Bolt Action at LVO 2017

I made my first foray into the greater Bolt Action community at LVO a few weekends ago. It was rather impressive, to me anyway, to see all the painted armies though I wonder how many people show up to the other big event like Adepticon and Games Day. It was still a fun event with 22 players over all and the armies were nicely done on the whole. I did wind up getting so caught up in the games that I would forget to take pictures so my last game I have no photos of and only managed to get 12 of the 22 armies photographed on display.

The list I brought is as follows

Veteran 1st Lieutenant

Regular Air Observer with additional man

2x 6 man Late war paratrooper squads with 2x LMG each

2x 6 man Late war paratrooper squads with 3x SMG each

  6 man veteran tough fighters squad

regular MMG team

veteran flamethrower team

regular medium howitzer with gun shield and spotter

veteran M24 with recce and pintle mounted HMG

inexperienced LVT-4 with hull mounted MMG

Below is Michael Bird's SS which won best painted

Chris Pearson's Chindit/Gurkha list, I played against this in the last round in a mission called scalps and that was quite a slog. It seemed no matter who was pulling dice from the bag Chris' army was always pulled first and those 2 Lee's were murder

 This was my round 3 opponent Gerard Coffey. He brought regular squads with a bunch of veteran support weapons and a puma that did not make it into this picture.

This army isn't fully set up yet at the time of the picture either but this guy brought 2 Japanese platoons each with a light autocannon, an assault gun, and a horde of bamboo spear fighters

So game 1 was on this nice looking jungle table that actually proved to be quite a challenge to play on as a vast majority of it was rough and several clumps blocked line of sight. I played against Josh Cook on this table and he brought 2 German platoons. The real gimmick was that he brought 2 rocket launchers, the neblwherfer and I believe it was called the howling cow. There was also a halftrack mounted pioneer squad and some paratroops.

Turn 1 his launchers nail a paratrooper squad and so I start to spread my troops out

I try to deal with the launchers by throwing MMG dice from the buffalo at them

Which does manage to take out 1

I managed to immobilize his tank there but it turns out to be a good spot to lay down suppressing fire on the board

At one point an armored car came on and took out my buffalo and the squads inside either failed order tests to activate or whiffed their assault roles

My last ditch effort to move troops into his deployment which was the objective, i wouldn't get enough there to get a draw unfortunately so game 1 was a minor loss.

My poor plane circling, waiting for the call that would never come because the radio was covered in bullet holes and blood.

Game 2 was against a double Italian platoon and his 2 artillery observers kept me pinned most of the game by calling in artillery strikes on 2 consecutive turns

I was able to finally start putting some hurt back on him with airstrikes and my buffalo finally made it to the other end where i dumped guys out to contest 2 objectives but after the game the TO came back and said that one of his rulings was wrong and the way i moved a squad onto the objective to contest was wrong so I admitted defeat and let my opponent have the minor victory instead of the draw.

Game 3 against Gerard and boy that was a hilarious game. The setup was table quarters and I won the roll off and since i had already played on this table I had a slight advantage in knowing the terrain and I had mechanized transport so i chose a quarter with a road that lead to hi quarter of the table.

First thing I did was charge the Chaffee down the road and pop the puma with my 75 and take out the panzershrek team with machine guns. My tank would then spend the rest of the game tearing it up right there in Gerard's deployment zone. Gerard would shoot at it 6 separate times with panzerfausts and only managed to immobilized because of the plethora of 1's to hit or penetrate.

I had 2 airstrikes and Gerard had 1 and every airstrike he and I rolled for rolled 1's. He hit my artillery and buffalo not managing to knock out either and I hit a squad and did some casualties but thats it. Once I got the pins cleared off my buffalo I moved it up to the Chaffee and unloaded it and I had put in all my close combat squads so it was a blood bath. His army was practically wiped and the mission was board control which I had so game 3 was a major victory.

Game 4 was against Gerard's buddy Allen Shmelzel who brought a soviet foot horde which had me worried at first but as it turned out most of his 18 order dice were a bunch of small teams that he held in reserve which made it even easier for me to deal with what he deployed. The mission was objectives d3+2 and we rolled a 1 and I got to place 2 of the objectives so I definitely had an advantage in positioning. Below there's an objective against the wall that I have my Legionaries and a para squad ready to go take with tank support. 

Another objective is behind the tank in the bottom right hand corner as well as one behind the tank in the upper middle of the picture. The green along the bottom isn't the table edge it's my display board on a portion of table that was never used. the squad on the bottom left would wind up assaulting through a soviet SMG squad, a rifle squad, an officer, and would finally meet their end against a light mortar who beat the last 2 survivors of 2 separate squads to death.

Most of the game I just blew away regular infantry with MMG fire, I never got to use my air support as the observer was plastered with a light mortar turn 1

The buffalo would go on to avenge the 2 squads by killing the light mortar using his 1 MMG he could use while empty despite being inexperienced, moving, small team, cover, and some pins. Since Allen brought in so much of his force piecemeal i wiped out something like 16 units out of 18 gaining me a second major victory.

 

As I said, I forgot to photograph my last game but it sucked, the M3 Lee's took out all the stuff that could hurt them and his infantry were tough to kill and hit hard when they charged so he got a bunch of kill points on me and I only got a few on him but I was able to get a minor loss instead of a major loss. I managed to come in 4th overall though and that feels good for my first major event with not a lot of real practice playing 2nd edition.

