Not quiet a year but nearly!

Nearly went a year without blogging but not quite! Three quarters of the Gaming group met up to get a bit of table time on the soil of Mother Russia (albeit in Kent!).

As a group we have changed the way we approach each game of Bolt Action dramatically from the first few. Gone are the ‘go nuts’ get as much out as possible on the table and max attrition, we now roll for each scenario and have a point limit. This way we have found we can get more games in during a meet up!

Commrade S, Herr J and I got some table time on Commrade S’s board, unfortunately Mr A was un able to join us for this outing.

First up I played Herr J in a Top Secret Mission. The objective was to reach the downed tank containing a brief case of secret information and take it off your table edge.

This game in truth was a short sharp victory for Herr J who played a near perfect game! Within 3 turns his troops had reached the objective, retrieved the objective and were three quarters of the way home.

The second game was Commrade S against Herr J in a game of envelopment. Commrade S as the defender had to stop Herr J from entering his territory and getting off the board.

Watching the Soviets against the Germans was an interesting one. Both of the set ups are extremely strong, especially when Commrade S seems to have Jedi powers when it comes to rolling a six! A heavy mortar has never hit so much when Commrade S rolls! Eventually during this game Herr J took the win 16 points to 4.

Final Commrade S and I played a scenario of Max Atrrition as laid out in the rule book. Prior to this game I changed my list taking out an armoured car and exchanging it for another squad of infantry. It was pretty liberating not having armour distracting from my choices. I find that the shiney metal vehicle becomes the focus of my attention!

For the first few turns I started strong taking 4 out of the 9 dice on offer. From turn 3 Commrade S pulled it back leveling at 4 dice each. After 5 turns we were level at 5 dice a piece, with only support troops left. It was here we called a draw as all remaining units were too far away from each other to do anything.

An extremely enjoyable day as always! Commrade S’s Russian forest of a board is an extremely enjoyable board that really makes you think about the choices you make!

I shall leave you with some photos! Until next time!

J

Russian tank meet American Bazooka!

The Germans advancing through Russian lines

The advancing Russians

American Sniper taking aim

An American Airstrike hits!

Another long pause…….

Well…… sooo….. yet again there seems to have been a delay in postings!! This time I do have a valid reason!

In between my last post and this post Mrs J, Little J and I have moved house and have stated a 1:1 scale terrain decorating project, so no hobby building/painting work has taken place, although there has been 3 games of Bolt Action completed with varying successes!

The first two games were completed on the same day. Mr A, Heer J, Comrade S and myself met in Mr A’s garage to be confronted with a 10ft long by 4ft terrain board. A 4ft x4ft town had been added!

The Town….

For this games day we tried something different, two games running at the same time at different ends, the loser’s of the first game would then face each other, followed by the winners facing each other!

Initially I met Herr J in the farm area of the board, it was a capture the objective scenario…..

The objectives were the Farm House, a bunker, and a down Sherman. To win the attacker needed to hold two out of the three objectives, if the objectives were shared then it would be a draw and the winner would be decided on the amount of opposition order dice held.

I would be the defender and Herr J the attacker. in truth is was so long ago I can only really remember a few details…..

A stand out moment was running a squad of infantry towards Herr J’s troops when an air strike was called, the area had too many of my units in with pins to survive an air strike! the result on the game was a win for me, I think we each held an objective and one was contested, i went through to the ‘final’ as I held more of Herr J’s order dice!

Mr A was beaten by Comrade S meaning that in the final I would meet Comrade S in the final.

For the final I would be the defender holding the town and Comrade S had to take the town square fountain, and two houses one at either side of the town. This was a resounding win for Comrade S and the Russians, out of 15 units I was left with only 5. Comrade S still had 10 out of 16 units and the objectives were his!!

My third game was just this previous weekend. I went against Mr A and the British in a similar scenario, this time we would both hold one edge of the town and we would need to capture the fountain plus the oppositions targeted building it win the game.

This was the first time I had played in an urban setting and boy was it a different way of thinking! the building were both opportunities for cover but physical blocks for both thinking and movement – it was amazing! Unfortunately by the time i had worked out my game plan the game was all but over, I had lost too many units and gained too many pinned units to enable a significant attack/response. The fountain and Mr A’s designated house were his with the victory!

For only a second time in all the games we played a unit had equal amount of pins to its morale  value, causing the unit to flee rather than being destroyed!

This game made me think and learn a lot, so much so I was still thinking about the game a few days later. the biggest thing I have taken from the day apart from ‘pins mean prizes’ is that if you take the time at the beginning to think of a plan stick to it! for the first three turns I was reactive and not proactive, I was reacting to Mr A’s moves instead of concentrating and playing my own. it was another excellent gaming experience!

The more table time we have the more gems I find from Bolt Action!

until next time (I’ll try not to leave it so long!!)

J

a view of the farm land

A change from the norm.

Tonight instead of continuing the production line I decided to concentrate on the trousers and leather work on the 5 man Engineer squad.

I’m glad I have chosen this break as I was starting to get a bit overwhelmed with the painting of one colour!

Till next time!

J

Rangers WiP Pt 3……….

Well, work on the Rangers is continuing (previous WiP here) albeit slowly!

Jackets started

Jackets half way (ish)

Jackets done!

The jackets and trousers will all be painted using Tamyia paints. I’m not really a fan of these paints I find them hard work! More of a Revell or Vajello paint man myself!

Still on to the trousers!

J

The Rules………..

So after talking about Bolt Action on a number of blogs and showing the development of the United States I thought it was about time I spoke briefly about the game……

Bolt action is an turn based table top war game. Each player takes charge of a reinforced platoon with a set point limit.

