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.

Bolt Action - Too Late, Too Little

A change to have a game of Bolt Action appeared  suddenly and with a fellow gamer who had been of gaming some months now. So we had a fight between old adversaries The French and Blitzkrieg Germans. The scene was once a again my new demo table, which is pretty much ready to be presented in a convention this weekend.

We devised up a scenario where Germans were defenders for a while and somewhat stronger French platoon was attacking them. There was German relief force to come to save the day from reserve. But from the start poor German combat engineer squad was to survive French onslaught. So the scenario was a variant of point defense, but for the drama there was much smaller starting force for Germans at start. And drama it turned out to be, or more likely tragedy.

German positons in the ruins.

German engineers squad was entrenched in a bombed out house with light AT gun around the corner. From there they watched the French platoon to appear in nearby woods. The French appeared from woods and approached German positions in line with almost full platoon strength. While Germans readied their guns and took careful aim Lorraine transport and Renault tank rolled in. Steel nerved Sturmpioniers put AT gun in action and knocked Lorraine off and first fire of Germans from ruins did some damage on French on the field. Furious fire fight ensued and French were pouring fire from three squads and Renault over German engineers who started taking casualties. Heavy French fire took it's toll and Germans were busy keeping their heads down and they didi not noticed French mortar which was zeroing in the ruins. It hit with devastating results. There was only few engineers standing after the dust settled. But still the nerve of seasoned fighters held. The officer who had appeared in the yard behind the house helped indeed. But nothing else was not coming yet.

After mauling Germans into small team the French advanced rapidly and actually took good positions around the house ruins and nearby surroundings. So, when the reserves finally appeared (in turn four) they only drove in very bad place where they were fired from good positions. German reserves were wasted in futile attempt to help their already lost friends. All German units that were trying to change the situation were annihilated on attempt, so it was too late, too little. The fight went for the French.

The French approaching in the woods.

AT gun loaded.

French advance in open line across the fields and Lorraine driving in.

Germans open up.

Renault covering advancing troops.

German officers drive in, the only reserves for a while.

French move closer for a kill.

Finally German reinforcements came but too late.

The objective was in French hand.

Last desperate attempt of Panzer to break French lines.

Very one sided game, me having no reserves and opposite having almost all to use. It was truly a massacre for my poor Germans. Yet very good and dramatic game after all. This kind of stuff the stories are told. And there is always a revenge.

Bolt Action - project Portinhoikka crossroads

When I started painting my Continuation War Finns an idea of themed table for them popped up in my mind. So while I was painting the figures I pondered what particular scene should I choose for the table. I like war history and going after real scenery was no brainer. After some hard consideration I chose a scene from the battle of Tali - Ihantala and more specifically Portinhoikka crossroads. It was the place where Finnish armored division stopped Russian push by counter attacking them hard. I's also one of the scenes from Tali-Ihantala movie. It took some twenty odd hours of work, but after seeing it ready, it was worth it.

Drawings and some pieces attached.

The table was made after a real map of the place.

Crass matt clued of boards.

Boards covered with tiling mortar.

Looking like chocolate porridge.

Looking quite ready.

Hill flocked.

Another hill called "Kyöpelinvuori".

Table with trees. This it how it will look like,

Famous crossroads.

Great project altogether. Maybe will start next one soon, it's always so much nicer to have thematic tables for gaming.