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.
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| The German Officer and a Squad of Grenadiers approach the crossing cautiously out of the village outskirts. |
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| Hetzer tank killer in the distance, killed a tank... |
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| ... which in this instance happens to be my Soviet T34/85. |
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| Then it went on to kill my poor wee BA64 Armoured car. |
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| First casualty of the game was Densmol's officer and Adjutant. The T34/85 gunned them down mercilessly. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| Soviet reinforcements to come on in the foreground. Germans toward the back of the table. |
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| A Guards squad hunkers down behind these woods, waiting for the optimal moment to dash up and add their fire support. |
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| 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! |
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| The late game mad-dash. |
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| 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. |
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| The Hetzer was Densmol's MVP. It blew up 3 out of my 4 vehicles and put pins on my ZIS-3 artillery gun. |
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| The GAZ jeep right after the Hetzer shot it with yet another amazing dice roll by Densmol. Guards squad looks on horrified. |
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| 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! |
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| 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
