AAR - Bolt Action - Soviets vs British

So it's been almost a week since me and Jim played a couple of 500pt Bolt Action games on Sunday at the club and it was great fun! First one was Maximum Attrition just to get the rules nailed down and then we rolled for a scenario and got Demolition. By the end of the first game we had the rules pretty much nailed down and that really is a great thing for Bolt Action one completely new player and someone who hasn't played for 6 months was knowing most of the rules and mechanics by the 2nd turn.

Second game was good fun and after the building, which my squads were about to mount my assault on the objective from, was wiped out by a Artillery strike I was left defending my objective with one squad left! Thankfully the squad won a last minute assault on the approaching team meaning my single squad managed to squeeze a draw out for the Soviets.

As you can see from the photos we changed the battlefield around completely after the first game, it's great that the club has so much scenery and buildings that we could do this. It also meant we weren't going to get bored of the same looking board for the whole day!

Check out the pictures below;

1st Battlefield

Free Inexperienced Squad Advances onto the board

Jim's British Wait To Come On The Board

British Make Their Advance

More British Reinforcements Arrive

Soviet Horde Begins to Grow

MMG Supports the Advance

The Mortar Relies on the Spotter Firing For Effect From The Fields In The Back Corner

British Take the Centralised House

And the Soviets Fail in Their Assault Being Wiped Out

2nd Battlefield For Demolition, Towers Are Used as Objectives and are in Opposite Corners

British Units Start Making Their Way Over the Bridge With Covering Fire From a Sniper

The Mortar Team Overlook the British Objective But Misses With Most Shots

British Finally Make It Over the Bridge

The Squad Comes On Who Hold The Objective until the Very End of the Battle To Snatch a Draw!

Not bad photos for an iPhone, would've loved to use the girlfriend's camera but don't think I can persuade her to take it down the club for the whole day! After such an enjoyable day and being home alone for the Bank Holiday Monday I was spurred on to build all my extra 500pts for the Soviets to bring my force up to 1,000pts. The two ZIS-3 Guns were a complete bitch to build, and it seems looking on the Warlord forums I wasn't the only one who has had this experience. None of the pieces seem to go together correctly but after some swearing, shaving and just sticking and hoping I had them both glued together and based.

Here's the rest of the guys and the progress I've made this week in painting them!

Commissioner - Not a Bad Dice for 15pts!

Flamethrower, Time To See If These Really Are as Good as Everyone says.

Lieutenant

Medic - Not in my army list but can add in when needed

ZIS-3 Spotter Crew

ZIS-3 Loader

T34 - The Rust Effect Isn't as Bright as That

Don't Know Whether To Add a Decal or Paint On A Design on the Turret

So yeah it's been great fun getting all of these extras all built and painted up in realatively quick fashion. Hopefully once I'm back from holiday I'll be able to get a couple of 1,000pts games under my belt and see how the rules for Tanks and Guns fair. I'll also then be making a start on building all my Japanese infantry and working out a 1,000pt list for them for the Welsh-Open in October. It's still a good few months to go but I know it'll be here sooner than I think!

Busy, Busy, Bolt Action Busy

Is it really almost two weeks since I've updated here? Wow time's been flying by. A combination of work and lots of modelling has left me with little time to keep you all informed what I'm up to. So here's a mega post to keep you all updated. Sitting comfortably? Got a cuppa? Ready for lots of text? What do you mean NO!?! Well here we go anyway.

Well to start with I was voted in as the new secretary of the Northumbrian Adventurers Guild, my local (about 15-miles away) wargaming club that I've been going to pretty regularly on Sundays. It's a great group and everyone's pretty friendly. Lots of different games and tournaments throughout the year ranging from 40K Leagues, Fantasy Tournaments, Flames of War, Bolt Action and Infinity. Got some good plans for this year with the club just need to get advertising and get a few more people from the North East up playing games.

