Reviving the Heavy Panzer Battalion with Late War Leviathans

Reviving the Heavy Panzer Battalion with Late War Leviathans By Kyle Perry The Heavy Panzer Battalion, or Schwere Panzerabteilung, was a unique and interesting series of formations during WWII. As such an interesting unit, they have been present as a formation choice through multiple versions of Flames of War. But they were always hard to pull off due to the Tiger I and Tiger IIs high point cost, even in larger Late-War games. But now, with the release of Late War Leviathans, the Heavy Panzer Battalions can once more take to the field in greater numbers, with some new toys to bring with them.

Wanting to make this list has been something on my mind for years, so I want to try to remain as Historically plausible as possible but still able to win at local tournaments. Setting our point level at 250 allows us to adjust to most Leviathan games as at least locally, 250 is the most common with some 300+ point games as well. To start off, we will be going with what would have been the most likely and common upgrade to the Heavy Panzer units, the Maus Heavy Tank Company. The HQ is pretty straight forward, we are just going to select the 1 Maus for 24 points. We don't need a 2iC for this unit, the Maus can handle itself and those points are going to be needed elsewhere.

The first compulsory platoon will be another Maus platoon of 1 tank for another 24 points. We don't want our super heavy tanks in platoons of 2, really we should aim for 1 tank or go right for 3+ especially with morale breaks. Now that our Heavy Panzer unit has received its brand new upgrades in the form of 2 Mauses, we get a bit more back to the roots and go with 2 platoons of Tiger IIs with 3 tanks each for 53 points per platoon. This gives us a solid base of AT 17 shots that can still move around the board decently (at least compared to some other units!). We will continue to fill out this company to give it as much staying power as possible by going with a platoon of 4 Wirbelwinds. These can stay close to our heavies providing a whopping 20 anti-aircraft shots, enough to scare any plane away, as well as some extra firepower to deal with certain nations that might bring beefy infantry units with brand new RPG-2s and Super Bazookas.Then to round out the company, we will bring the new Katzchen Panzersturm Platoon. With 7x StG44 with Panzerfaust teams mounted in 4x Katzchen transports equipped with the X7 Rotkappchen missile upgrade, this will give us a good platoon that can hold or assault an objective, deal with tanks if they dare to get close to our infantry, especially with us giving them the new upgrade to Panzerfaust 250s (The increased range, firepower, limited 3, and AT 16 is a thing of beauty) as well as the transports being able to fight tanks themselves after dropping the infantry off with the X7 missiles.

With our core company filled out with 5 platoons at 192 points total, we still have 58 more to play with. So naturally as a Late-War German player, we of course will take 2 platoons of the Heavy Scout Troops. Our Pumas will fill our scout need, allowing Spearheads and can run around threatening side shots on opponents. They may not get any, but they will draw fire from our main force which is great as well. Trying to round out our needs, we will go with a Wespe Artillery Battery and a ME 262 Sturmvogle Fighter-Bomber Flight to deal with any enemy units that group up or targets of opportunity. That leaves us with 31 points, which is not a ton in Leviathans, but it is enough to address one final need. Our highest AT at the moment is 18 from the Mauses, which is good, but there are some super heavies out there that will shrug that off so we need a unit to go with our force that can deal with any super heavy units that pop up. As it just so happens, a platoon of 1 E-100 (15cm) is 26 points. That gives us a unit with an AT 26 which is more than capable of dealing with the heaviest of armor. Our force is essentially complete, we have a solid company and supporting units that can deal with most situations that we would encounter from large tank formations, dug-in infantry, Aircraft, and super heavy armor. With the remaining 5 points, you can adjust some of the units to your tasting, drop a scout unit to then get another support platoon, or if you are like me, grab Lucky for 1 point, and a Looted T-35(85) for the remaining 4 because it would just be too cool not to.

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One of the best things about this list and Leviathans in general, is how little it costs to get into. For this, all I need is 1 box of Mauses, 1 box of E-100s, and 2 blister packs of 2 Katzchen each. Everything else was already in Late-War and I already had bought, painted, and used. And with that, the Schwere Panzerabteilung takes to the field in Late-War Leviathans!

~ Kyle