The Italian Job

Pint's of coke with a pink straw give you a +1 to all dice rolls

So, after a brief foray into the Age of Sigmar, this week was back to normal and a game of Bolt Action vs Terry. For many years, I've not enjoyed this game. It's something to do with the pulling of tokens to determine who moves next. However, in the last year, breaking out my 101st Screaming Eagles has given me a new appreciation for the game.

So, we played a quick 1000 point game. Terry is busy painting a force of Italians for a forthcoming tournament. First time I've played against the Italians and they brought with them a few surprises including a plane, more of which will come later.

We rolled to see what scenario we would be playing, and the dice gave us scenario six, Demolition. We each had an objective and we had to try and destroy the opposition's objective. Terry used a vehicle and I chose my Anti-Tank gun.

We deployed half of our forces on the table and began turn one. It was a slightly uneventful turn as we moved forward and took up positions, ready for the scramble forward. The only thing of note happening was my sniper shooting the LMG from one of Terry's squad.

Turn Two arrived and so did Terry's plane. Having no flack to deal with this, it came in on my left flank and proceded to decimate an eight man squad. I opted to go down with this squad, but I still lost four men. The turn began properly and saw Terry land a mortar shell on the second of my squads. Again, I went down and Terry was able to do some damage to the squad.

In the rest of the turn, we began to bring on all of our reinforcements, and we were both able to bring on the rest of our forces. We moved up and I pushed a ten man squad as far forward as I can.

Hang on a minute lad, I've got a great idea

Turn three was the pivotal turn. Terry has moved his command squad out into the open and my ten man squad charged forward, and despite taking a casualty as they charged forward were able to engage them in combat, and wipe out Terry's commander. My men advance forward, and I could see his objective. One more turn, and I might be able to win.

However, Terry's veteran squad charged forward, from the nearby building where they had been hiding out and wiped out my men. I had seen victory and then watched it slip away. Worse was to go for me in this turn. Terry had pushed forward an armoured car down my left flank, threatening my troops. I tried to blow it up using a Bazooka and failed. I then tried to land a shell from a light Howitzer on it. I need a six, it was a long shot. I rolled to hit. It hit. I rolled to see if I penetrated. I rolled a one. It was a frustrating end to the turn.

Turn four arrived with the reappearance of the plane. It aimed at my fourth squad and did some damage to them. Again, I went down, and was able to reduce the damage caused, but it still did some serious damage to me. Having the next dice, I was able to fire my howitzer at the armoured car again. Having hit previously, I needed a 2+ to hit. I hit, with a dice roll of 2. This was it. I was going to blow it up.

Only to roll a 1 again. Two turns and two failed attempts to wipe out the tank. This was the main highlight of the turn. Terry approached one of his squads forward and wiped out the last few men from one of my squads and took cover in a building.

Turn five arrived, and I was able to wipe out Terry's squad in the building but the game ended with little fanfare. Due to the scenario objectives, neither of us had achieved our objective and so the game was a draw. Though, having done the most damage I feel that Terry takes a deserved moral victory.

To go left, when you should go right

So, what went wrong. Two things. Firstly, the airplane did a lot of damage. It did have a ridiculous amount of dice for its machine guns and quickly did a lot of damage to my men, who had little to do but die. It's an interesting unit, and one I'm going to be thinking about adding to my collections.

The other thing was my suicidal charge. I went against Terry's command unit, but on hindsight, I would have done this separately. There were three units behind the wall. The command unit, the tankette, and a medium machine gun team. I chose the command as it had the lesser amount of shots to fire. However, I think I should have charged the machine gun. I think, I would have been a bit further over and hopefully away from the veterans charge range. Then, I would have been able to make my way forward and get the objective.

Having said this, it has rekindled my interest in World War Two gaming and I'm thinking about starting a Desert Rat army. As I say a lot, to many ideas, not enough time.