Bolt Action - First Hosted Game

Last night several of the fellas came north to play a game of Bolt Action. For the last couple years I had been building up to be able to host every now and then.  For those of you who own large collections of 25/28mm minis, you know how impractical it is to take them on the road (especially if terrain is involved). Pretty early on in this hobby I came to the realization that this day would need to come. Many hours have been spent accumulating terrain pieces, many of which I have scratch built in order to have everything we would need at my home and I have to say I am a bit burnt-out on making terrain, but it's nice to have a decent collection.

Last night I decided to run a scenario covering the Allied air drops over Normandy the night before the D-Day invasion of northern France. I based the scenario on the Parachute Assault scenario out of the book titled Scenarios For Wargames by Charles Stewart Grant.

The battle would focus on a fortified German headquarters overlooking the outskirts of a French village. Airborne units would be tasked with assaulting the German HQ in an attempt to prepare it for use as a staging area for Allied units moving in from the beaches. We didn't follow the scenario to the letter but it offered ideas for a fun game. I believe this is the fourth or fifth time we've played BA and personally I am enjoying it more and more. As we continue to learn the rules better with each attempt, I believe (with a little tweaking) this can become our primary ruleset for historical WW2 action.

A big thanks to the group, especially those on the south side of Kansas City, for making the trek north through the snow.

 A garrison of three Wehrmacht infantry squads and a Panzer occupy the village.

A few SS units occupy the area around a farm to the west of the Kraut HQ.

German forces led by Captain Werndt occupy the high ground.

 The Screaming Eagles land.

 Several Airborne units make an assault run at the HQ.

Things took a turn for the worse for the Germans when a Panzer moving toward the sound of the guns got walloped by a U.S. bazooka team. Without engineers to haul the flaming wreck off the bridge, Fritz's options for getting support to their beleaguered comrades would be greatly diminished.

 Paras storm into the fort.

 SS units can't get to the action in time.