Bolt Action intro for Mick

Micks buildings - Sarissa Precision 

On Wednesday I gave Mick his first game of Bolt Action. Mick used his German Grenadiers and I used my 14th Army British both at about 600pts.

Micks list was all veterans:
2nd Lieutenant with 2 men, one squad of 10 Infantry with 2 SMG, 2 Assault Rifles, 1 LMG, 1 PanzerFaust and 5 Rifles, one squad of 10  Infantry with 2 SMG, 3 Assault Rifles, 1 LMG, 1 PanzerFaust and 4 Rifles, one MG-42  and one 8cm Mortar with spotter.

I used a regular list of:
2nd Lieutenant with 2 men, Forward Observer with 1 man, three sections each of 1 SMG, 1 LMG and 8 Rifles, Light Mortar, Vickers MMG and Recce Carrier.

Germans advance into the buildings

We laid out a selection of terrain, mainly a village with a t-junction, a lot of fields and some woodland and rolled up the Demolition mission, I placed my objective, Mick placed his and then we deployed half of our forces each and had at it.

British secure their side of the village

We were soon ensconced in the respective halves of our villages and a fierce cross-street fire-fight was taking place although I soon lost a section but the German squad facing them was soon racking up the pin markers. One of my sections came on from a flanking maneuver and took out the MG-42 and was soon rapidly advancing on to the German 'base'.

Committing some reserves I was winning the firefight in the village, but Mick threw a super rally roll on his squad with 6 pins and was soon back in the fight. On turn six my flanking squad was very close to the German base and only had a single pin, but against the odds the first two dice out of the bag were German, another two pins on my unit, and they fluffed their move onto the objective - a Draw!

Mick certainly enjoyed the game and is keen to have another go. Maybe it's time for a small Bolt Action campaign or league at the club.

Another shot of the village

German HQ

Vickers MMG adds support

German infantry emerge from the woods to take on the British in the fields

Japanese anti-tank troops and another Type 92 MMG

Continuing with the busy weekend of painting, yesterday I managed to polish off another couple of blisters of Assault Group Japanese

First of all a second Type 92 machine gun to go with the one I already have:

The other blister was a pack of anti-tank teams armed with all manner of suicidal weapons, first a couple of pole mines:

 A Molotov Cocktail seems almost sane by comparison:

Finally, a wait in a hole with a 105mm shell and run at any tank that dives past......

I also took the opportunity to rephotograph the figures from my earlier post, I think they have come out rather better this time using natural daylight:

Universal Carrier from 9th btn Border Regiment

Universal Carrier from 9th btn Border Regiment

Generic truck

Generic truck

Artizan Sikhs with Lee Enfield

Artizan Sikhs with Lee Enfield

Assault Group Japanese

Assault Group Japanese

Cracking on with the Burma Project

So this weekend has been a Bank Holiday weekend. We went to visit the first-born in Hereford yesterday so that curtailed the painting yesterday - although I did sit in a pub beer garden with the  first-borns boyfriend and assemble some Perry Desert Rats. But, on Friday and Saturday I had a good days painting and managed to complete four Assault Group Japanese, four Artizan Sikhs, a Die Waffenkammer Universal Carrier and a die-cast truck.

I have painted the Universal Carrier with (what I hope) are the correct markings of the Carrier Platoon of the 9th Battalion Border Regiment - 63rd Indian Infantry Brigade.

I also did a die cast truck that I picked up on eBay in a set of muted brown tones, with the hope of using this for either Japanese or British or even our nascent Keren 1941 project.

I had a single blister of Assault Group Japanese primed grey and ready to paint so I finished these.

And finally on the painting front a blister of Artizan Sikhs primed and ready to paint.

In addition to these I also cleaned up and primed the following:

• one blister of Assault Group Japanese anti-tank troops
• one blister of Assault Group Type 92 MMG
• seven blisters of Assault Group Gurkhas 

While photographing these a Sparrowhawk took a Thrush in our garden so I also got a couple of lovely shots of the carnage!

