Bolt Action Normandy Terrain

Just a quick post of a recent game of Bolt Action, 2 vs 2, 1500 points a side. Everything except the trees were made over a 2 week period just for this game. My brother and I used cardboard, foamcore sheets, bits of wood, and cork tiles to complete the table. We're planning on doing a Winter Eastern Front set for our next big game.

Bolt Action US Infantry

I managed to get some shots of my US Infantry from Warlord Games. Unfortunately the pics came out a bit dark, hopefully when I complete the next batch of Infantry I can do a complete Army shot with some better lighting.

 ::Combat Platoon::

 ::Squad One::

  ::Squad Two::

 ::Squad One::

 ::Squad Two::

::Sniper Team::

So far I have a Reinforced Combat Platoon consisting of two 8 Man Squads, a 1st Lieutenant, a Veteran Medic, a Sniper Team, a Sherman 75, and an M8 Greyhound. For my first game of Bolt Action I was playing against the Russians played by Tony who was also playing his first game. We agreed to play a 500 point game so minus the Sniper team and Greyhound this put me at 491 points.

We rolled up Top Secret for the scenario, which means everything starts in reserve and moves onto the table. The objective of the game is to secure secret documents set up in the middle of the table and retrieve the info by running it off your table edge. My first unit to move on was my Sherman which I moved up to cover the objective to make Tony think twice about trying to capture the documents. Once all the units moved on, we started taking pot shots at each other across the table. Eventually my Sherman got assaulted and destroyed, and it went downhill from there. The same Russian unit that destroyed my Sherman then went on to assault one of my squads, and in Bolt Action its a fight to the Death. The assaulting unit has the advantage as any casualties inflicted are removed and whatever is left get to fight back. He was running full 12 man squads while I had only had 8, so I was outmatched in close combat and he destroyed my squad. Even so, I managed to get the Secret documents to within a turn of running off my table edge and winning. It all came down to whose order die was pulled first at the start of turn 5. Tony's order die came up first and he ordered his squad, the same squad that destroyed the Sherman and wiped out my squad in an assault, to gun down the courier. At that point I had just one squad left, so we decided to call it.

My lesson from that game is that you really need to put more units on the table to generate order dice. I started with 5 and the Russians had 9, so his chances of activating units when he needed to were pretty good. 

After the game we realized we messed up on some of the rules. The Sherman would have survived the assault (we misread the Tank Assault rules) and possibly changing the outcome of the game, and also using my medic to save an NCO from his sniper.

I'm currently painting up another two full 12 man squads of Infantry with extra BARS (to run as vets if I want), a Bazooka Team, and a Forward Air/Artillery Observer. I also plan to paint up a Medium Mortar team and three LMG teams.

Bolt Action World War II

BOLT ACTION BY WARLORD GAMES

Well it's been awhile but I'm back into building and painting stuff, for now. The latest project I've been working on is for Warlord Games World War II game published by Osprey, Bolt Action. I already completed a small 500 point US Army and played my first game and it's awesome. So hopefully I'll remember to post updates here as I journey into another game...

Warlord Games Plastic US Infantry Box. Excellent figures. Some WIP shots.

Here the US Infantry are done. I just need to take some proper pics and post them. In the background you can see a 1/48 Tamiya Sherman assembled and ready for paint. I also built Tamiya's 1/48 Greyhound.

Final Shots of the Tamiya 1/48 Sherman and Greyhound.

Now, to paint more infantry!

WIP - Saga: Viking Warband

 Some Work In Progress pics of the Viking Warband.

An overall shot of the 4 point warband starting from the back row, left to right: Hearthguard unit, Warlord, Hearthguard unit (the berserkers), Warriors with swords, and warriors with spears. They are all missing shields which will be painted separately. I decided to arm them for easy identification on the table top. The Gripping Beast Hirdmen box went together pretty easy, took me an evening to put together. Only complaint would be the limited amount of poses available in the box.

Close up of the Berserkers, for these I used the Warlord Games Ancient Germans box. Nice action poses and they fit right in size wise with the Gripping Beast plastics. At this point I'm waiting on an order for bases and they'll be ready for paint.

Saga - The Vikings are coming

After watching some friends playing a cool new game at our game club, my brother and I decided to try out the new Saga wargame by Gripping Beast. Set in the Dark Ages, the core game mechanic is the Saga Dice and Battleboard. Each faction (4 in the basic rules: Vikings, Normans, Anglo-Danes and Welsh) have a Battleboard which list different orders or abilities that you can issue to your warband during the game. But the challenge is you have to roll and assign the Saga Dice to the Battleboard (by matching symbols) at the start of your turn and discard dice from the board to issue an order or ability to your warband during your turn.

We agreed on 4 point warbands to start with which means we only have to paint 25 or so figures to start playing. I'll be doing the Vikings while my brother will be doing the Anglo-Danes. We picked up a box of Gripping Beast's Viking Hirdmen and a Box of Warlord Games Germanic Tribesmen. The German box set was purchased for the bare chested torsos and extra weapons to convert into duel wielding Berserkers. With just these two box sets and some mixing and matching you can create two warbands, and have enough parts left over to expand to 6 points or the start of a third warband.