Once there are airfields not occupied by Dutch units, you can bring in the Luftlande troops. These guys land in Ju-52s, not by parachute. The game rule 2.6 Air Landing covers this. Like the Fallschirmjaegers, there are three steps:

1. Place the Luftlande units on an airfield, up to the airfield limit.

2. Resolve Dutch Anti-Aircraft fires on the units and scatter units if necessary.

3. Attempt to land, scatter unit if necessary. Repeat this step until the unit has landed or aborted.

Now let's review these steps in more detail.

Step 1: Place the Luftlande units on an airfield

The first step is similar to the Fallschirmjaegers, but the Luftlande troops MUST attempt to land on an airfield. Also there is not a historical landing airfield like there is with the Fallschirmjaegers in the scenario setup. Each airfield has a normal limit and a maximum limit. The number represents how many Ju-52 points can land in a given turn. If you attempt to land up to the normal limit there is no additional penalty.

But if you want (or need) to go over the normal limit, you can go up to the maximum. You cannot attempt to land more then the maximum limit. And if you go over the normal limit you have an additional modifier to your landing attempt.

Step 2: Resolve Dutch Anti-Aircraft fires

Next like the Fallschirmjaegers, the Dutch can attempt to fire up the landing Ju-52s with any AA units in range. The fire is resolved in the same way as with your Fallschirmjaegers. The Dutch player rolls the AA value or less, you roll for losses and scatter as needed.

Step 3: Attempt to land

What is different is what happens with the landing. The Fallschirmjaegers don't have much choice about landing; once they take that last step out of the Ju-52, they are coming down. However, the Ju-52 pilots can throttle up and pull up if they want to. And some of your pilots will decide to do this, even if you'd rather they just land! So unlike Fallschirmjaegers, each Luftlande counter has to roll one die on the Air Landing Table for each hex it tries to land in. This is where things can get sticky. The table is on page 6 of the game rules. Here is the table for reference:

Modified Roll Result
1 or less Destroy one Ju-52 Point, Place Wreck in airfield, Scatter as per 1.8d.
2 Destroy one Ju-52 Point, land at the airfield
3 or more Landing occurs without loss

Modifiers:

-1 Landing into an EZOC (friendly units do not negate this)
-1 Landing into an airfield with a Wreck Marker in it.
-2 Landing at an airfield handling more than Normal Capacity this turn.
-2 Landing in a hex with a Standing Barrage in it (Units are attacked by the barrage after they land, normally, as well).
-1 Landing in a Highway/Road or Dunes hex
-2 Landing in an Open hex.

Notice that if you roll a 1 or less the counter scatters again. And once you scatter this counter to yet another hex, you need to roll on the Air Landing Table again. The good news is that the scattered counter is not subject to AA fire again. Which means you could scatter yet again, and again and again. So it is possible (and likely) that some counters will scatter multiple times before they land. Here you have to make a choice, is it worth scattering the counter again, or just abort this counter and try again in a future turn.

It's not necessarily simple choice; you have already "paid" for this unit to land in this turn. You only have so many Ju-52 points after all. So if you abort you have wasted that Ju-52 point. And you have one less counter on the map to help the guys already there. But on the other hand, if it looks like they are going to land to far from any other troops, then you may be better off trying for another run in a later turn.

By the way, the chart is a little misleading in that it says for a final result of a two "Destroy one Ju-52 Point, land at the airfield". The word airfield shouldn't be there. It should just say "Destroy one Ju-52 Point, land in the hex" because it's very possible that these guys are not landing on an airfield. Also for a final roll of one or less, you don't place wrecks in nonairfield hexes. Only airfields get wrecks.

Another question that often comes up is that of stacking. As you can see, the CAP on all the airfields is over the stacking limit. The game rule 1.3 Stacking says only 4 units can stack in one hex. But you can land up to 16 Luftlande units in Waalhaven for example, isn't this a problem? No. According to the series rules 4.0 Stacking: "Reinforcements can over stack initially, but these stacks must break up by that phase's end." Think of the units landing in the Air Activities phase as reinforcements.

Luftlande Example

Now for an example of landing some Luftlande companies. The example just focuses on the landing of a few companies to show the mechanics of the process in action.

In this example we are land just four Luftlande units at Valkenburg airfield. The top three are standard infantry companies and the last unit is a weapons company. The CAP is 8 and the MAX is 12, so there is no modifier for capacity of the airfield. The airfield is in an EZOC, which means there is a -1 modifier on the air-landing table. There are no AA units in the range, so no AA rolls.

As I said earlier, I like to start with the top unit and work my way down. First landing attempt: roll is a 3 with a -1 that's a 2 which means, "Destroy one Ju-52 Point, land at the airfield". Ok, at least we got on the ground! Ok, next one: roll a 5, becomes a 4, lands with no problems. Next one: roll a 2, which becomes a 1 and that means, "Destroy one Ju-52 Point, Place Wreck in airfield, Scatter". OK, so roll for scatter: direction 2, distance 9. That puts them off the map, so they abort to try at a later time.

Now the weapons company comes in and they have it bad. There is still the -1 of the EZOC and now added on that is a -1 for the wreck. And the roll is a 1! That is off the bottom of the chart another "Destroy one Ju-52 Point, Place Wreck in airfield, Scatter". You don't add another wreck, but you still lose another Ju-52 point and the unit scatters. So the scatter roll is: Direction 5, Distance 4.

That puts them in the middle of Leiden (which is a city some of my ancestors are from) in hex 53.02, not a good place to try to land a flight of Ju-52s. Correct them three hexes to 55.04, landing on a road is a -1. And the roll is a 1 again! Yikes! Ok, no wreck this time, wrecks only on airfields, but got to scatter them again. Geesh, will they ever put wheels to earth? Direction: 2, Distance: 6, which puts them on 61.07. Correct them three hexes to 58.07, which is a road again. OK, one more time with feeling: air-landing roll is a 5 for a final value of 4! Yea! Wheels down!

Overall, lost a total of four Ju-52 points and had one company abort. Here is where the units are at the end of the Air Activities phase as far as these units are concerned:

Now you know how to land in Holland. Some points that you should pick up on quickly;

1. Take out the Dutch AA units with the first wave of Fallschirmjaegers.

2. Use the Fallschirmjaegers to secure each airfield so that the airfield is not in an EZOC when the Luftlande troops start rolling in.

3. Land in force and strike hard, strike fast.

Good gaming!

Landing the 7th Flieger Division