Bolt Action 1.1 - stepping away from the tournament game

Bolt Action is a fine game of an evening between friends, but I'm soon jaded with all the talk of dropping LMG's because they are not worth the points and min-maxing of lists, some of these 1000pt armies that I see being posted are rather odd. I'd much rather play realistic scenarios with historically viable units with my friends. 

For instance, if one side was ordered to probe the enemies defences and clear them off an objective they would not start with equal forces. Also things happen beyond the local commanders control and the attack can lose momentum. Based upon some of these premises I tried out some suggestions in a game yesterday evening.

Think of a mission

For or game, a British force would advance on a Japanese village and attempt to destroy or dislodge the enemy.

Balance the forces

It's not going to be a fair fight, the British are attacking so the Japanese should be outnumbered, so I went with the British attacking with two infantry platoons and the Japanese defending with one. The platoons should follow as closely as possible the correct historical organisation. Based on this, the two British platoons each comprised:

• Subaltern (+2) with a Burmese scout
• 2" Mortar with two crew
• Three sections each of 9 men including NCO with SMG and a BREN gun.

The Japanese platoon comprised:

• Rikugun Chui with a runner
• Three sections each of 12 men including NCO with SMG & Type 99 LMG
• One one section of 12 including NCO & three 50mm grenade launchers

Now onto the Activation Dice

In this example, the Japanese would only put five dice into the pool whereas the British would be putting ten. However the British force is two separate platoons each with their own command structure. So each British platoon has a different coloured set of dice. In this case, one British platoon had five green dice in the bag, the other British platoon had five brown dice in the bag and the Japanese had five sand coloured dice in the bag. A final dice was added to the bag - The Story Dice - this is a completely different coloured dice, red in our case, that is used to determine random events that occur during the game.

Back to those Random Events

I put together the following Random Events table for the game. I hope to eventually print off a load of cards, but a 2d6 roll is sufficient for our purposes at the moment. We used the following table, first roll a D6 to determine the type of the event and then roll a D6 to find out what happens:

Random Events Table
Roll	Japanese Reinforcements (1,2)	British Reinforcements (3,4)	Story Event (5,6)
1	Regular 50mm Grenade Launcher team in a bunker over 12” from any visible enemy or in reserve if no suitable location	Regular Vickers MMG  team in a sand-bagged position over 12” from any visible enemy or in reserve if no suitable location	On the next unit activated one of the unit members falls down a well trying to get water. Apply a pin marker, the unit can only have a Down, Fire, Rally or Ambush order if they pass their test.
2	Regular Sniper team in a bunker over 12” from any visible enemy or in reserve if no suitable location	Regular Ghurkha patrol of NCO and 7 men including a BREN gun in reserve. Ghurkhas count as Fanatics and the Kukri makes them Tough Fighters.	On the next unit activated one of the unit members desperately needs to use the toilet. Apply a pin marker, the unit can only have a Down, Fire, Rally or Ambush order if they pass their test.
3	Regular MMG team in a bunker over 12” from any visible enemy or in reserve if no suitable location	Regular Flame Thrower in reserve	On the next unit activated it’s time for a cigarette break. Apply a pin marker, the unit can only have a Down, Fire, Rally or Ambush order if they pass their test. The unit is now Motivation 10
4	Regular infantry section of NCO and 11 men including a LMG  team in reserve	RAF support, the highest ranking officer can act as a Forward Air Observer for the next three turns. If no airstrike arrives return the card to the deck.	Tinned fruit for tea. On the next unit activated, if the unit has any pin markers, remove D3 of them. The unit is now Motivation 10
5	Regular LMG team in a bunker over 12” from any visible enemy or in reserve if no suitable location	Regular Sherman V of Probyns Horse in reserve	Tea Break. The turn ends here, return all the activation dice and start a new turn.
6	Veteran Captain with runner and sergeant in reserve	Veteran Captain with runner and sergeant in reserve	Tea Break. The turn ends here, return all the activation dice and start a new turn.

Those of you who have read the books will recognise the story events are pastiches from 'Quartered Safe Out Here' a highly recommended read. I've already made a well and a toilet to place on the units so afflicted.

