Avernos, the Desert Squirrel.

I’ll be ignoring the usual flesh, metallics, wood for guns. Instead I’ll be focusing on the options for the uniforms and equipment common to the German forces.

As you can see there’s a bit of variation in the cloth, none really show the green khaki but the canvas on the boots of all uniforms match this colour, I prefer to use Vallejo Russian Uniform 924, but German Field Grey 830 can also work when lightened with an ivory. Occasionally standard German uniform from Northern Europe was also issued, it was not uncommon for later tunic or trousers to appear in field grey so it’s a handy colour to have to hand anyway.

After the Tropical Clothing that turned out to be unfit for purpose in the desert a lighter cotton version of the European uniform was issued in khaki brown. There are a couple of options here shade wise, US field drab 873 or English Uniform 921 both work, if you’re going for a spray primer there’s an excellent British Uniform Spray available. In fact during the siege of Tobruk vast quanities of British fatigues were captured and used to supplement the Germans own.

Now we get into the later sunbleached versions of the uniform, I’ve selected three colours but realistically you only one of the two dark shades. My favourite is Desert Yellow 977, but Green Ochre 914 will also work. What I plan to do is use the Ochre on the steelhelms and keep the desert yellow for the cloth. The third colour  Dark Sand 847 can be used for shirts as well as extremely bleached fatigues.

For leather pouches,straps, boots and the water bottle cover either Leather Brown 871, or Flat Earth 983 will do the job. I prefer the flat earth but if you’re planning on going for a new tropical uniform force I find it’s a little too similar to the english uniform. In which case the darker leather brown gives a better contrast.

All that’s left to do is to is some detail work.

Canvas webbing can be painted using the Dark Sand.

Bread bag with Russian Uniform.

Water bottle lid with Black.

Throw in an occasional splash of colour in red or blue on the neckerchiefs that were used as dust masks, and don’t be afraid to make them as filthy as possible. Water supplies were rationed heavily and unkempt, unwashed and unshaven was often the order of the day for the Wehrmacht in North Africa.

The German army in Africa throws up another of those quirks where the uniform was in no way uniform. Originally they were issued with a green khaki tropical uniform and pith helmet, these were in no way fit for purpose and were phased out for a looser cut of uniform that came in a khaki brown colour that faded over time to a yellow cream.

Because of this your units can be as mixed as you would like them to be, stick to one colour throughout the force, or mix and match squads or even individual bits of clothes among the squads to create a really hodge podge veteran look.

our final entry, for 100 points is a regular armoured reconnaissance car. It comes equipped with a medium machine gun and a light autocannon. That is a lot of anti infantry power and, if you’re very lucky, a chance in the rear of some tanks if you’re brave enough to get in close behind them.

The other useful thing is that like all recce vehicles they have a greater range for spotting hidden enemies in scenarios and, because of the dual steering set up, if they haven’t acted when they are fired on they can escape at a run move as if they were driving forward rather than reversing at half speed. That tactic can keep your precious car alive much longer, no need to throw it away needlessly.

That concludes the basic list and comes to 1001 points for a 12 command dice list. Any questions let me know below.

Next Up I’m going to finish cleaning and painting them before I move on to adding to the force.

For early war the anti-tank rifle was king, but in the escalation of arms it was quickly rendered obsolete. Here in the Western Desert though a 39 point veteran weapon team will take out transports with ease, those pesky Bren carriers will be less likely to barrel forwards and smaller tankettes may think twice. For the infantry tanks though you’ll need to go bigger.

the 5cm PAK 38, weighing in at 90 points for a veteran team that price will get you an anti tank gun that even the heavily armoured British infantry tanks will tip toe around. With a 60″ range you’ll out-range opposing tanks, deploy last if you can and tuck into a corner, to make full use of your range. Engage the tanks on your terms, while you have a gun shield to offer some protection to the crew I find it better to protect a flank with some form of terrain, a building or large rock. If you can don’t give them a clear line of sight to you.

Time to start adding in some of the important things. Infantry squads are good at taking objectives, but they often need help. To that end we have two of the finest, a medium machine gun and a medium mortar.

for 65 points we’ll be adding in a veteran medium machine gun. With Germany’s national rule that’s 6 dice of fire from a fixed mount. Fixed means you have a limited field of fire, and if you need to turn it will cost you an additional -1 modifier to your shooting, but at 36″ range it can suppress and support. Additionally in the western campaign book you can take it as a fixed LMG instead, you lose a die of fire (down from 6 shots to 5) but can pay 5 points to have it mounted on an anti aircraft mount. If you’re playing British it may be worth the points but you’ll have to find them somewhere else.

Next up we’re going to add the 81mm medium mortar, another 65 points for the metal team, but we’re going to go ahead and make a spotter from one of our spare plastic infantrymen it will cost us another 10 points and well worth it.

With the mortar we’ve got an indirect fire weapon 12″-60″ that range is devastating, and the mortar can dig infantry and weapon teams out of pretty much anything, and if push comes to shove you may even be able to take out smaller armour, but don’t make them your priority. Chances of hitting increase turn by turn as long as neither you or your target move, meaning once you’ve selected a target stick with it, force your opponent to decide if they want to stay and get hit with a 2″ blast and the additional pins that come with it, or get up and move from that prime piece of real estate they set up in.

The spotter doesn’t generate a command die, but at the same time he doesn’t have to be deployed near the mortar team. Instead when activating you can chose to use either the team itself or the spotter to draw line of sight. This means you can hide the weapon out of the way and send the spotter off to call in the strikes.

Trucks can be used as transports or tows for some weapons. In this case I’ve bought 2 regular trucks for 39 points each as infantry transports. These are not assault vehicles merely delivery systems, for up to 12 men, which can be made up of any number of teams. If it ends up closer to the enemy than a friendly unit they are destroyed.

But that’s not the only reason to bring a battle taxi, personally I bring mine along for two command dice they generate. More dice in the bag, more chance I will get them when I need them. On the other hand if I pull a die early when I don’t want to activate something, they can be used to put the trucks Down and hopefully force my opponent into moving earlier than they would like. Offense and Defense in one 4 wheeled truck.

With the HQ choices out of the way, we can move onto the fleisch and kartoffeln of the Afrika Korp the infantry.

When building any list I like to try and build in some redundancy and to that end I’ve made the three squads practically identical.

Each veteran squad contains a NCO with a SMG, five rifle men and a LMG team consisting of firer and loader. That’s 127 points per squad, but for my two compulsory choices I upgraded them both to have anti tank grenades. It’s never a good idea to assault a tank with infantry, but I’d rather have them and not need them, than need them and not have them.

When building the compulsory squads I added one rifleman to each with a grenade so I could easily identify which units I had upgraded with anti tank grenades. It’s also worth noting now that when placing the prone firing figure I glued the body to the base and then attached the arms, this turned out to be a mistake the posing of the model makes the gun fire off at an angle and more annoyingly the ammo box barely sits on. When building wait until it’s assembled and dry before you glue it down, you’ll thank me later.

38 points will get you a Medic, with a stretcher bearer. Another two man team, because as Bob Ross said, “everybody needs a friend”.

These are god sends for infantry based armies, any damage caused by small arms within 6″ can be ignored on a d6 roll of a 6.

For 38pts, I mean why wouldn’t you?