Bolt Action - Somewhere in the Western Desert

The scene was set for another run through of the Bolt Action rules for Roo's benefit. An 8th Army v D.A.K clash (sticking to my preference to fight with historically comparable armies) we were playing this time the "Surrounded" scenario from the main rule book (number 11). 

As the 8th Army player I decided to be the defender which required half of my available units to be set up in the centre of the table, in this case they would deploy in the village and try and hold their positions until relieved.

I  must really iron out the creases in that mat

It was only after deploying the units in the village that I realised that I had already made a number of mistakes. Firstly, in this scenario the attacker gets to try and call in a preparatory bombardment, something that the Brits have an advantage in that they get to roll twice on the table and pick the best result. Secondly I realised that I didn't have a MMG team in my list so that had to be removed and replaced with the light mortar team. Finally, Roo, as the attacker would have to launch his first wave of troops from his table edge. I had misread the scenario special rule which said that after the attackers' first turn any other unit can come in from any table edge (provided an enemy unit had not come in from that table edge that turn). Accordingly I had set up my 6lb anti tank gun facing my table edge thinking Roo would be sneaky and try and come on that edge with his Panzer III, but no Roo had read the rule properly and so the Panzer III was duly deployed on his table edge on the opposite side of the village from where the AT gun was deployed.

Roo called in his preparatory bombardment and scored pins on every unit in the village.

Battle then commenced, with the aforementioned Panzer III coming on to the battlefield and with a hail of machine gun fire killed one member of the light mortar team.

However, the early appearance of the Panzer meant that when I decided to bring on my M3 Lee tank there was only one place for it to go -

However, my point blank range shot, on the rear of the Panzer with both my main gun and the turret gun were spectacularly unsuccessful.

And of course, having brought my tank on it was an easy choose for where Roo would deploy his anti- tank rifle team, with inevitable results: -

Didn't even get a chance to roll to see if the tank was vunerable to fire - a straight up kill by the AT rifle team - boo!!

At least the artillery strike brought in by the British Artillery Observer had some succes scoring several pins and taking out the German Mortar team -

The gallant defenders of the village bravely repelling the forces of tyranny!

Despite the randomness of the dice draw and the scenario rule that let you deploy reserves from any table edge both Roo and I failed to grasp the reality that deploying too close to a corner would lead to trouble as shown by the Lee v AT rifle situation above and then in the other corner of the battlefield, Roo having brought his AT gun on from one table edge near the corner, I brought on my CO and an Infantry section from the perpendicular table edge -

The scene just before the AT gun crew were mown down by the point blank fire of the Desert Rats.

Meanwhile, I had brought my AT rifle team on to the battlefield in the hope of doing the same to Panzer as Roo's AT rifle team had done to the Lee. However, in a very unsporting fashion, Roo decided to face the AT rifle team head on with his Panzer -

Unfortunately the shrubbery was inadequate at providing cover to the AT rifle team who were quickly dispatched by the Panzer.

Back in the centre of the battlefield a fierce firefight was developing between one of the Desert Rats infantry sections in the village and the bulk of the D.A.K Infantry who were taking cover in the shallow gully -

A FUBAR result forced one of the German squads to run back to the table edge -

Not to be outdone, my sniper team which had now entered the battlefield, instead of trying to target the D.A.K AT rifle team, FUBAR'd and ending up taking out the remaining member of the Desert Rats light mortar team in a "friendly fire" incident -

With game time running out the Desert Rats decide to concentrate their fire from the Western side of the village.

After several attempts to bring it on from reserve, the Puma armoured car finally made it's appearance  -

A combination of poor dice rolling by Roo and good saving throws by me, meant the infantry section were not destroyed so that in the next turn they took the battle to the enemy -

4 hits scored on the Puma, a roll for damage and scratch one Puma

However, this shouldn't really have happened as I had forgotten and Roo didn't know that the Puma has the "Recce" special rule and as such could have evaded away from the assaulting infantry. Ah weel, we'll remember the next time.

The Panzer looking for it's sniper team pray. In fact it might as well have let him be as the only thing the sniper team hit all night was his own mortar team!

The Panzer finally breaches the village defences -

But it was not enough to secure a victory.

Scene at the end of the battle.

As both sides had lost 4 units each giving 4 VP's each, under the scenario rules the game was declared a draw (although with the faux pas over the "Recce" rule Roo, technically would only have lost 3 units, but victory was only claimed if you had scored 2 or more VP's than the opponent so it didn't make a big difference in the end.

So another enjoyable game. Roo is cracking on painting up his Finns. I'm debating whether to borrow Kev's Russian forces to go up against them or to go down the slippery slope of getting my own. He may be a wee while getting the Finns painted so I have a bit of time to decide on that one!!

Bolt Action - Roo's first try out of the rules

So Roo was keen to play more miniature games, as well as more hex and counter games, in fact, just keen to play MORE games and that's fine by me.

Bolt Action, as most of you probably know, is a set of rules for recreating WW2 battles. Written by Alessio Cavatore who has many rule sets and board games to his credit and published by Warlord Games and Osprey Publishing, it is now in it's second edition, which was released in 2016. The rules have also spawned a number of army list books and campaign supplements -

Currently it is the WW2 rule set of choice for the THAGGers (although some of us in the past have played Rapid Fire when we were still going up to the Kirriemuir Wargames Club) and, if you read the previous blog post we have played What A Tanker, but that is just for playing with tanks. We also started playing BA in 20mm but, as is usually the case, Kev persuaded us to all paint up 28mm forces in order to take part in a tournament that was being run by the Dunfermline Wargames and Roleplaying Fellowship (or D.W.A.R.F for short) back in November 2016, and so we have stuck with that scale since. 