So how did it all play out?

Yesterday evening at Battlefront HQ we gave this a try. Steve and Matt would play the British while James and Anders took the Japanese, I would try to ensure things ran smoothly.

Initially, things did not go so well for the British, Steve left a section out in the open and Anders blasted it with with one of his, five British down and a failed motivation check and they were out of the game. The first event that came up meant that the Japanese holding a thicket in the centre of the table took a cigarette break rather than concentrate on the job in hand. Steve had soon lost another infantry section to a poor set of motivation dice and things were looking bad for the British, especially when a bunker equipped with a 50mm Grenade Launcher came into play.

However it would not all go the way of the Japanese, a Sherman V roared into action and was soon causing panic and casualties amongst the Japanese, the Infantry platoon run by Matt was also flanking the Japanese positions. By the end of about ten turns the Japanese were worn out, mounting casualties and pin markers had reduced them severely and the village had fallen to the British who after initial high casualties had suffered very few others.

We will be running a Bolt Action Burma game at Partizan on June 2nd using similar rules, pop over and say hello if you are there.

Bolt Action Japanese vs Soviets

Tonight I played my first game of Bolt Action in a long time that did not involve pitching my Japanese against my 14th Army. Steve fancied giving his newly painted Soviet troops a run out so my Japanese would take them on.

As we would play on a 4ft square table, we settled on 800pts per side. Steves Soviets were:

1st Lieutenant and two additional men, eleven man inexperienced infantry squad with LMG, three ten men infantry squads with LMG, 82mm mortar and spotter, MMG with gun shield, T34/76 tank.

I opposed this with:
1st Lieutenant and one additional man, Medic, three squads of 12 infantry with a LMG, one squad of 10 infantry with a LMG, a Sniper, a 50mm mortar and a MMG.

We set up terrain on my new 4ft sq Hotz Mat and then rolled up the demolition scenario and used the newly painted 14th Army mules as the objectives.

Steve chose to deploy his HQ, inexperienced section, a regular section and mortar, I started with two sections, MMG and my HQ, this set-up was to be a decision Steve would regret.

The game started well for the Japanese, the inexperienced section got too close to a Japanese section and was carried away in a Banzai charge and soon I was pressing on towards the objective with two squads each at quite a high strength. The T34 Soviet had some terrible rolls to come on from reserve and did not appear until the sixth turn, although by this time was able to come on very deep down the table and did get very close to the Japanese objective. We rolled up for the seventh turn, two Japanese infantry sections were close enough to the Soviet objective to get a win, but both were carrying pin markers and in the end both failed their motivation checks. The Soviet T34 also did not have sufficient movement to reach the Japanese objective. It would be a draw, slightly in favour of the Japanese as the Soviets had lost three elements and the Japanese had lost none. although one Japanese section had passed a moral test on a '3' much to Steves dissapointment.

I think in future Steve will be starting his T34 on the table.

The figures are from mine and Steves collections, all the Soviet infantry are from The Plastic Soldier Company and the T34 is a Hobby Boss model, the Japanese are all from The Assault Group.

Another game of Bolt Action this evening, I hope to get that posted up tomorrow.

I did take quite a few photos, but they were all pretty dark.

Mule handlers, infantry and some objectives

Todays update are a few more bits and bobs painted for the Burma game that we are going to be running at Partizan. All the figures are from The Assault Group and the terrain is scratch built from oddments that I have hanging around, mainly cork wall tiles and bamboo from a dining mat.

The first ones completed are three 14th Army mule teams from The Assault Group this first pair is the British Mules and handlers pack BPC006 these are very nice and I plan to get at least another set of these because the handlers make very nice infantrymen too.

I also picked up from The Assault Group the freebie Stubborn Mule from their Freebie Miniatures list again a lovely model with loads of character.

I also completed another four of their 14th Army infantry, an NCO with Sten gun, a Bren gunner and two with Lee-Enfields

Finally, I completed my 'well with no bucket' and 'toilet on stilts' that are part of the story for the game at Partizan.