Nachtjager Part One:- The British!

So after having to wait their turn the British finally get another Late Late War book. Nachtjager is 80 pages long and focuses on the British led Operation Plunder, the encirclement of the Ruhr Pocket and the drive towards Denmark. You may have noticed I didn't say Operation Varsity and I haven't missed it out, the Airbourne forces aren't an option at all in this book.

The British 
Special Rules

The British have two new special rules (well both are in Market Garden), Platoon, Debus! allows lorried infantry to have a 3+ Passenger save while mounted on a Tank Team.

Duckbills allows you before the game starts to choose to have all your Sherman's M10's and Sextons to become Slow Tanks but gain Wide Tracks.

The Lists

There are two 11th Armoured lists, the Armoured Squadron and B Squadron, 15th/19th Hussars. Both are tank lists and both are quite different. We'll start with the Armoured Squadron.

Armoured Squadron

The list is Confident Veteran and focuses on the Comet tank (can I hear a big cheer from all the British tank fans out there!), the Comet looks like it'll be a load of fun to use, it's a super medium tank (don't expect to see something that will win in a straight fight with a Panther or Pershing) it has similar stats to an Easy Eight, FA 7, SA 4 and TA 1. Where the tank comes into it's own is that it's a Light Tank (yep move 16") and has AT 14 with semi indirect fire. While not game breaking I think if used right these guys will course a few headaches with their speed and good Anti Tank.

The only HQ 1IC and 2IC option is to have a Comet, you can add up to 2 CS Cromwells to the HQ for some much needed smoke support (the Comet has no direct fire smoke).

Weapons platoons see the normal Recce Stuarts, which are all now Jalopy's, (shame as I love normal Stuarts but it is at least a points saver) or the 15th/19th Hussars Recce Patrol with Humbars Scout cars or Daimler Dingos (got to be Dingo's even if it's just for the "A Dingo ate my baby" joke!)

One nice addition that only the 11th Armoured Squadron gets is an SAS patrol. These guys have 3 jeeps in a patrol and up to 3 patrols in the slot. They are different from their MW unit, they follow all the normal rules for British and gain Mission Tactics and are a recon platoon.

B Squadron, 15th/19th Hussars

The first thing that struck me was how different this list is from the Market Garden version. Firstly Confident Veteran, not Trained, secondly the Cromwell platoons have lost the Challengers from the platoons.... but fear not they now have Challenger platoons! Yes that's right you can have 3 or 4 Challengers in a platoon! That's 9 or 12 Semi-indirect fire At 15 shots, Trained Panthers beware! Oh and one platoon is compulsory with a second one available. The only troop slot is a platoon of 3 or 4 Cromwells. I must say I love this balance, I always felt that the Cromwell/Challenger platoon was out of sorts, you wanted to keep moving with the move 16" Cromwells but wanted to stay still with the Challangers. Well thats no longer a problem, this is a list I will be trying out at some point very soon.
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The HQ is interesting as you have to have your 1IC in a CS Cromwell and you can only have one more CS Cromwell added to the HQ.

This list lacks the Stuart Recce option but has two 15th/19th Hussar slots which are the same as I talked about above.

Armoured lists Divisional Support

The Divisional support is pretty much the same for both lists (well the 15th/19th Hussars are a little more limited) so I'm going to cover it all here. I'm also not going to go into too much detail as it's mostly nothing you haven't seen before. All the Support is Confident Veteran.

• The Infantry options are Motor Platoons, Lorried Rifle Platoons or Commandos.
• Anti-Tank platoons are M10C 17pdrs as the only option
• Recon comes in the form of Armoured Car Platoons (Daimlers and Dingos), SAS (as talked about above) or Scout Platoons (Universal Carriers and yes they have the option for Wasps!)
• Self Propelled AA is the normal Bofors 40mm SP truck.
• Artillery options are either 25 Pounders, Medium Support and Sextons.
• The air support rounds out the lists with Limited or Priority Typhoons and AOP.

Conclusion

The Armoured lists here give you options no other British Armoured list currently gives you. While I really really want the Comet to be a game changer I think it's probably just a good solid option. Now the 15th/19th Hussars do look like a very solid list, the support is a bit limited but I can see (in the right hands) the lists doing a lot of damage. Probably fully if not mostly fully armoured and everything being movement 16" in a smash and grab mission win.

Overall I like the lists and will be use them in my games at home, but time will tell if they will see time on the tournament scene.

Rifle Company

The British (if you don't count the Canadians) have been waiting for a Late Late War Infantry list for some time. Market Garden only gave us Lorried Infantry which being a Mech list lacked the British trump card of Night Attack. A focus on Scottish Divisions in the history section means Bagpipes see the only extra special rules (not going into details here as Bagpipes are quite common). Something to note is the only option is for Confident Veterans, there is no Confident Trained or Reluctant Veteran lists. I'm not surprised by the lack of Confident Trained options but I thought there would be a Reluctant Veteran list, in fact I was worried there would be only be a Reluctant list and no Confident one as with the war coming to a close some units were more focused on surviving the war and not winning it.

The Core choices are the similar to the Canadians from Market Garden except you only have the options for Ram Kangaroo's or LVT-4 Water Buffalos transports and no SMG option. Otherwise it's the same 7 Rifle/MG teams, 1 PIAT team and 1 Light Mortar team you have seen in all Late War British lists. Like Market Garden the list you can still Night Attack even if equipped with Ram's and still count as an Infantry Company. The rest of the support is mostly the same as most Late Wae British Lists so I will cover them quickly.

• The Weapons Platoons see Carrier Platoons, Pioneer Platoons, Anti-Tank platoon with 6pdrs and a Mortar platoon. The Mortar and the Anti-Tank gun platoons have the option to have to replace their transport (if you buy them) with DUKW amphibious trucks.
• The Brigade Support platoons follow a similar theme with Machine-Gun and Heavy Mortar platoons which like the Weapons Platoons can also have amphibious trucks.
• There are two Armoured slots each with the options of a Tank platoon (Churchill's), Independent Armoured Platoon (either DD Shermans or normal Shermans with Firefly support), Crocodile Tank Platoon (Churchill Version) or a Breaching Group.
• The Self-Propelled Anti-Tank can either be Archers or M10c 17pdrs.
• Recce comes from either Humber Recce or Daimler Recce with supporting Universal Carriers.
• An extra infantry slot means you can have a 4th infantry platoon or Commandos.
• The Artillery is the normal 25 Pdr's or Medium Support.
• And finally the air support rounds out the lists with Limited or Priority Typhoons and AOP.

Conclusion

I think this is a very solid list. The Canadians have been a good list for quite a while now and I don't see this being any different. The choice between Canadians, Welsh (from the 53rd Infantry PDF) and the Scottish from Nachtjager will have people debating the best special rule or slightly different option for ages (trust me Adam does this all the time!).

Well there you go, the new British lists from NachtJager, please come back tomorrow for a look at the German Lists and in a few days for a podcast interview with Mike Haught the man himself,

Until then click here to chat about the new book on the WWPD forum.

Ben