Back to Wednesday night Bolt Action

   Having finished the Battle of Durstien, our regular Wednesday night gaming has shifted to playing Bolt Action, so that we can get up to speed with the rules ahead of our next big game. Terry and I have been working through a number of the Bolt Action campaign books. Firstly, the Battle of the Bulge, then Operation Sea Lion, and more recently The Western Desert. From this, we’ve got a good grasp of the rules, even some of the smaller ones that everybody forgets such as Dawn Assault or how infantry can assault tanks (good fun if you get it to work).


    Jim and John have not played as much, and so we brought 500 points a piece, and had a game. I brought Italians and allied with Terry’s Germans. Opposing us was two Brits, including a Cromwell. The Germans were deployed around a number of vehicles, which were the objectives that the Brits were trying to capture or destroy. The Italians, had gone ahead to scout, and would be arriving, on turn 2.  

  All in all, we only managed to play through four turns, but it was a good fun game, lots of brutal, short distance firefights, which decimated Terry’s Germans, though he did inflict a lot of damage in return. 

  I’m getting to the end of my Italian project. I need a few more units. A squad of Bersagelieri, an auto Berlinda are the two main things, I’m after. The army is coming together, I’ve got a few team weapons and artillery options to go and the army is done.

I'm moving onto look at my Desert Rats, which have already been started as I've been painting vehicles, which has been great fun. 

Fort Nibeiwa here, sorry to report but were under attack.

So, time for the next battle in the Western Desert book, after the raiding in the night, this time the British were attacking Fort Nibeiwa to take it from Italian hands. To keep the Brits out, I was taking four squads of troops, plus a fifth of elite Bersaglieri men. These were backed up with machine guns, a mortar and an Elefantino Anti-tank rifle These were accompanied, by an M13/39.

As Terry was trying to break in, and capture two objectives, I deployed two squads, one on each building, and then did my best to split the rest evenly around the two buildings. I deployed the Mortar and Elefantino on top of the buildings, given a good line of sight. The tank went in the middle.

Finally, before the game began, Terry rolled for his preliminary bombardment, for the most part, most of my units took some pins. Worse, my freshly painted mortar team was obliterated before the game had even “officially began”.

With that, the game began.

Turn 1 to 3:

Now, the first three turns were interesting, we were playing a dawn raid and we had to roll, each turn to see if the sun had risen, and we were able to see each other. If the roll failed, we would then be using the night fight rules.

Well, for three turns, I spent most of the time trying to remove pin markers, which the Machine Gun team failed for several turns, whilst Terry crept forward and got ready to break through the perimeter wall.

He did, this in two places. On the left, a Matilda 2, the queen of the desert, came charging through, destroying the wall. On the other side, the walls were broken down by a team of engineers. 

Turns 4 to 7:

With the walls breached, the British squads came charging through. Sadly for me, though I had put up a spirited defense, my dice were not really not rolling well. For the most part, most armies were filled with normal rated men, but I could not roll higher than a three to hit, wound, even in combat. 

However, there were some highlights, Terry had an artillery officer, who managed to miscalculate and landed a shell on his own troops. Again, I was only able to kill one or two, of them. The Elefantino gun was able to score the scalp of the Matilda. 

But in the end, Terry’s weight of numbers was able to grind out a victory, as he contested both buildings, and I had barley damaged his army, whilst he had wiped my army out. 

It’s soon my turn to attack Fort Nibeiwa, and I’m wondering if I can take two platoons with truck-mounted squads and a couple of Matildas. We shall see. 

The Imperium of Man must burn.

So, after making my decision about my new 40K being Chaos Space Marines, I’ve been thinking about how I want to do them. Do I go for one of the traitor legions, if so, which one. Do I go renegade and make my own homebrew Warband. 

I went through the Legions and the ones’ that I like the most are Iron Warriors, Night Lords and the Alpha Legion. Out of the three of them, I prefer the Alpha Legion, however I’m going to do them in 30K and after thought I couldn’t be bothered to paint the yellow and black stripes or lightning bolts on numerous models. 

