1st Confederate Infantry Regiment (And other stuff)

This weekend I was lucky enough to play three small games of Bolt Action and finish up basing and painting my first 15mm ACW Infantry Regiment.

The Civil War minis are by Blue Moon 95% and other unknown manufacturers 5%. No flag on the banner bearer model as I plan to get some printed once all my regiments are painted and playable.

Finishing these prompted me to paint up another general model. This fellow is waving his saber about in an enthusiastic fashion tho I fear he'll be biting Minie ball sitting so high in his stirrups.

My first three games of Bolt Action were learning games, so small and few special rules to worry about.
The first was played Friday evening versus new gaming pal, Travis. We met at our LGS and he brought all the terrain and both armies for the game. (He played German Grenadiers and I British infantry.) Each force was comprised with a 2nd Lieutenant+Adjutant, 3 infantry squads with LMG's, two lorry transports,  Medium Machinegun, Sniper team, a tank each and Medium Mortar team+Spotter for the Brits and Infantry Support gun for the Germans. The lists were played were of Regular quality and the mission we played was Demolition - where we each had to try to reach an objective in our opponent's deployment zone before turn 6. (I think)

Per usual, here are some pics to indicate how the game went.

Here's the set up showing terrain, etc. My objective was placed in the trees to the right with an infantry squad ahead of them, my Medium Machine Gun (Vickers) in the beige crop field and 3" Mortar team in the bottom left corner with their spotter in the center next to my Sniper team. Travis plonked his Infantry Gun (Artillery) in the rear most beige crop field with an Grenadiers squad ahead of them, ready to enter the nearest house, his Sniper team all the way in the back corner hiding in the the trees with a great view of most of the board and his own Medium Machinegun team (MG42) in the trees in the center-rear of his deployment zone next to the objective marker also hidden in the same trees.

Bloody German Sniper takes out one of my poor infantry before they can even react.  I rally don't think that snipers are as effective as they should be in Bolt Action. Their effect on infantry was as suppressible as a machinegun support weapon, yet they only create one pin marker when they hit and kill. Maybe a house-rule is in order here?

My mortar spotter on the left (Yes, with Piat pack...) just misses on relaying the Infantry Gun's coordinates.

German Hetzer Tank-Hunter rolls forward after a glancing hit from my Sherman causes a pin. The Sherman is not made for this kind of fight though....

In turn 3 or 4 the mortar finally hits it's mark!

On the right flank, we both get reserves who drive in on trucks and dismount! Thus ensues a fierce firefight where I took the early upper hand then then.... 

Got swiftly whittled down by Assault Rifle and Hitler's Buzzsaw (Squad MG42) fire. My poor Brit rifles and crappy Bren Gun can stand up to that kind of firepower. :( Here's my Lt and Adjutant wondering why they turned up to this Machinegun fight armed only with rifles?

Hetzer kills Sherman....

And is then assaulted by my infantry squad from a building out of shot....

Who are in turn shot at being out in the open and then sucker-punch-assaulted by Grenadiers from the house in the picture. 

Knowing that the game was really almost over for me, my last ditch attempt was to try to outflank a truck out of reserve with my last infantry squad in the bed to rush Travis' objective. I was hoping wieght of numbers would win out versus that pesky MG42. Boy, was I wrong...

In the end I threw in the towel. All of my infantry units were dead or pinned beyond usefulness and I had no way to stop the rampaging Hetzer. I had a lot of fun though and even though the Bolt Action rules seem almost “cartoony” in how they go about wargaming, they were fun and it was cool to push 28mm World War 2 units about the table. The rules set does need a few tweaks though and I am aware of the WWPD Bolt Action Alliance unofficial changes to the rules that are being used around the world at different tournament venues that sound like they address quite a few of my issues, so maybe once I have the rules down more-so, I’ll affect some of their changes?

The morning after this game, my good mate Densmol come over so I could show him what I’d learnt the night before. I convinced him to get into Flames of War and now I’ve convinced him to join me in my Bolt Action endeavours. He of course, has chosen to play Germans again….

We played two small games on a 3’x4’ set up in my garage with two mostly equal forces of two squads each plus a 2^nd Lieutenant+Adjutant, he took a Medium Mortar and I a Medium Machinegun. (I was now playing Soviets, so with their National rule, I also got to play with a 3^rd squad, though it was Inexperienced in quality level). Both our forces were rated Regulars otherwise.

Sadly pictures for this game were not so exciting as I was proxying most of my Soviet force and Densmol’s own Germans were primed black, so only the one picture to just show you the table setup.

Both games were hotly contested and resulted in me winning the first and he the second. I think both were just played as plain old Maximum Attrition mission which is pure versus with no objectives involved or special rules.

Densmol liked the game so much he went and purchased off Ebay some large Fallschirmjager (German Paratroopers) army so now we’re both fully invested. This means, expect some Bolt Action reports posted up in the future – well, once we paint up enough stuff to be able to play a game worth looking at!