

Panzer III H

This model has one less shot than the panzer 3 M but one more firepower and all of its other stats are the same. Unless you really need to save the 5 points, the panzer III M is a better all around tank. This panzer, on average, is worse at killing troops in bulletproof cover despite the better firepower value.

Conclusion

The Panzer IV is your all out heavy tank killer while the panzer III M is better able to handle light tanks and infantry. When devising a strategy make sure you’re using the right tool for the job, Panzer IV’s are wasted points going up against lightly armoured vehicles and infantry just as the Panzer III M will have many of its shots bounce off heavy armour.