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.

Bolt Action - Tigers roaming free

Once more wednesday Bolt Action routine in the club. This time the table was set up as heavily forested area amongst the hills. This meant dense table with very limited LOS and lines of fire. This equals lots of movement and fierce close range firefights. The scenario was breakthrough mission and this time for Germans, who were meant to push through Allied lines in forested region, reminding Ardennes.

German force was once again kampfgruppe of Waffen-SS Panzer Gerandiers and Grossdeutchland Sturmpioniere, with arty FO providing off table support. This time SS-troops were well mobilized having two half tracks and one Opel truck. True heavy close support was awesome Tiger I tank. So quite mobile force having some true punch if needed. Allied force was more conventional infantry group of five infantry squads from US and British troops with usual MG support, 50mm AT gun and brave Sherman. This time Yanks didn't have "angels on their shoulders", because previous friendly fire incidents caused by American JaBo's.

The battle started strong push by Tiger and panzer grenadiers pushing towards the objective on German right while Sturmpioniere secured left flank by doing diversionary assault. Tiger roamed ahead seemingly unopposed even US troops did all they could to stop the huge monster. At gun shots bounced off and troopers with Bazooka missed their target. Allied troops formed strong lines of riflemen in the dense woods and waited their targets to appear on sights. Only the Tiger was free to push forward straight through the American lines. While Tiger was spearheading ahead, German FO had set his gear up on the hill and finally called first salvo, which went totally wrong and hit straight to one panzer grenadier half track which was expectedly destroyed. Other Panzer Grenadiers dismounted and started attacks on American lines. This started desperate firefight which lasted until the end of battle. Sturmpionier diversion advanced well first and after it came in range things got worse. British infantry was well dug on the woods and poured respectable amount of lead to germans. This was the story for the rest of the fight, Germans attacking Allied lines only to be moved down. Germans did some damage too, but not enough and they just run out off fresh troops. Finally German attack was practically stopped on the forest line and main objective was never reached. Lonely Tiger was only roaming seemingly free along American lines, but that was not enough. Fight went for the Allied this time.

Some shots from the battle.

Forest between the hills was the scene.

British troops preparing defense. 

Americans doing the same, defense preparations.

Infantry lines ready to repel any attack.

Tiger spearheading and Panzer Granadiers follow close by.

A bit of a traffic jam building up.

US sniper opens fire on the hill.

And Germans are the target.

Soon after sniper was spotted and  eliminated.

Hanomag takimg direct hit from friendly artillery.

Sturmpioniere assaulting Brits from the hills.

Fierce firefight between American and SS-troops.

Battle in the forest.

German FO leaving.

More Brits joining the fight.

Sherman after taking hot from 88't.

End of the German attack and end of fight.

Yes, once again good and relaxed game. Lots of cinematic moments just like it should be. Damn how I like this game!

After finalizing last order of new German troops and equipment, I'll change theatre and will move to South Pacific, Marines are already on the way! Hooyaa!

Bolt Action - Bloody forest

Bolt Action for a while. We had four player game of Bolt Action on Wednesday game evening. The game was scenario point defense from the BA rule book and it was about capturing and holding three objectives on the battlefield. We had strengthened platoon on each side, some ten units. For allied there were American-British combined force and Sherman bolstering it. On German side SS-troops and assault engineers and fearsome Tiger I. Table was forested area with lots of cover and loss block, which spells out as good game. There were also many new freshly painted model, Deuce and a half truck, Sdkfz250/9, US Jeep, so there were plenty eye candy on the table.

The game started both sides moving rapidly towards the objectives on the table. Allied decided bring all their troops on first wave which meant there was allied troops pouring through the woods. At the start of then fight the Tiger started to roll toward the right side objective, which activated Sherman to confront it. Tiger took first shot but missed and Sherman replied with accurate shot which hit Tiger squarely on front plate, but no penetration. Later the unfortunate Sherman was hit by allied ground attack plane by mistake before Tiger got it. Later USAF corrected things and destroyed the Tiger too. Infantry fight was at first troops shuffling through forest until they met. The close range firefights were fast and bloody and casualties very high. Towards the end of the fight attrition was taking more toll on Germans who literally ran out of troops. There were many "movie moments" during the game, like Tiger trying to roll over american squad and SS-officer doing the final heroic rush for the objective along few veteran sergeants only to be gunned down by yanks. Truly like Huertgen forest!

Some action shots from the fight.

Awesome Tiger I

Heer recon with assault engineers.

Soldires from the Big Red One.

Sherman engaging Tiger, brave guy.

End of Sherman, but not by Tiger.

Tiger tank shocking americans.

SS-troops advance in line. 

Two last Germans facing their unavoidable faith.

To the objectice!

Deuse and a half.

German brave platoon leader rushing to objective.

German hal track trying to defend the objective.

All in all, good scenario, nice models and fun game, time nicely spent!