Sunday, 2 February 2025

Thoughts after completing my first Bolt Action game

 Battle report will come later I hope. Lot to think about. In random order:

 

The Red Spy is in the base! Protect the intelligence! 

We need to protect the briefcase!

The mission was The Red Spy Is In The Base: PROTECT THE BRIEFCASE.  I have been dreaming of that mission for weeks. It was the perfect mission.

FO's are as good as everyone says there were. I got lucky with one direct hit and lots of pins on 2-3 units at a time. I should get a recce platoon and stick one in a Bren Gun Carrier keep him from getting sniped.

I think his mate saw me. Ping! Yes, yes he did.

I need to shoot my Sniper immediately. I didn't, got counted sniped and should have targeted his sniper that was hunting mine. My Sniper was a waste, though it did keep his sniper busy for 2 turns.

His mediam mortar didn't do much until I left a squad under it's target icon and it wiped out the squad in2  turns.  Always move units targeted by mortars!

He set up his MMG to cover the objective in a classic setup. An excellent use for it, and out of range of my light mortar. 

Veteran Matilda II's aren't worth it unless your opponent is playing early war too. 

My regular troops kept failing order tests and his kept passing.  I need some veteran engineers or recce infantry as assault troops. 10 man squads are also useful because you WILL take pins before you take casualties.

When an enemy tank with a heavy anti tank gun is to your front, activate your armour first!

FO's don't need to wait till the end of the turn, they can mark their target one enemy units at the target location have completed their orders!  

Smoke rounds for artillery or my mortar should have been dropped on the objective once I knew I was going to get to it first.

When you get the briefcase, you STOP.  Remember that next time.

 I don't think you can daisy chain the brief case to run away, so any unit going for it must RUN every turn. You don't have time to advance or fire!

Veteran troops in cover are very survivable. 

Template weapons are what you use to attack enemy infantry in cover.

If taking two tanks, always use the tanks together. Don't drive off in another direction, particularly with slow tanks!

I could have put my tanks in hull down and got cover from that and still covered the objective. 

I need to get 2 man, 4 and 5 man movement templates, 1 inch apart to maintain coherency and 1 inch boundary.

I need to mark my unit types (I ran out of time yesterday). 

Snap too is a very good command to get things done, but you WILL lose the initiative of choosing what to do after your opponent will, so it looks pretty balanced. There's a reason not to do it every turn or use a Company Commander to move 4 units at once. You don't need to do it.

I kept failing my order dice rolls and had 2 morale roles and Lt was close enough to do and good enough to do. Coy Co's are not required in all army lists. 

I had an order dice advantage, but using a snap too would remove it. I need more order dice.

The Medic made his points back, but would not have if he'd had an assistant.  

Bolt Action is REALLY good at not stopping or slowing the game down. I kept doing an order, and stopping to sit down to wait for when it's my turn but you don't do that.  Conversely there's suspense of not knowing if it's your turn next and happiness when you get multiple orders in a row and despair when your opponent does.

There is not going to be a Conquest Bolt Action tournament :(. No one's put their hand up to do it, and they don't have the room left now for the tables :(.

I need to keep track of turns with a big dice in the corner.

I think I maintained sight on the objective better, but at the end, a lone Sargent, a Lt and the medic were the only ones near the briefcase, with the Sargent going hell for leather why a squad of Finns with MP39's and a 75mm Stug chased after him, while the AT rifle, light mortar and 4 men from another tried squad tried to hold them off. The FO and one assistant were stuck on the other side of the battlefield.  Very comic book like I must say. It ended in a draw, but I needed 2 turns to escape because the unit with the briefcase got stuck going DOWN after a failed order roll. Another reason to get some veterans.


I still need one day to get a Bolt Action army printed out as the Team from Team Fortress. I would have so many lines to use!

Saturday, 1 February 2025

Bolt Action army list for Sunday

Hopefully I'll get my first game of Bolt Action this Sunday at the League of Ancients.

My planned army isn't ready because I need to get 3 carriers put together and painted.

So I plan on running a higher tank veteran list without them to see how it works.

The two Matties II's are veteran to ignore hits that can't penetrate from causing pins.

They will roll down each flank of the infantry company with a 5 man Bren Gun Rifle squad in direct support. 

Behind each tank is an 8 man flanking Engineer assault squad. They are both armed with anti-tank grenades. They will flank and assault the enemy pinned down by the tanks and LMG Rifle squads.

One platoon commander goes with each detachment of tank+LMG+assault.  

The medic goes with one team and the mortar sets up to use the FO as a spotter. The AT rifle team goes up one flank for flanking shots on enemy armour. 

The FO deploys forward to call in an artillery or smoke barrage in front of the advancing troops and the Sniper team in front of everyone as a scout and counter-infiltrator. Later on the FO team armed with SMG's can be a backup assault team. 

I need to get some plastic SMGs and Rifles and put them on a base for the FO team to switch as needed. 

