Bolt Action Battle Report - Japanese vs US Infantry

Yesterday evening Phil and I had my first game of Bolt Action in many a month. Phil has got his Americans painted so lacking any ETO troops of my own, I picked a 750pt force from the new Armies of Imperial Japan supplement that was swiftly supplied by Arcane Scenery.

I went for a pretty vanilla Japanese infantry force:

• Regular 2nd Lieutenant plus 1 man 60pts
• Regular 12 man infantry squad inc LMG 140pts
• Regular 12 man infantry squad inc LMG 140pts
• Regular 12 man infantry squad inc LMG 140pts
• Regular 8 man grenadier squad inc 2 lt mtr 130pts
• Regular Suicide Anti-tank team 20pts
• Regular Suicide Anti-tank team 20pts
• Regular Medium Machine Gun team 50pts
• Regular Sniper Team 50pts

Phil used the following American force:

• Regular Lieutenant plus 1 man
• Regular Forward Air Observer
• Regular Medic plus 1 man 
• Regular 10 man infantry squad inc SMG & BAR
• Regular 10 man infantry squad inc SMG & BAR
• Regular 9 man infantry squad inc SMG & BAR
• Veteran 6 man Ranger squad inc two SMG & BAR
• Regular Medium Mortar
• Regular Medium Machine Gun



The initial set-up

• Regular Sniper Team

I would have nine dice in the pot and Phil would have ten. We set the table up with some good line of site blocking terrain and then rolled up a mission - "Hold Until Relieved" so one of the buildings was moved to the centre of the table to represent the objective.

I won the roll off and chose to be the defender, deploying one infantry squad in the objective and my MMG in the wood to the back of it. My first wave was my CO one infantry squad and the grenadier squad, with the last infantry squad and the anti-tank teams in reserve. My sniper was placed in the other building after Phil had completed his deployment. I elected to put my infantry section and MMG on Ambush due to the new Japanese special rule.

The game kicked off with a pre-game dash by the Rangers.

US Rangers rush the hedge-line.

The initial turn passed rather uneventfully, but the US Air observer called in his first air-strike on the unit holding the objective. Turn two, the Thunderbolts screamed in and straffed the US Mortar team, destroying it and causing all the surrounding units to hit the deck! To add to their woes, the Japanese sniper took out the Ranger NCO with a single shot. Not to be daunted the US air liaison team called in another strike on the defenders.

By this time the Japanese reinforcements were heading towards the objective, but one of the squads was caught in the open and shot up rather badly. The pins were racking up on both sides, and the US attack went through a period of stagnation when a lot of the troops were unable to be motivated to get on with their jobs.

Shameful US Air Liaison team

A Boston screamed out of the clouds and was much more effective than the earlier Thunderbolt. The Japanese defenders dived for cover, but despite their defensive measures, a third of the section in the building were wiped out by the devastating attack. Desultory fire by the sluggish US infantry also accounted for a couple more.

As they were being thinned out by the continued US fire, the Japanese attempted to drive the attackers away at bayonet point. The first Banzai force was farcical, two troops fell to long range SMG fire from the US platoon Sergeant and the outnumbered US squad not only won the initial clash, but killed off all the attackers. A second bayonet charge was much more successful in driving back the American attacks on my left flank, but things were coming to a head.

As the game developed

A US charge on the house was driven off, but with severe casualties so when another US squad came in we were unable to drive them off. As darkness fell, neither side was in clear possession of the objective.

My first game of Bolt Action in many a month, but despite the rustiness with the rules we both had a good time. I hope to get another game in with Phil in the New Year.