WW2 - Pacific At The Sgt's Bunker

It's been a long long time since I've taken the time to sit down and post, but had to share some pics of the Bolt Action game Scott L. hosted the other night. The objective of several U.S. Marine and Aussie Chindit units would be to penetrate into a Pacific island jungle and wreak havoc on the occupying Japanese forces. We have discovered and it is the prevailing opinion of the Basement Generals that a game of Bolt Action is best played with 2 - 4 players. Scott had an interesting idea of trisecting the table to have three one on one matches taking place side by side. It seemed to work well and we finished the games with time to spare. You can catch more of Scott's work over at Sergeant's Bunker. Nice job, Scott.

 The table is set

 A squad of Marines are past the seawall and into the jungle

 A pair of Japanese units lay in wait

 A Japanese mortar team would prove to be a pest to yours truly, but nothing more

Australian units moving beyond the seawall

4th of July Weekend WW2 Clash

I had a little time to kill yesterday so Brett came over to play his first game of Bolt Action. Since I hadn't played the rules in a while, it turned out to be a good opportunity to freshen up on the very basics of the rules. Since the time we had to play was limited, I set forces for each side with two infantry teams and a HQ team. It was a fun little battle that gave Brett a nice introduction to the rules and he enjoyed them a lot; we even had a few units mix it up with some hand to hand combat which was fun. The intro of arty and armor to this game makes matters a little more complicated, so that is something we'll include next time.

The battle would turn out to be a unit of German Wehrmacht chasing chasing three units of the 29th ID around the board while two other Kraut units held the bombed out ruins. The tide would turn in the Fritz's favor at the end of the day.

A WW2 Clash

With the Baron vacationing in the Great Northwest, I was honored to pick up the flag and open my doors to the group for a casual night of gaming. Fellow Basement General Bill McHarg will soon be moving to Colorado, so it would only be appropriate to let him choose the game last night (okay, he didn't have much to choose from since I am only prepared to offer ACW and WW2), so we gave Bolt Action another shot. Even with a BA novice on hand, the rules seemed to go a little bit smoother this time around. We deviated from the rules a bit on activations and turns in order to speed the game along. I feel that a few more experiences with this ruleset will translate into some fun WW2 games.

It was a pretty basic scenario pitting a small German force against a fairly equal U.S. force. Most of the action centered around a courtyard where an isolated German para unit eventually was overrun by American forces. Overall a fun night spent with a friend we will miss and look forward to seeing again.

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.

Bolt Action Plastic U.S. Rangers

A few months ago I purchased a box of these little dudes more out of curiosity than real need for more World War II troops. For the most part I like Warlord Game's Bolt Action miniatures. All of the pictures I'd seen online of the finished product showed a very nice looking platoon-size unit with tons of possibilities for poses.

 

I have some experience with Perry's plastic ACW line, so I had an idea what I was in for. The first thing I would say to someone contemplating the purchase of any plastic minis where there is "some assembly required" would be this - plan on spending a decent chunk of time just prepping for the priming stage. The plastic-to-plastic assembly is easy enough with plain old Testor's modeling cement, but the metal-to-plastic assembly can be a little trickier. I would recommend fast drying superglue for plastic to metal. The set comes with a lot of cool accessories that allows for each model to have a truly unique look. Included are some metal heads that are supposed to portray many of the characters in the Saving Private Ryan movie. This could be up for debate, but they do look good.As for the unit selection, I chose the 29th Infantry Division because the patches are easy to hand paint and they would work well with an Omaha Beach scenario.

Once primed and ready for basecoating, these are a breeze to paint.  Personally, I enjoy dumping a bunch of little guys out a bag that require minimal prep work and on to painting I go, however, I can't say I wouldn't give another box of Bolt Action plastics a shot.

Another Clash in Normandy

Last night we gave Bolt Action another shot and had a much more enjoyable time as the rules are beginning to sink in.  There are a few quirky rules that left a few of us scratching our heads, but all in all it was a fun game and I really like these rules. They are pretty fast-paced which is nice for weeknight meetings with limited time.

As with our other games, this scenario involved a German reinforced platoon consisting of four 7-man fire teams (mixed Wehrmacht and SS with one Fallschirmjager  team), a medium mortar team, a sniper team, and an MG42 team, all lead by a final unit consisting of an officer with an aid.  A U.S. Airborne platoon consisted of almost identical assets with the exception of the fire teams consisting of 8-man teams. The mortar teams on both sides had the advantage of using an attached forward observer.

Unlike our last BA game, this scenario featured 3 tactical objectives (a bridge crossing, a high point in a shelled-out church, and a high point on a ridge).  As expected, the fighting was centered around these three objectives fairly evenly.  Early on a Kraut team was able to win the race to the ridge on the German left, but pulled back when it began to take fire from an AB Pathfinder unit. Later in the battle they also took fire from a .30 cal team and were eventually ambushed and neutralized in hand to hand fighting by said Pathfinders. This team would eventually go on to achieve heroic accolades by taking the last open objective late in the evening.

Bill made a good point in that most of our WW2 battles center around a structure or two in the center of the field that draw the heaviest fighting. I believe our next run at Bolt Action will feature an attack/defend scenario. My thoughts are something Brecourt Manorish with limited to no structures. I better get to work on my trenches and German towed artillery.