And after, reading Codex Chaos Space Marines, I’ve been really drawn by the Black Legion, and so I’ve decided to go for my own Warband, which has been drafted/merged into the Black Legion. I’ve even thought of a background.

Abbadon has unleashed the Great Rift, splitting the empire of Man. The 4^th company of the Knights Penitent, along with veterans from the 1^st company and scouts from the 10^th, were deployed to Groximia V to quell an Anti-Imperium uprising. The battles went well, but the Abbadon deployed Khorne Berzerkers and suddenly the Knight Penitent's was on the back front.

Surrounded, things look bleak for the Knights Penitent, and they gathered in prayer for a final fight. Let by Captain Laminus, they made their last stand. The Berzerkers charged forward, and the prayers of the Knights Penitent were answered.

Primarus Marines dropped in from orbit, and changed the balance, forcing Chaos back. The war raged on for another year. Despite, their salvation, the success of the Primarus rankled with the 4^thcompany. Seeds of discontent were sown, a hatred for the Primarus grew,until one fateful night. 

Groximia was hanging in flux. It could go either way, until Abbadon himself, teleported in. At this moment, upon seeing the incarnation of chaos, the fires of rage lit within the 4^th company, and they opened fire on the Primarus, caught off guard, the priamrus were wiped out and the 4^th company pledged themselves to Abbadon. 

They’ve repainted their once blue armour black, and joined in Abbadon campaign, searching for conflict against their Primarus counterparts to take out their vengeance. 

So, here is my background and I quite like it. I’m looking forward to painting up some models for it. Next up is designing a simple chapter badge.

Napoleonics again

So, our penultimate game of Napoleonic’s occurred last Wednesday and I don’t really have a lot to write up as from my point of view, the game was very one-sided. I was deploying against Terry’s French this week, and I had my traditional division of 4 line units and cannons. The Cavalry had been deployed elsewhere on the table this week. 

Wining the role to go first, I advanced forward and ended up with my units quite far forward, and a little surround by Terry’s forces. However, despite getting a couple of hits, mostly saved, he wasn’t able to disorder me, and so I was able to charge into combat. Combat went in my favour, but the highlight came in the next turn.

Terry had reordered his troops so that the Guard was to the fore. I, feeling foolish, brave, rash, insert your own word for stupidity, charged forward under initiative, and through a combination of good dice rolling, need 3+ to hit and having a single reroll in the first round of combat, I was able to inflict 5 wounds on Terry's unit. He rolled to save and came up with five ones.  Terry then promptly failed his test, and the unit fled. 

The battle carried on for a few more turns, and I broke Terry, however, his units were locked into combat, and so were not retreating. Which, as the combat’s carried on for several turns more I also subsequently broke, before I was able to rally my troops. Terry, was unlucky, the dice were not with him that night, and he really could have done better. However, on the flip side, I'm learning that Combat is our thing, and it's important to get the charge.

I'm really liking playing with the Russians, and it's gotten me hooked on Napoleonic's again. I need to get some other regiments. I've got two units of Jagers to paint, and now I want to get my own division of cavalry. So many projects, so little time.

January update

So January has come to an end and that means, we can do a quick count of what’s been painted this month. It’s been a good month, getting 65 models painted. This has seen me paint three squads for my Desert Italian force, quite a lot of tanks, and a unit for my Bonereapers army.

I’ve only painted 5 models for my Pelennor Fields project, but another 6 has been based which is good. I even got round to painting my Invisible Ringbearers, which I spent hours painting last year up, and now I’ve based them. 

Here’s a group shot of this month’s painting success. 

Desert to the left, grassy to the right

In terms of buying, I’ve brought 31 models, so I’ve been able to paint more than I brought this month, but I’ve not painted any of these models, yet. So it's seen the lead pile decrease by 0.75% but that is taken down by the models purchased and so only really 0.39%.

