During our try-out games for Partizan, it became clear that the Japanese were being shot to pieces, this is compounded some what by our regular Japanese player, James, who plays every game as if he were a Viking Warlord and must charge the enemy at the earliest opportunity and engage with cold steel.
I decided it was time to have something for the Japanese to build a defensive line on, so I have put together a couple of bunkers for the machine guns and a few lengths of revetments for the riflemen to shelter behind. It will make them much less likely to get shot to pieces and if he has a trench line to defend, James may not rush off to engage the British on turn one with the bayonets.
The construction of the bunkers is a foam-core base with the bunker made from blue high density polystyrene, with the roof made of more foam-core. The timbers are made from coffee-stirrers. The whole lot was coated with Vallejo Pumice Gel and then a mix of coarse sand was applied to the base and the roof. The whole lot was painted in Vallejo US Field Drab, dry-brushed with Vallejo Dark Sand and washed with Vallejo Sepia Wash (I was quite near the end of the jar so these have come out quite dark). I stuck a few twigs on and they were finished off with Woodland Scenics clump foliage and Mini-natur tufts.
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| Two bunkers |
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| Rear view of bunker |
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| Manned with Type 92 MMG |
The revetments are made in a similar way, I stuck blue foam to tongue-depressors and then backed with coffee-stirrer planking. The uprights are bamboo skewers. They were painted and finished off like the bunkers.
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| A few revetments |
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| Rear view of a long section |
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| Rear view of a short section |
Afraid there was not a lot of light this morning when I took these, so the pictures are a little dark.
As for the rules, there is nothing in Bolt Action for trenches and bunkers, so I think I'll count the bunkers as if they were an house, so +2 to hit for concealment and only damage on a 6+ and the revetments as a +1 to hit for concealment and only damage on a 6+.
Tonight I gave Lee his first game of Bolt Action using my British and Japanese for the Burma Campaign. We both used pretty much identical forces of:
Things did get better though, the Artillery Forward Observer landed his barrage between two Japanese squads and threw a six for one of them, thew were soon reduced below half strength and were removed due to a failed moral check.
Eventually, I had killed the light mortar and the section on Lees left, but the attack on his right went very well, sweeping away all my troops on that side. We rolled and there would be a crucial seventh turn, allowing Lee to move one section off and move two more into my deployment zone.
Yesterday evening, Matt, Steve, Mark, James and myself had another try out of the game that we'll be playing at Partizan in a couple of weeks. Again it would be two platoons of British forces attacking a Japanese held village. We used the modifications we had used previously to make Bolt Action less predictable, but this time I had made a load of cards for the random events. We also had two 'Story' dice in the bag, but I'd now consider having even more of those.
Matt and Steve each played a British platoon, while Mark and James shared duties with the Japanese. As you can see from the photos's I've made even more jungle terrain so the table is even closer. The game progressed well, James did his usual trick of advancing his Japanese to meet the British and soon a couple of his sections were badly shot up for little gain, but a well timed Banzai charge cleared out a section of British, James really does like to get at least one bayonet charge in each game, it really brings the Dark Ages out in him. 
