Bolt Action - Demo game in Clubs Housewarming Party

Just a brief post of a game I ran in our Clubs housewarming party last saturday. Our club moved into premises about two weeks ago. So we had open house or housewarming party for members and interested people last saturday.

I promised to run Bolt Action demonstration game as it was among the most wanted demos. So I packed my US armored and Fallschirmjägers for a fight once again. I used my new Karelia table, but I turned it to be a place somewhere in Netherlands. Actually it worked quite well with only new houses added. The game was just a fight over a tactically important crossroads which was defended by veteran Germans. US armored infantry with some tank support was attacking.

After a hard fight US won the day, but Fallschirmjägers put up a good fight before they were forced to withdraw from the village. Here's some eye candy of the game and the victory parade yanks had after the victory.

US troops taking cover in ruined house.

Germans in good positions.

Strong armored support rolls in.

Overall view of the objective.

US 2nd armored rolling through conquered village.

Another view to armored column.

We had lots of people visiting us during the day and many new people came to see the club, so I'll expect new members for the club. Bolt Action game lasted some four hours during the day, it was nice.

Force on Force - Return to the Modern

After some two years break we started Force on Force games in our club just to have some change to Bolt Action. To have some framework to our games I revitalized my previous Kharum campaign which was left to rest about two years ago.

Kharum is fictional yet believable nation somewhere in Central Africa which has recently been divided in two states. Does it seem familiar? Northern Kharum is fairly stable but South is not and our games are located there. There is various warlords struggling for power and there is also oil, which makes the place very lucrative for international oil companies. To stabilized young nation there is also African peacekeepers in Southern Kharum. This is the scene for intense action which has just started.

We already have had  two games in Kharum. First was a hit against leading warlords main man. The hit was orchestrated by rival warlord colonel Miracle, who was trying to capture the target person. The hit wasn't very successful since defenders were full awake and almost gunned down all attackers during short firefight. Only curious happening was intervention by masked gunmen who joined the fight and seemingly helped Miracles men. (This was off course caused by Fog of War Cards drawn).

Peaceful village in countryside.

Is not that peaceful, but filled with gunmen.

Who are alerted by approaching enemy.

Colonel Miracles men.

Fire support on the hill by the village.

Mysterious masked snipers joined the fight.

Second incident was attack on UN food distribution point, once again, by Miracles men. UN troops and US and German advisers put up a good defense. Then things went terribly wrong and one UN jeep was shot to flames and food truck was set ablaze. Some civilians got wounded allegedly by UN troops fire and after that four UN trooper were put to ground. So in the end food distribution ended up a chaos, and UN is now searching colonels men around.

Small town in Kharum.

UN food distribution point.

Local people are gathering to have some.

Place is guarded by local UN troops.

Gunmen moving for a hit.

And soon UN jeep is hot to fire.

Soon after that four peacekeepers are down.

To add the disaster, food truck is set ablaze by RPG.

When all ends total chaos reigns.

Nice start for our modern campaign. Eventful games and lots of plots and story lines to follow for the next games. Next will see the hunt for the gunmen hotspots.

Father's Day Present

I got very nice present for my daughter for Father's day. A while ago I told her that I would like to have  new banner for my blog, and she surprised me with this very cool graphics. I'm happy and very proud of her and this nice picture.

Thanks! 

Bolt Action - Back to the Pacific

To celebrate Warlords new campaign book Empire in Flames, we went back to jungle and had a game from out of the new book. We picked a scenario, Jungle Road, if I recall it right, where group of brits march into Japanese ambush. Once again we used my new table and tried make it look like Pacific island.

This game British changed to US Marines, cause I don't have my Indian troops ready yet. Nice scenario where US troops are marching along the road trying to exit the other end. Japanese are trying annihilate all enemies if possible. We used night fighting rules, and got flare, which made game even more interesting. This seems easy task for ambushers, but it wasn't so.

At the start half of the US troops started marching along the road and rest were following off table entering later from reserves. From turn one Japanese started firing and got some hits, but stalwart Marines pushed on and actually took offensive approach and opened quite intensive fire.  What would you expect they are Marines after all. Start of the second turn I got rest of "leathernecks" on the field and bunched them close together in order to provide concentrated fire ambushers and it worked, Japanese in stead couldn't concentrate their fire partly because dark conditions of night. Finally one Marine recon squad managed to assault two Japanese squads in consecutive turns which almost broke Japanese on left flank. US troops moved ahead and poured massive small arms fire to Japanese squads eliminating the one by one. At the end of the game four US squads left table to safe and most of the Japanese were lying dead on the ground. This night went to US troops.

Marines moving ahead.

Japanese ambushers waiting.

Dug in Japanese by the road.

US Marines bunch up for the fight.

Strong push forward and intense fire.

Marines running for safety.

Who has most BAR's wins!

Nice scenario and good game. The night fighting with occasional flare lighting up scenery was interesting and fun.

Bolt Action Demo Table in Action

Maybe you have been following my Tali - Ihantala gaming table project or seen it during test drive games in AAR's. Now the table was finally used for the purpose it was made for. Last weekend was hobby convention Suuri Snadi which translates big small. There was all sorts of scale hobbies on display, doll houses, scale models, model railroads and modeling competition. Among all that our Club put up few demonstration tables and my Bolt Action table was one of them.  From late summer until now I painted bunch of Finnish troops and tanks and finally tinkered the table just before the show. Then I borrowed Russian troops and Tanks from club mates and all was set. Here's some pictures of the table on display.

Russians advance towards Portinhoikka crossroads.

Troop taking cover.

Finnish machine gun firing from forest line.

Finnish armored division point tanks.

Russian armor on the Karelian road. 

Russian point tank on fire.

Aerial view of Russian attack column.

Finns on defense.

Medium howitzer firing.

Finnish sniper in action.

Russians attacking.

Finns preparing counter assault.

Tank hunters getting ready.

One down more to go.

Famous Finnish tank in action at Portinhoikka.

Finnish rifleman in it's element.

Attack finally stopped for a while.

This was interesting project. It lead me studying history of Tali-Ihantala battle more closely which was nice. It also lead me studying history, painting and numbering of Finnish tanks used in this particular fight. And maybe most importantly it gave nice focus for vigorous painting project from summer to autumn. Great immersion!

By the way, visitors liked my table.