On the gaming side of things. I've played 6 games. Won 5 of them. Most of them have been with the Russians on the Napoleonic's front, but I'm happy with that stat, and looking forward to the next round.

Pelennor 2020 Jan update 1

So, after years of planning, we are moving forward to going for a large Pelennor Fields. I’m working on a scenario-based around one of the larger scenarios in War in Gondor. I’m not sure if we are going to be using a Hail Caesar variant or GW’s Middle Earth SBG and scaling it up for lots of models, but we’ll get there. 

In the meantime, I’m trying to paint up lots of models, so that we can have lots of models on the table. Quantity does have a quality of its own after all. I’ve created a spreadsheet of all the models that we could possibly use. I’ve got 97 models for the forces of Gondor still to paint, and 150 models for the forces of Mordor to paint. 

Black Guard of Barad Our

Warriors of Arnor, ready to fight

So, definitely doable, and I’m going to try to dedicate this year to painting models for this game. I’ll vary it up for some variety, but this is what I’ll be concentrating on. I’ve got a number of Fell Beasts and two mumaks to paint, as well lots of Riders of Rohan and Orcs to go.

So, January has been a quiet month, with only painting 8 models. 4 Warriors of Arnor, one that carries a banner. A Captain of Arnor and three Black Guard of Barad Dur. The Arnor models, I’m treating as a fiefdom that arrives with Aragorn on the corsair ships. The Black Guard are quite Uruk based, and so I’m just counting them as some sort of Uruks. 

Corsairs ready to go

February is going to be a shorter month as I’ve got a week of holiday, where I hope to build a lot, but I’m aiming to get through some Corsairs of Umbar. I’ve got 24, from when the models were originally released as well as the command models, including the Peter Jackson, look alike. I’m going to try and blitz my way through them as quickly as possible. 

In terms of models for the forces of Good. I’m going a little character-heavy. Gamling, Erkenbrand, Derowine, and Elrond’s sons, Elladan and Elrohir. For the latter, I’ve got the armoured and unarmoured versions and so I’m going to try and get them all painted.       

If, chance get’s I’ll try and get some Moria Goblins painted. Let’s see how it turns out. 

Ironically, as I started to write this post, the Battle for Pelennor Fields came on iTunes. Must be something there. 

Future Big Games

With our Battle of Durstien approaching, my thinking is moving towards the next of our big games. We’ve got a few planned. An ancient Dark Age battle featuring Saxons and Vikings, the Battle of Albuera, a Napolenic battle from May 1811. The Battle for Pelannor Fields and a WW2 Desert battle. 

Painted tanks and armoured vehicles

Terry and I are working through the Western Desert Campaign book and I suggested it would be nice to do a big game, with lots of tanks on a big table. This would allow for some long range pots shots from Anti Tank artillery pieces. 

I’m currently drafting up a scenario, that will see a combined force of German and Italians attempting to capture a number of British held objectives. I’m thinking a radio stations, water or oil encampment and somewhere with some top secret plans. 

Which means, I need to get painting and buying tanks.

So far, I’ve got the following

Italians

 3x CV33 Tankettes

1 x M13/39

1 x M14/40

Italians on the work bench

I want to get another one of each of the M13’s for the desert campaign. I also want to get some Trucks and an Autobilinda. As well as another of the M13's

British

3 X Matilda’s 2

2x A10

3x Vickers mark VIB

3x Humber CS9

2x Rolls Royce

It's a good start, and I want to add some more. A couple of A9 and A13's. Some Crusaders mark 1 and 2 and the M3 Honey. 

As well as that I'm painting up troops to carry on the campaign against. I've got an Italian force from Warlord Games, which I'm not enjoying painting up. The models are poorly cast, and sculpted which is making them not so fun to paint. 

I've also got a British Army from Perry Miniatures, and I'm looking forward to painting them. When they get built. I'll keep you updated on how things are going.