1st Bolt Action tournament results and initial thoughts of the 1st game

Today I attended my 1st Bolt Action Tournament Small Unit Tactics IV. 3 games where some maneuver was required, using small 850 point armies with low order dice.18 Players playing at The Gaming Arena.

My army list was in the previous post and was a Early War British army list, based on the Australian 6th Division in Libya and Greece in 1941. The army itself is based on the uniform used in the attack on Bardia.

And I won 2 games out of 3!  

I was disappointed I didn't get a chance to fight the sole(?) Italian army or a DAK 90th Light. The Africa Korps 90th Light got the best paint job vote from me, as both the paint job and the extra effort of having a short paragraph written about the army and where it came from. There was also a Polish army with lancer cavalry, tanketts and a bear.

 

I would never win any paint awards, but I really need to write one for myself next time! Wasn't any point as I had a completely unpainted except for an undercoat Vickers VIC light tank. 

I also need to get a tray painted up as a diorama of assaulting one of the Bardia defence points to lay the army out.

 

Rommel's elite 90th Light Division of the DAK - an army I did not get a chance to play against to my sorrow

 

First Battle: 8th army training

First game was vs the only other British desert army - 1942 British 8th Army. It was obviously a training exercise in the desert. I should make some guys with little white flags to run around and mark shots and have clip boards, as this is going to be a common enough occurrence.

 

The mission was to take 5 objectives out in the middle of the table, but each side starts in a long corner of the table.  It was a desert map with 3 very nice MDF buildings (from a company that no longer exists), large nice stone hills (and usable(!) hills from Battlefield in a Box) and some light cover palm tree area's, with a crossroads (also Battlefield in a Box) that's been hit by artillery fire making craters for cover in the centre. A very nicely laid out table to represent a battlefield in Africa (even if the sand was very err Martian red).

 

Egypt, 1941

He had no tanks, two 40mm Bofers, more units and 14 order dice to my 9, including a light mortar (that got several first turn hits), and AT rifle (that missed every shot), more veteran infantry than I had and a LRDG truck with SAS armed with SMG's coming in on a flank.  Weirdly for a British army, neither of us had a Forward Observer! We both had concluded that 10% of the army in one guy was too much.

 

I should have taken the FO.  

 

His army list (with Warlord Games 8th Army figures) worked better than mine, and the terrain favored him slightly better, though I choose the side to attack from. The bomb holes and rocks made my two tanks harder to maneuver, and I put one on each flank to try and do something about the LRDG truck I knew was going to show up at some point. However, I didn't put my tanks in good positions to ambush it - I should have put a tank on the far left and right in ambush to stop it. Being LRDG they were going to show up turn 3. I thought the two buildings on my side of the table would make good defensive positions but the one I got in didn't have windows facing the enemy, and the other two story one I couldn't reach in time before being outflanked by his LRDG truck.

 

After game note: I believe now  that LRDG from reserve only help with a =1 to the orders roll to arrive if you're in a LRDG TRUCK, which I don't think he was.

 

The fight for the left and centre. My army is on the right

I also chose to flank with my light Vickers VIC tank, but that was also a mistake. I ran it from the right up the road, but instead of firing decided to try and engage ramming speed and run down a veteran infantry squad on the objective.  Being veteran's, they passed a unmodified morale role (no pins on them) and just got out of the way. I should have shot at them.

 

I have captured 2 objectives on the left of the battlefield (closes to camera) but the OPFOR has just captured the centre one and hold the 2 further down the road

He did try for ALL the objectives, instead of my plan on just going for 3 on the left and centre, but my units advanced badly and were uncoordinated.  On the left I had one large unit, one support LMG, a platoon commander and a tank, and they were able to take and JUST hold it, and broke his assaulting SMG unit, but the large unit and platoon commander got wiped out to one Sargent left in the process. They took both objectives on the left though! 

 

I should have left my inexperienced platoon commander in the building and hid and give out morale bonuses instead of trying to be a hero and get 1 SMG to shoot his infantry.

 

The OPFOR has captured 3 objectives in the centre and right

My centre attack was a bit of a shambles. My large rifle unit held a strong position in rocks through the game, but couldn't advance against his mirror like unit in the rocks opposite, the Matty didn't do much (though did destroy his centre Bofers) and the LMG support squad got pinned down by his LRDG squad that came in on their flank. I wasted my Light tank coming in on the right trying to run over and uselessly shoot at his larger infantry units when I should have targeted his truck and smaller LRDG team.

 

I should have focused fire on the LRDG team and truck and killed 3 enemy units instead of trying to take the centre objective. I might have then been able to run with the right side LMG team into the building in front and take the objective outside it's front door.  

I found I didn't need the movement templates, in this and the other 2 games, and don't really need them in small games. I can see in larger games being more useful, but none of the small armies I fought had large HE rounds either, so I didn't actually need to be spread out. In all 3 games no one bothered to use a template, but the largest HE round fired at infantry was only 1" anyway. 

 

Warlord Games should just bite the bullet and make HE rounds effect d2-d3-d6-1d6+3 targets IMHO.

 

His Bofer's soaked up some fire from my tanks but didn't do much - I should have used my tanks co-axs to shoot his infantry instead. Being slow meant my tanks could not maneuver much, but could ignore his Bofer's too with their mediam armour.  I do think he needed SOME ant-tank guns, he had enough anti-infantry weapons with his own infantry and infantry support weapons.

Large Veteran Troops in hard cover with a medic and platoon commander are extremely hard to do much of anything about. We both had veteran's in hard cover, he had a platoon CO and I had a medic  and they survived to the end of the game with multiple units shooting at them. Now that I think about it, killing his centre Bofers and soaking up their fire with my Matties meant he didn't use his HE rounds on my infantry, and I need some HE to blow up troops in hard cover.  Doh, that's what a light and mediam mortar are for!

I should get TWO rifle platoons with 2 squads each (one 9-10 rifles and one small 5 man LMG support team), each with a platoon commander and medic, and maybe an AT Rifle. And a light mortar!  

I also found after 3 games I really need to do what everyone else seems to do and get a truck loaded with a SMG squad to come in on a flank. I should get one squad of SAS in a LRDG truck for that, even if it is completely unhistorical to get one for the siege of Bardia/Tobruk/Greek Campaign.

I lost the battle 2 objectives to 3. We both lost one unit - my platoon commander vs one of his 40mm Bofers. He played better and used his army better, though he's played a lot more Bolt Action games than I have. My medic made only one save, but it saved the life of the only man left in a squad, so was well worth it!

 

Coming up...The 2nd Battle: The Russians are coming for the Briefcase again!