I went to the Bugeater Bolt Action tournament in Omaha earlier this month and had a great time meeting the local players and gaming the weekend away. One of the first things I noticed upon approaching the Bolt Action area of the room was how nice the tables were. I think a huge portion of Bolt Action/wargaming in general is the terrain you play on. Several people expressed interest in Bolt Action after seeing it played on these really nice tables.
The table I really wanted to play on at least once and never got too. The destroyed Panzer IV was not part of the terrain for this table but for that of the one behind it that was being set up when this picture was taken.
Game 3 Table. Its hard to see from my pictures but hills were placed on the table first than the cloth was draped over giving it a more fluid feel. This was my favorite table to play on.
Game 5 table.
Game 2 table.
Game 1 table. As you will see a little later a road was added running from the bottom right corner to the top left corner bisecting the table.
Game 4 table. What ever they used to make this table absolutely sucked to roll dice on.
Now I'll move on to the armies. The event required fully painted and based miniatures so all the armies were quite well done and impressive.
My army, a French platoon for Indochina using the British book to build the list
National trait - Vengeance
Regular 2nd Lt - 50pts
Regular Artillery observer - Free
Paratroops, 5 men with SMGs - 85
Paratroops, 5 men with SMGs - 85
Regular mid/late war squad, 1 SMG, 1 LMG, 4 rifles - 83
Regular mid/late war squad, 1 LMG, 5 rifles - 80
Regular mid/late war squad, 1 LMG, 5 rifles - 80
Regular medium mortar with spotter - 60
Regular sniper team - 50
Regular M8 Greyhound with pintle HMG - 135
Regular M24 Chaffee - 150
Regular Bren carrier with extra LMG - 70
Regular Bren carrier with extra LMG - 70
13 order dice, 998 points total
My friend who accompanied me. He told me he would only come if I painted his army for him so paint it I did.
This was probably my favorite army that wasn't my own. The TO allowed the use of the Australian supplement that WWPD put out a while back and the board and miniatures were just amazing.
My round 1 opponent Mike Haydon who prior to this event had never played against another person. I would win this game but he knew his rules and was able to put up a good fight for it.
Regular 2nd Lt with adjutant - 60
Regular IJA squad, 1 SMG, 1 LMG, 13 rifles - 173
Regular IJA squad, 1 SMG, 1 LMG, 13 rifles - 173
Bamboo squad, 15 sticks - 75
Bamboo squad, 15 sticks - 75
Veteran IJN scout team, 3 SMG - 54
Veteran IJN scout team, 2 SMG, rifle - 51
Regular Anti-tank rifle - 30
Regular Anti-tank rifle - 30
Regular medium mortar with spotter - 60
Regular sniper team - 50
Regular sniper team - 50
Regular suicide AT - 20
Regular suicide AT - 20
Regular suicide AT - 20
Inexperienced suicide AT - 14
Regular Type 98 20mm AA gun - 45
17 order dice, total 1000pts
My round 5 opponent Patrick Moling of the SNAFU podcast.
National Trait - Up and at 'em
Veteran 1st Lt with adjutant - 103
Regular Artillery observer with adjutant - 10
Paratroops, 4 SMG, 1 LMG. 5 rifles - 172
Paratroops, 3 SMG, 1 LMG, 6 rifles - 169
Paratroops, 1 SMG, 9 rifles, AT grenades - 163
Veteran medium mortar with spotter - 75
Veteran medium mortar with spotter - 75
Veteran PIAT team - 52
Veteran light howitzer with spotter - 76
Veteran recce jeep - 52
Veteran recce jeep - 52
11 order dice, total 999pts
My round 3 opponent Dan Buman with his excellently themed army.
Regular 2nd Lieutenant - 60
Regular Infantry squad, 1 BAR, 7 rifles - 105
Regular Infantry squad, 1 BAR, 7 rifles - 105
Regular Engineers, 2 SMG, 2 BAR, flamethrower, 3 rifles - 116
Veteran Infantry squad, 2 BAR, 8 rifles - 150
Regular medium mortar with spotter - 60
Regular Bazooka team - 60
Regular Bazooka team - 60
Regular Sniper team with 1 SMG - 54
Regular Medium howitzer with spotter - 85
Regular M3 Half track - 99
Regular 3/4 ton truck with MMG - 46
12 order dice, 1000pts total
My game 1 against Mike, the mission was objectives of which there were 6. Once you claim an objective it's yours til someone else claims it so you don't have to keep guys on it all game. He left his big squads in reserve and I deployed my whole force. I used my armored car to control the road while the tank and a bren carrier pushed up my left flank. The second bren carrier became a machine gun bunker on the right to help bolster the week side. The game started off with me laying down casualties and pins but as the game progressed and I moved up to take some of his objectives his reinforcements came in and Banzai started to help bring the game back in his favor a bit. He wound up taking my right flank but my tank was able to hold some of his stuff so he only took one of the objectives I previously claimed while I took 2 of his. The objectives were worth 3 points each and each unit was worth a 1/2 point and he was able to kill several of my units and claim 2 objectives. I would win by holding 4 objectives and killing a ton of his stuff but he kept me from scoring the full 20 points possible for the game with his impressive comeback.
