Bolt Action - US Marine reinforcements

Bolt Action Marine project grinds on and some more tough fighters got ready to join battle in remote Pacific coral islands. I just got ready second squad of Marine infantry, Sherman and LVT4 Buffalo amtrack.

After painting most of my Marines with green-grey dungarees I wanted little variety and painted some five Marine scouts in P24 camo suit. These guys are from second Marine recon battalion, which was one of the first incarnations of now famous Marine Recon, called Marine Raiders back in the day.

And finally, I dusted old Thunderbolt fighter-bomber plane. It was painted 2003 for other WW2 games, but now it joins the fight again.


Here are the reinforcements.

39 cal. team shifting position.

Flamethrower of course.

Marine recon in camo, mixing it well to the background.

Raiders with lots of assault weapons.

More raiders.

Second infantry squad.

One of the BAR gunners.

Riflemen.

Bazooka team.

Sniper and spotter taking five.

Buffalo amtrack.

And ubiquitous Sherman tank.

P 47 Thunderbolt.

Next there will be more heavy metal, maybe one more Sherman and one of those landing crafts to ferry my Marines ashore. There will be more, stay tuned...

Bolt Action - To Pacific

While my Marine painting project marches on we have started playing games in Pacific theater between Imperial army of Japan and US Marines. Few first games have been fairly small in size, only few squads of infantry and some support weapon teams. We have added freshly painted units when they get ready, so last time I got to field Sherman support for my Leathernecks. Little gaming during armies are building up keeps up painting heat and gives nice boost for new phases of the projects. Today, I started planning ordering some landing crafts, just to have some landing and beachhead scenarios to give some spice for normal scenarios. Yes the order will be done soon.

Pacific theme sets different gear for Bolt Action games, when compared to ETO games. The scenery tends to be more dense, so there's a lot of movement and fire fights happen at close range. There are tactically very different armies facing each other. Japanese are very aggressive and good at close quarters, so Marines should be very careful not get attacked suddenly from the bushes. On the other hand, Japanese should avoid prolonged fire fights with Marines, who pack quite respectable firepower, with their automatic weapons. At first, US tanks seem to dominate battle field, but after meeting suicide bombers from Japan, you have to reconsider. Human bombs are so powerful. And off course, there is those interesting landing games ahead. So after fielding Germans for some time, it's good command tough Leathernecks against fanatic warriors from the land of the rising sun. I'm inspired!

Here's some combat shots from our first fights.

Fire fights happen at close range.

Marine sniper and spotter.

Japanese infantry moving through dense cover.

Japanese sniper in position.

US command advances.

US heavy metal.

Japanese excel in close combat.

Who's that guy with that package?

And they learned quickly, don't let suicide bomber close!

There will be more painting and I have also started devising mini campaign about US landing on small island and hard fighting for beachhead. More new miniatures to be presented soon...

Bolt Action - Semper Fi

My new painting project has been mentioned few times before and now the first batch of Bolt Action US Marines are ready to be introduced.

Just finalized few heavy weapons, so now I have a squad of infantry, few officers, FO, two machine guns and two mortars and medic ready, painted, based and varnished ready to face some Japanese opponents.

And this is only beginning of and there is more nice toys to be painted. Next in line LVT 4 snipers and more infantry.

And here are my new Leathernecks. I really do like these miniatures, nice sculpts and full character as Marines should, enjoy, Semper Fi!

Squad 1.

With various weapons including combat shotgun.

And BAR's many BAR's.

F.O. and scout.

Corpsman and strecher party.

Radio operator and Chesty in person.

Company commader and gunny.

81 mm mortar.

Browning 1917 MMG.

Stowe pipe boys with 60mm mortar.

Browning 1919 MMG.

This is really inspiring new project as I may have said all ready. Marines, my favorite unit, nice models for good game.

WH 40K - Storm is rising!

Next weekend we will be having 40K weekend extravaganza! I haven't been playing 40K for a while, so It'll be nice to meet 7th ed. too. The campaign is based on GW campaign booklet Strorm Of Vengeance which was published way back in 90's for 2nd. ed. Our 40K master Teemu, read it through and picked some appropriate scenarios and tuned them for 7th. ed. There will be two famous orc warbosses Nazdreg and Ghazgull clashing with Charcharodon Chapter Marines on Piscina IV.

As a preparation for the campaign, we had scenery project, in which we made custom gaming table, with some nice new scenery and buildings. During two sundays War Head construction team worked hard on cutting, plastering, painting and weathering tables and buildings. This is actually as inspiring as the actual game! More on our scenery project on War Head blog. (all Finnish).

There is a storm rising and soon it's upon us!

Bolt Action - Heer final chapter

This is the end of my half year project with WW2 late  war Germans. Just got some final reinforcements ready. Final additions were artillery FO team and MG42 MMG team and one more sdkfz 250/1, which I bought from my fellow club member. So no I have well equipped strengthened Fallschirjäger platoon as well similar platoon of German infantry with some quite decent amount of transports.

Other little addition is wartime VW beetle model from Tamiya. It's 1/48 scale and doesn't fit well with other Warlord vehicles, it's bit oversized, but can be used either independently or as part of scenery. I just had to have it.

And then last few pictures is showing way forward for the next half year or so, The US Marines are here. Got them and first batch is now almost ready. There will be more of these!

Artillery FO team handing coordinates. 

Sdkfz 250/1 for the staff.

MG42 MMG team.

VW in Wehrmacht use, nice model!

And then, "Chesty" Puller and platoon command.

Some hard looking Leathernecks.

More Marines on the way... The Pacific here we come!

Bolt Action - Crossroads of Death

War went on in the club when the usual group of WW2 ehnthusiastics gathered together to have some Bolt Action action. Fights were fought in two tables and familiar Normandy opponents facing each other. I was pretty occupied with my own game and wasn't really following action on the other table, but in there Germans won.

Our game was airborne elite confrontation between British Paras and German Fallshirmjägers. The fight took place on little town with lots of houses and church as a centre point of action.   The mission was hold until relieved from BA rulebook and British para were defending crossroads in the village. Germans were the attacker whose hard task was to eliminate Brits who were bunkered in the houses around the objective. Not an easy task at all, as the fight proved. Almost all Germans were motorized riding either half track or in a truck plus one schwimmwagen, but they really lacked the punch to hit British paras in the houses. This was firts time I was using transports, so had really no idea of how they work on the tabletop. With some tactical mistakes made by Germans (me) and some support of bad luck (to me) fight really went for the Brits and Fallschirmjägers were shot up pretty badly. But still they were able to put up true fight and casualties were very high on the other side too.

Here's some pictures, no that much I was concentrating on the hard fight.

Scene of the fight small town somewhere in France.

Crossroads by the church was the objective to be taken.

Para sniper in bell tower.

British troops were in good position and in good cover.

First transport to take a hot was Opel Blitz, result was expected.

Hanomag approaching carefully by the church while jeep waits.

Reaching for objective.

Schwimmwagen was trying to hide throughout all fight.

Good but hard fight with new transport feature this time. It will need some more practice to use their mobility more effectively. I'm sure they can be the key on many scenarios to reach the objectives and win the fight.