Total Points: 997
Order Dice: 13
Platoon #1
*Version 3 - British - Armoured Platoon
1000 Vet matties, rifles and enginners
Command Vehicle
Matilda & Valentine Infantry Tank (Version 3 Rulebook page 241) 179Veteran
QtyVehicle
  Weapons
Type
Range
Trans
Shots
DV
Pen

Special
1Infantry Tank Mk II Matilda Mk II


Tracked-9+Slow
   Turret-mounted light anti-tank gun48"1+4HE (1")
   Co-axial MMG36"6n/a

Cmd Vehicle Options
Command Vehicle rule (v3) (Version 3 Rulebook page 188) 10

Command Vehicle special rule

Vehicle
Matilda & Valentine Infantry Tank (Version 3 Rulebook page 241) 179Veteran
QtyVehicle
  Weapons
Type
Range
Trans
Shots
DV
Pen

Special
1Infantry Tank Mk II Matilda Mk II


Tracked-9+Slow
   Turret-mounted light anti-tank gun48"1+4HE (1")
   Co-axial MMG36"6n/a

Platoon #2
*Version 3 - British - Rifle Platoon
1000 Vet matties rifles
Platoon Commander
Platoon Commander (Version 3 Rulebook page 234) 30Regular
QtyWeaponsRangeShotsPenSpecial
1Platoon Commander




 with Pistol6"1n/a 

 with Rifle24"1n/a

 with Submachine gun12"2n/aAssault

Infantry
Infantry Section (Version 3 Rulebook page 235) 65Regular
QtyWeaponsRangeShotsPenSpecial
1NCO with Rifle24"1n/a
3Infantry with Rifle24"1n/a
1Infantry with Light Machine gun (requires loader)36"4n/a

Infantry Section (Version 3 Rulebook page 235) 65Regular
QtyWeaponsRangeShotsPenSpecial
1NCO with Rifle24"1n/a
3Infantry with Rifle24"1n/a
1Infantry with Light Machine gun (requires loader)36"4n/a

Medic
Medic (Version 3 Rulebook page 234) 23Regular
QtyWeaponsRangeShotsPenSpecial
1Medic


Medics

 with Pistol6"1n/a 

Forward Observer
Forward Observer (Artillery) (Version 3 Rulebook page 234) 97Regular
QtyWeaponsRangeShotsPenSpecial
1Forward Observer (Artillery)


Infiltrator
2Infantry (equipped as modeled)
--

 with Rifle24"1n/a

 with Pistol6"1n/a 

 with Submachine gun12"2n/aAssault

Sniper
Sniper Team (Version 3 Rulebook page 238) 52Regular
QtyWeaponsRangeShotsPenSpecial
1Sniper Team36"1n/aTeam (2 men), Sniper, Infiltrator, (Sniper has a rifle and a pistol, spotter has a pistol)

Anti-tank
Anti-Tank Team (Version 3 Rulebook page 237) 25Regular
QtyWeaponsRangeShotsPenSpecial
1Anti-tank rifle team48"1+2Team (2 men)

Light mortar
Light Mortar Team (Version 3 Rulebook page 238) 30Regular
QtyWeaponsRangeShotsPenSpecial
1Light Mortar team12-36"1HETeam (2 men), Indirect fire, HE (1")

Platoon #3
*Version 3 - British - Engineer Platoon
1000 Vet Matties, rifles and enginners
Platoon Commander
Platoon Commander (Version 3 Rulebook page 234) 30Regular
QtyWeaponsRangeShotsPenSpecial
1Platoon Commander




 with Pistol6"1n/a 

 with Rifle24"1n/a

 with Submachine gun12"2n/aAssault

Engineers
Infantry Section (Engineers) (Version 3 Rulebook page 235) 108Regular
QtyWeaponsRangeShotsPenSpecial
7Infantry with Rifle24"1n/a
1NCO with Submachine gun12"2n/aAssault

EngineersEngineers

Entire squad equipped with anti-tank grenadesTank hunters

Bolt Action Australian 6th Division 1941 January painted

All painted, I see so many flaws but I'm done. Just need to base them tomorrow, add unit type colour stripes on the back and spray Matt varnish for a game on Sunday at League of Ancients. I can't do my 1100 point army because I have not put 3 plastic Bren Gun Carriers together, so I'm going for a more elite veteran force.

My painting guide is here.

The Bayonets are all bent or doomed to break off If I ever do another army, no Bayonets! 

The Army Painter Speedpaints 2.0 are SO much faster than my old Citadel paints and nicer to use in drop bottles. I just wish there was a brown that was WW2 British Uniform Khaki. They shade and highlight very well, though the lighter paints are so transparent they won't go over darker ones. You need to be careful leaving space for the very light colours. Though having Western Europe Khaki and light Desert colored helmets and packs was always going to make it hard. The Army Painter Shaders arn't quite like the Washers they have now, but I very much like them.

I avoided mixing paints as I will need to add to this force in the future. 

I probably didn't need to have different colours for the Puttee's and Boots as they are so close to be identical.

There's very little different between the Pale Bone backpack and Howling Sand gas mask bag, I don't think I'll bother using the Howling Sand next time.  

The Great Coat is too dark, it looks like it's made of leather instead of wool. Nuts.

Some of them have crusader skin instead of tanned skin but that was a tad too dark.  

The Pale Bone is so transparent it won't show up over the very dark great coat unfortunately, and my painting skills are not good enough to leave them unpainted when doing the coat.

With the very dark overcoat I don't think I actually got any point to spending the time to do a Zenithal highlighting :(

The great coat and pants were the most time consuming and unfun part of it. I switched to a Army Painter Monster brush from a Regiment brush afterwards and this made everything else much faster.

Doing the washes and slapping them over the paint was the best and most enjoyable part

I didn't do any drybrushing on the infantry as I don't think they need it.

50 troops and objectives at the back with 2 Matilda II's


I am tried of painting brown!