Round 2 against Tim Lonas who brought the list as follows.
Regular Juniro LT - 60
Regular LMG squad, 1 LMG, 8 rifles - 83
Regular LMG squad, 1 LMG, 8 rifles - 83
Regular LMG squad, 1 LMG, 8 rifles - 83
Inexperienced rifle squad, 12 rifles - FREE
Regular MMG - 55
Regular Mortar with spotter - 60
Veteran sniper team - 65
Regular tank hunter squad, 4 rifles - 61
Regular tank hunter squad, 4 rifles - 61
Inexperienced BA-10 - 96
Regular T-34/85 - 235
Regular truck with MMG - 54
13 order dice, 996pts total
This mission was attacker/defender with the defender holding 3 objectives and the attacker gets a preparatory bombardment. With his tank sitting on my left I pushed my armored force up the right side and claimed that objective early on. My artillery observer would wind up being the MVP who suppressed a bunch of stuff with artillery than made an epic run across the battlefield to claim the middle objective while vicious fighting occurred all game on my right flank.
Game 3 with Dan, my favorite game, opponent, and table of the tournament. This game I remember rather well so hopefully I can give more detail about it. The mission was to get units to your opponents deployment and keep his units out of yours.
My artillery would roll a 6 to hit both the medium howitzer and the infantry squad in my opponents deployment zone eliminating the infantry and allowing the howitzer to be finished off easily later.
I split my armored force in two agian and had the armored car and a carrier push his deployment zone but he would bring in his engineers and torch the squad later. I thought he would use the truck to move at break neck speeds into my deployment zone to wreak havoc which is probably what he should have done because between the armored car and the bren carrier with artillery observer inside was able to kill the engineers than dismount the observer again and run close to his truck in the last turn to kill it because it was empty making my observer the MVP again.
He sent the vets to try and take my deployment zone which may have worked if he had used the other squad to support them. Instead I made my squad in the building a target to draw fire and they just kept going down. My tank would later kill that regular squad and the half track while my mortar, bren carrier turned bunker, and dug in infantry squad whittled the vets to nothing without ever setting foot in my deployment.
Day 2, game 4 against Paul Stewart's Russians. The mission was simple, capture the objective in the center. He could deploy 1 infantry squad and 1 other unit of his choice so long as it was damage 7+ or less as well as his snipers, spotters, and observers. I could deploy all my infantry so long as they were 18 inches away from his units and the objective as well as 6 inches from his edge. I lost my copy of his list but he had the obligatory Lt, 2 MMg squads, 2 tough fighter vet squads, the free squad, a flamethrower, medium mortar, heavy howitzer, gaz AA truck and a bunch of transports.
This game was my only loss. Every turn his dice came up predominantly even though we were about equal, he had me by 2 I think. This table also sucked to roll dice on. Below is a picture of the 20 shots fired by the gaz and not a single one was a hit so it wasn't just my dice that had bad moments.
My last game against against Patrick Moling of the SNAFU podcast. This mission was maximum attrition with an odd L shaped deployment. This is where it kind of sucked bringing a bunch of smallish units of regulars because it does not take much to wipe them out. First turn went well, my sniper and greyhound wiped out both his mortars and my medium mortar hit the light howitzer.
Just about everything was rough ground but the roads which I was able to own most of the game. Unfortunately be for my mortar hit the howitzer the howitzer immobilized my Chaffee and jammed it's turret.
My artillery strike scattered back onto myself and pinned a bunch of stuff and killed most of a paratroop squad. I rallied the pins off only to have his artillery come in and re-pin my stuff as well as killing my Chaffee. I had moved a carrier away from the point the artillery was called on but unfortunately it moved me within 12 inches of a paratroop section I had been pinning down pretty well but they auto pass checks to charge. That squad would kill one of my paratroop squads and carrier while his outflanked paratroop squad would kill some stuff with his officer. With some really lucky dice I was able to come back but wound up being 1 point away from a major victory. It was a fun game and I rolled a lot of lucky 6's to hit things but I also rolled a lot of unlucky 6's and FUBARed at least 5 times but a couple of those saved me when squads ran away out of assault range.
It was a great tournament and I plan on going back next year. The carriers and armor combo really did work as well as my artillery observer. I wish I had taken more pictures but it's really easy to get caught up in the games. Maybe I'll buy a video camera and start video recording my games instead.
In the meantime I've got a new army to build and test, my goal is to really capitalize on mobility and small unit tactics. My list has something like 30+ machine guns of various types spread over 17 order dice to spread the pins around and get me where I need to go.
