Bolt Action East Front Winter 1944

 This weekend saw the wife and I make our way to Vacaville where I met up with my friend Densmol at Forgotten Path Games for a rare face-to-face game of Bolt Action whilst our wives went off and did "wife stuff". 

I brought my Winter mat and terrain (Though stupidly forgot half of it so the table looked a little bare!) and both fully painted forces for the game, Densmol playing the desperate Germans and I the invading Soviets. 

We played "The Ivans are coming" scenario from the Road to Berlin campaign book which was fun - my Soviets defending a road crossing and Densmol's Germans trying to wrest control from the commies. All went well with some rules look-ups due to neither of us having played for almost 2 years (!!!) aside from completely forgetting to apply the effects of "Snow" the whole game through. (Insert eyeroll here)

Whilst I won't be attempting to put in a turn-by-turn account, here are some photo's of the game. The mdf fencing terrain is brand new and got it's first run out that day; it looked great and I already have a second set ready to assemble and paint/weather on the hobby setup.

The German Officer and a Squad of Grenadiers approach the crossing cautiously out of the village outskirts.

Hetzer tank killer in the distance, killed a tank...

... which in this instance happens to be my Soviet T34/85.

Then it went on to kill my poor wee BA64 Armoured car. 

First casualty of the game was Densmol's officer and Adjutant. The T34/85 gunned them down mercilessly.

Here's a late game image showing the Soviets swarming the objective. At this point, the Germans only had a handful of fanatical SS troops alive and the Hetzer. Not enough to hold back the Commie tide.

Earlier in the game. I have bases to prep for the tree's and about 20 coniferous trees to go in them too. That table was very bare.

Soviet reinforcements to come on in the foreground. Germans toward the back of the table.

A Guards squad hunkers down behind these woods, waiting for the optimal moment to dash up and add their fire support.

On the left a second Guards squad patiently wait behind a copse of trees whilst a small SMG-toting squad of inexperienced troops are forced to leap from their burning transport after a very unliekly shot from the German Panzerschreck team blows it up!

The late game mad-dash.

That GAZ jeep (on fire) had the Soviet Flamethrower team mounted up inside. Flambe'd flamethrower! Is what they get for missing twice in a row earlier ingame. 

The Hetzer was Densmol's MVP. It blew up 3 out of my 4 vehicles and put pins on my ZIS-3 artillery gun. 

The GAZ jeep right after the Hetzer shot it with yet another amazing dice roll by Densmol. Guards squad looks on horrified.

Hard to make out, but in the top left corner of this pic is an anti-tank-rifle team that took a rather improbable shot at the above German Half-track and blew it up, killing the German Flame Thrower team inside and causing a Volksgrenadier squad that was also the passenger to hop out!

Earlier in the game, German Panzerschreck team, SS Vet's and a Medic team carefully make their way to the objective.

And that's it. Was great to play my first game in a long time and against Densmol too who I hadn't seen for a game in yonks. Playing again has gotten me motivated to get a second set of fences put together and also paint minis! 

Thanks for getting to the end of this post!

- Dai