The platoon takes a general structure of:

A Lieutenant
Two infantry squads.

From here the player can add additional units, HQ units (Medic, Forward Observer, Captain or Major), machine gun teams, sniper/mortar team, artillery, tanks, armoured car.

When the force has been selected to the agreed point limit, the players will need:

Tape measure
D6 Die
Order die (or chits with the orders on)
Pin markers.
Playing area.

Instead of being a ‘You go/I go’ game where each player moves each of there units in one go, then the opposition reacts and moves there units. Bolt Action uses order die with various orders on that are pulled from a bag at random.

Each die represents a unit. The colour of the die dictates which player activates the units.

The Order Duce

So when a dice is pulled from the bag the player has the options as shown above. With out going in to too much detail:

Ambush: unit waits until an enemy crosses it’s path then shoots

Down: unit takes cover

Run: units moves at double it’s movement without firing

Rally: unit can move but will lose X number of pin markers dependant on the dice result

Fire: unit doesn’t move, stays stationary and fires

Advance: unit advances then fires.

The game is played on any surface that could act as a battlefield. The game is played using model line of site requiring the player to get down and look at the table from the models point of view. Key point: if when down at model eye level then the model can’t see the target.

Ambush!

When a unit fires there are certain modifiers (cover/movement/small unit/etc). The number of shots (dice to be rolled) depends on the weapons being carried. If when modifiers have been applied and say a 5 is required. If a 5 is rolled then the target takes a pin marker.

Pin markers are key as the effect that units morale and the effectiveness to carryout orders (from the order dice).

Mr A's beautiful board!

We play on a board made by Mr A, it’s has all the things you would expect from a Normandy field!

The rule book and game are the brainchild of Alessio Cavatore and Rick Priestly, published by Osprey Publishing. It is an excellent read from both a rule point of view and it’s good for little snippets of information just dotted throughout the book.

The book is laid out to outline the basics in clear paragraphs, as you progress through the pages the information builds from the orders, to the types of units, to playing a game, then to force selection.

There are six scenarios set out in the book. Each use the main rules with additional special rules dependant on the scenario.

The force selection section outlines the rules for selecting from the Army List. The four main nation army lists are outlined in the rulebook, Germany, United States, Britain and Commonwealth and Soviet Russia.

These sections are a good starting point which contain a good selection of units. For a more ‘expanded’ list for individual nations the ‘Armies of’ book is a good next step.

Also included in the rule book is a time line of World War II. I found this a good addition for increasing my information base.

Right at the very back of the book is a helpful rules summary outlining all the main points to save you diving deep into the book.

Overall in my opinion this is a very good book, both from a rules perspective and from an enjoyable read perspective.

It’s available from the Warlord Games website here.

I would thoroughly recommend a read!

Right, time for more painting!

Till next time,

J

Rangers WIP pt2…….

Short but sweet post tonight…..

The Rangers WIP continues! Part one can be found here!

After getting home from work in semi day light I struck while the iron was hot (or as the sun was out) to prime the 25 Rangers!

Production continues!

Off to start the painting production line!

Till next time!

J

Rangers WiP…..

Over the last few nights I’ve been slowly progressing with the Rangers build. 25 Rangers split is to the following……..

5 man Engineer squad
Two 10 man squad

Nearly there!

Priming next, but not tonight!

Till next time!

J

Sneaky peaky….. Engineers

More detailed photos of the Engineers……..

NCO……

Rifleman with Bangalore……

I’m enjoying putting together the plastic parts, although the glueing of metal to plastic is ‘fun’ especially when I’m more successful at gluing my fingers together!

Until next time,

J

Keeping on trucking…..

I settled down last night with the best intentions of building more of the Rangers (10/25 to go!). Instead I may of been slightly sideswiped with new shiney toys!

I opened my lead box to search for some more weapons from my bits box as I was/am slightly concerned I don’t have enough BAR’s for my selection choice, and I instead found a bubble wrap bag containing a ‘Deuce and a half’ that Mr S had given me as a birthday gift.

Additional transportation!

The kit is a mixture of metal and resin from Warlord. It comes with two options for the cab structure, the machine gun mounting shown above and a covered cab. I have gone for a bit more fire power!

As with the majority of Warlord kits it doesn’t come with a construction diagram, I can understand this as there is no reason one cannot go to the Warlord website and view construction diagrams on line……. except there isn’t a Deuce diagram!

It’s not too difficult to work out what goes where and why, I did struggle with the support strut for the gun mounting but the good old Web sort that out!

The tricky gun mount

I really enjoyed making this kit (although I need to attach the cab to the trailer still!). The cab and trailer requires a small amount of clean up but nothing major. I would normally have done this before gluing but getting sideswiped and having a small person asleep means I’ll do it before priming!

I would certainly recommend this kit!

Transportation ahoy!

I have found that I may need to wear face masks and probably goggles when using super glue! Since stopping gluing I have had a block nose! It’s slowly receding!

Until next time!

J

Slow progress

A few post back (link below) I posted about the growing lead pile, I thought it would be best to buy/receive in bulk.

Additional Reinforcements,  Larger Lead Pile

The reasoning being that with a scaled down human, and moving from the geek cave to a geek house it would be a good idea to have a pile and work through. So far so good!

It’s daunting having a lot of miniatures but in a way it’s ideal, I have a project that I can dip in and out out depending on a time window.

So here’s tonight progress……..

Fiddly Plastics!

The Rangers are taking shape slowly,  back row is a five man engineer squad.

The front two rows are a ten man Ranger squad.

A quick scan of the Battleground Europe supplement found rules for engineer squads. I really need to read on  and develop!

Slowly moving forward!

J