Konflikt '47 American starter army

My Konflikt '47 starter arrived earlier this week and I gotta say I'm pretty f*****g excited. I spent the entire week and a half camped out by the mail box waiting for the mail man to deliver me my American starter set. Now that it's finally here I thought I would share it with everyone. Without further ado let's get started.

The top of the box, I wish they had a points value like the regular army boxes but this cover art is pretty cool though. Actually all the Konflikt artwork is pretty cool so far.

 Removing the lid, the A4 rule book sits on top of the reference board and all the models are tucked neatly beneath. 

Looks pretty good, got some infantry on the left and the Konflikt stuff on the right. The Tesla turret is wrapped up in the bubble wrap.

Here's the turret for the Tesla Sherman. At first glance everything appears crisp and clean.

But then I noticed these extrusions which in all honesty won't prove a problem.

 Here's the rest of the Sherman, nothing special here just the regular Italeri/Warlord 1/56 Sherman kit

Here we have the Heavy infantry bodies, these had relatively few mold lines and were quite easy to clean up.

Right arms, when pictures were first posted of these by Clockwork and Warlord i thought they were going to be LMGs because they have a .30 cal look to them but instead they're considered assault rifles which is interesting.

Left arms, it would have been interesting to have these sculpted with Fallout esque power fists.

The heads, I didn't realise the neck indentation was going to be so deep on the bodes and that these heads would have such huge necks to make up for it because I want to do head swaps but some green stuff should do the trick. 

Last of the weird units the Coyote scout walker, personally I think it looks kind of dumb but since i own it I'll probably wind up playing it. On the bright side i didn't suffer the common problem people seem to be having where the box has two left arms and two left legs. 

The last thing out of the box are pin markers. I hope these start getting sold separately because they're so damn nifty. 

For scale on the power armor here he is next to a Warlord Chindit and A Red Star French paratrooper. In order to fit with the rest of the forces I have for Bolt Action I will be painting up my Konlfikt stuff for Indochina. Since most of France has been liberated the and the Allies need more manpower in the Pacific, France has raised an American equipped force to go liberate Indochina from the Japanese and to combat local communist uprising backed by the Russians to fight the Allies and the Axis both. 

Back to Indochina

I've owned Warlord's Pacific Theater book for a while and I decided to put it to use, by using the Chinese army list and totally forgetting all the other nifty rules that would have made the game interesting. For this scenario a small force of Vietminh guerrillas has encountered a platoon of paratroopers who are waiting for a column of reinforcements to arrive and extract them. The guerrilla cell has requested assistance from a local force of Giap's regulars.

The militia platoon on the right consisted a 2nd Lieutenant with an extra man regular, a scout team with SMG's veteran, 3 squads of 8 guerrillas with 3 SMGs each inexperienced, a light mortar regular, and a bazooka regular.

The reinforcement platoon on the left consisted of a 1st Lieutenant with 2 extra men one with flag veteran, a 3 man scout team with SMGs veteran, a 10 man X and Y force squad with 2 SMGs and an LMG veteran, 3 rifle squads each with 8 men with 1 SMG and 1 LMG regular, and for support they have a light mortar, bazooka, MMG, and a 75mm recoilless rifle all regular

The French para's who would be holding off the horde has a 1st Lieutenant with an extra man, a medic, 4 squads of 10 paratroops with SMGs and an LMG, a light mortar, and a 75mm recoilless rifle with the entire platoon being veteran. Their relief force is a 1st Lieutenant with an extra man in a bren carrier, a 5 man engineer squad with flamethrower and 2 SMGs in a bren carrier, and 2 squads of 10 "marines" with 2 SMGs and a BAR in a halftrack. Everything is regular.

The French Paras set up in the middle of the table with the guerrillas deploying just outside the outskirts of the village hidden in the jungle in hidden setup.

French infantry keep watch over the jungle, they know something HAS to be out there.

A squad of Para's moves out into the jungle and into contact with the VM scout units

Hearing their comrades being engaged a guerrilla squad launches an assault to try and relieve the pressure  

The guerrillas are killed to a man but at a costly toll for the French squad

The scout units attempt to fight their way out with fists and butt strokes from their weapons 

The guerrilla leader was coming to render assistance

but decided to assault the remainder of the squad in the longhouse

and the French platoon commander

Even with him holding such a precarious position reinforcements are moving up behind him

With plenty of light indirect weapons to cover the assault

Killing medics is against the Geneva convention, butt he guerrilla leader didn't sign the Geneva convention, or even really know what the Geneva convention is. Fortunately for the medic he has no compunctions with killing a man and proceeds to do so accordingly.

The VM wave has started to hit the French positions

The French launch a hasty counter attack and buy some respite

but a second wave hits

By this time the French platoon has suffered over 50% casualties, the survivors regroup by the rice paddies as the sound of engines has started to be heard 

The relief force is making a mad dash to try and extract the stranded platoon

While the main force was engaging the paratroopers several AT teams moved to the most likely avenue of appraoach

The last VM squads are moving in for the kill

The VM make a dash for the house killing several Paras with their sporadic fire on their way

The house won't protect them from the retribution brought by the survivors

French engineers slowly work their way up the road eliminating the AT threats

Having lost almost his entire platoon the VM Lieutenant launches into a charge with his two men in a last ditch effort to take all the paratroopers with him

While several do go down five men from the platoon manage to fall back to the relief column as the VM artillery falls on the village behind them