The rules are based on a unit order system involving pulling dice out of a bag and the player whose dice has been selected then allocating one of 6 different orders (advance, move, fire, ambush, rally and Down) to a unit of their choice. Combat is based on a d6 with various modifiers being applied and, if a hit is scored, the quality of troop will determine what score on a d6 is required to score a casualty (veterans take a casualty on a "5" or "6" - inexperienced units take a casualty on a "3", "4", "5" or "6". Units that have taken fire suffer pins and each pin that a unit has will deduct 1 from any morale roll that the unit has to make, with again the quality of troop type determining how likely the unit will pass on a 2d6 roll (veteran units require a "10" or under, inexperienced units need an "8" or under). It's a "bucket of dice" type of game and there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. Combat can be fast and brutal if you are rolling well and you can have the frustration of not being able to do anything whilst your opponent's order dice all get pulled out of the bag before yours. 

BA, being a points system type of game, does lend itself to a tournament style type of game, where non-historical match ups can be played out on the table - there is nothing new in that. Tournament Gamers are well used to facing all sorts of non-traditional opponents from the early days of WRG rules when the Early Libyan Army could face off against a 100 Years War English Army and certainly in the aforementioned tournament in Dunfermline, my Late War British Army fought a Japanese Force, a Russian force and a Russian Black Sea Naval Marine force. My preference, however, is to try and play games with historical opponents and so it was for my first couple of games with Roo we stuck to that approach with our first game being a clash somewhere in Normandy between the British and Germans.

Also, being a point based system, there can be a tendency for players to try and pick the "killer" list with units being selected, not so much because they fought together in a typical force of the time, but because it will generate the maximum number of order dice and firepower. My force picks are very much determined by what available figures I have, and, where I think there is a reasonable explanation for a unit being in the list so, for example, my Late War British List includes a couple of British Paratroop sections with my justification being that in Normandy there where occasions that the Paras fought together with the normal infantry units.

So the table was set for our first game (actually it was the same table that we used for our What A Tanker game - we hadn't bothered re-setting it). A quick roll on the scenario selector table confirmed we were going to play the "Key Positions" scenario - each player would place a number of objective points on the table and the player holding the most number of objectives at the end of the game would be declared the winner. The resulting rolls determined that there would be 6 objective points and once placed we rolled off to see which table edge we would each start on.

We each could decide to keep up to half of our units in reserve. I, however, decided to bring all my units on to the table, Roo elected to keep his MMG team, mortar team, half track and a squad of infantry in reserve.

British Paras taking fire from the dreaded Panzer IV-F2

One of the rules that caused a lot of debate and discussion when the 2nd Edition was released is the "Tiger Fear" rule. If a German Tank with this special rule is on the battlefield then any time an enemy unit wishes to take an order that is not a fire order directed at that particular tank then they have to take a morale test to carry out that order and suffer a -1 penalty in addition to any other modifiers that unit currently has. The Panzer IV-F2 benefits from such a rule and as soon as it appeared on the table it became priority target No.1 for the Brits. My Cromwell tank rushed on to the battlefield -

Fired and missed!

Positions at the end of Turn 1

The Brits have claimed 1 objective, another is located in the wooden building.

Only infantry units can claim objectives so the Cromwell can't claim that objective on the road

However, a stroke of good luck for the British when the Panzer, having taken 1 pin, tested to see if it would carry out it's next order -

FUBAR!!!

Fortunately for Roo, the Panzer did not shoot up it's nearest friendly unit, but instead went in to reverse. However, it was still on the battlefield and still able to cause Tiger Fear with the result that a unit of Paras and an Infantry Section both failed their morale check (along with the Second Lieutenant) -

However, the Cromwell tank commander was not going to be denied his kill and with the Panzer in his sights he opened fire -

No more Tiger Fear!!

On the right flank, one British Infantry section moved in to the wooden building and claimed the objective there, while the other units advanced across the road -

The British Forward Artillery Observer picks his spot for the artillery barrage, meanwhile a German Infantry Section has entered the building and claimed the objective there.

The German Mortar Team moves in to the vine groves to claim the objective there.

Whilst on the German Right flank, the MMG team ignores the distressing sight of the wrecked Panzer to take up position and rain a hail of bullets on any Brits trying to claim that objective.

The German Mortar Team having being disabled by accurate British Sniper fire is quickly replaced by the half track and accompanying Infantry Section

The Infantry manage to debus from the half track just in time as a well aimed shot from the British 6lb anti tank gun resulted in this -

However, the German Infantry extract their revenge on the British Infantry sheltering (unsuccessfully) behind the wall.

A sight to cause fear in any foe - advancing British Paratroopers

In the meantime, the Cromwell, instead of opening fire on the MMG team decides to try and overrun them -

The MMG team evade the overrun and the Cromwell is left staring at the burning wreck of the Panzer IV. The MMG team continue to score casualties on the Paratroopers advancing a cross the field -

Keeping their heads down to avoid the German MMG fire

The British now hold 4 of the objectives as the battle enters it's end game

The Germans in the building continue to hold the objective despite the continual fire of the British Vickers team and some HE from the 6lb gun

Paras getting ready to assault one of the German held objectives

Although the game went in to a 7th turn the Germans were unable to capture a 3rd objective so the Brits held on to win the game 4 objectives to 2.

So Roo proclaimed that despite losing, he enjoyed the game and the rules. He had already started to build figures for a Finnish Army (which is all very well but I don't have any Soviets!) so will be hoping at some point to bring them to the table

So next up will a battle report on an 8th Army v D.A.K match up but that'll have to wait for another day as it's late here and I'm zzzzzzzzzzzzz..........