I've made a concentrated effort on my Volksgrendier after Easter and now all the command are finished, the HMGs are based ready from priming, the Sturm platoon is almost finished and then it's all about the guns! I've ordered my 10.5cm LeFH18 Artillery battery and the IG37 Anti-Infantry guns. It wasn't until they arrived I realised I'd only ordered 2 x IG37 when I needed 4! Sods law is they've out of stock everywhere at the moment so I'm trying to source them. Once they've arrived it's going to be a case of building the PAK40s, Flak 43s, Artillery and IG37s and get a weekend of priming, painting and hopefully have them finished. Once they're completed the Volks will be finished!....well for now. Every wargamer knows you're never finished with an army, I'm already looking at additional units to add for the future if I want to switch around my army list. But firstly I need to learn the rules!

Volks So Far. Sturm not pictured but half-painted

So as you can probably guess I've been busy busy with Bolt Action recently. On Sunday I've got a couple of 500pts starter games with Jim at the club. Jim has been busy building and painting a British army recently and after he helped me through Fantasy for a bit I thought it was only fair I helped him into Bolt Action. To be honest I need the games to get back into the swing of things again so it'll be good relearning with someone else who is learning. We're hoping for one game of Maximum Attrition to get the shooting aspects nailed down and then if we've got time we're going to be going into a scenario.


To get prepared for this I've spent the past week basing my Soviets getting them all up to scratch. They look so much better with basing, giving the models so much more character. I've added the GW Mordheim Turf tufts to some of the bases the dead-grass look gives each of the models a little bit extra.

Soviet Horde Based

Me and Jim are aiming to get a 1,000pt battle sorted after we nail down the rules on Sunday. Both ordering from Warlord they've been swamped by the popularity of the Bolt Action game recently and unfortunately both our orders took a good couple of weeks to be shipped. It's understandable as Warlord are such a small company with a rather fast growing game. My reinforcements as mentioned in my April 20th post, arrived yesterday and included 2 x ZIS-3 Guns, 1 x Plastic T34 Kit, 1 x Soviet Command Blister, 1 x Light Mortar/Flamethrower Blister. These additions will bring me up to 1,000pts and I cannot wait to try them out in full force, I'm going to have a busy building and painting period soon! Probably Bank Holiday Monday while the girlfriend is at work.

Soviet Reinforcements

Well I've always loved the T34 for some reason, I think it's just being a Soviet player and the tank being such an iconic vehicle for them in World War 2. I couldn't wait to get the Tank built, so much so, that I spent last night prepping and building it to completion! It's a rather straight forward kit to build and didn't have any problems working out what went where. I love the addition of the Tank commander, I didn't even realise you got one in the box as no picture has one at all.

T34-Love!

 After reading through the Imperial Japan army book I was dead set on getting my force sorted sooner rather than later. Blyth Models managed to pull a blinder and I ended up picking up the kit on Sunday 27th a good week before I was expecting it. I've already gone through the box and worked out what I'll be building. Despite being a 1,000pts starter force I'll be adding some of my own options to make it a 1K Army that I'm happy with. I'll be wanting to get in a couple of guns and also get in Sniper and Flamethrower teams. At the moment I'll build what I've got with the options I want and then go from there.

BANZAI!!!

The Chi Ha tank was easier than the T34 to built, the tracks x 2, hull and turret were four solid pieces and were easy to assemble together. The only fiddly bits were the small metal MMGs to attach to the hull and back of the turret. The radio antenna (big round thing on the turret) was a ball-ache to fix properly and had to bend into shape two or three times just to get it to properly glue down. I'm still stuck with the two extra bits, that you can see in the picture, I know they're meant to go on the back but I've not a clue where they go. If anyone can help then you'll definitely get a cookie from me....*please note cookies may not be handed out.

Japanese Chi Ha Medium Tank

So yeah a busy busy couple of weeks and I'm really getting back into Bolt Action and cannot wait for Sunday's game. I've even ended up signing up for a tournament in October in Cardiff of all places. The Welsh Open is being held at Firestorm Games and it's going to include a 650pts Armoured Platoon game, looking forward to 650pts of Tanks as a throwaway fun game. I've mainly signed up for this tournament to give myself a goal to get all the rules nailed down and army finished by then which will easily be done. I've just got to decide whether to run Soviets or Japanese!

I'll try and get some photos from Sunday, though they'll be on my iPhone like all my others, don't think the Mrs will be happy if I took her expensive Digital SLR down to the club!