Pub Brawl!

More Bolt Action, where a bunker that I recently completed has seen the elephant.

On Sunday we had another WW2 Burma theatre game featuring Matt's British and my Japanese.  This wasn't held at our usual venue, but this time we had it at a British-style pub near Shibuya here in Tokyo.  The owner, Paul, had been a wargamer himself at one time, and kindly gave us the run of the place during the day, subject to us buying lunch there and downing a pint or two.  Twist my rubber arm...

There were two Bolt Action games in play, as well as a number of boardgames.  And having the author of Bolt Action, Alessio Cavatore, in attendance as well was a nice treat for all.  Not to mention being the ideal person to go to should we have any rule queries! 

Alessio had been staying with a mutual friend; my neighbour and the Grand Poo-Bah of the West Tokyo Wargamers, Giovanni. 

Alessio and Giovanni: La Bande Nere, a.k.a. The Torino Mafia of Gaming

So there was lots of wine, beer and gaming talk throughout the whole weekend for us, which was really fun.

Having the game at a pub had its merits from the beer and food point of view, with the best fish 'n chips I have had in many a year- certainly the best I have had in Tokyo.  A piece of succulent cod the size of my forearm.  

On the other hand, space was a little tight for setting up tables, and the lighting could have been a lot better. This was especially a nuisance as the sun started going down.

Not a huge problem, but it didn't make for taking very good photos, so I had to play a lot with iPhoto just to make them barely presentable.

Aquarium plant producers are probably scratching their heads at a totally inexplicable spike in sales.

It was a really narrow table, liberally covered with jungle, although we had a lot more we could have added had we a larger table.  Alessio remarked that it was one of the more heavily-terrained tables he had seen for its size in a Bolt Action game.  All that vegetation certainly made for a flavourful game.

Lots of greenery and meandering paths through the brush meant plenty of scope for infiltration, cautious advances, short-range gunfire and sudden ambushes- which was just our image of what jungle fighting should be like!  

In fact, at one point Matt's A/T rifle squad fell victim to my sniper team, largely because Matt hadn't noticed it in all that underbrush!

 

The game also featured my latest terrain piece, a large bunker.  The basic shape of the bunker was made from foam board, wooden doweling and papier-mâché.  I then coated it with layers of a sand and PVA mix to build up the earth banking.  

 

The top is removable, and I made it so that it will hold about five or six miniatures.  The sandbags lining the top of the weapons pit were made from epoxy putty. 

Other additions to my force included a Chi-Ha.  I had airbrushed on the undercoat, but I hadn't been able to get around to adding the tricky camouflage. Still, it was painted after a fashion.  

I could have brought a Ha-Go light tank, which is closer to completion, but I really wanted the (relatively!) heavier gun of the Chi-Ha.

We rolled for the demolition scenario, where each side had to try to take out the opponent's command HQ.  We had set our respective HQ's on the opposite diagonal corners of the table, mine in my bunker and Matt in a thatched village hut.  

A fordable river crossed the centre, and the rest was jungle with winding paths through it.  

Alessio commented that this is a tough scenario for either side to win, usually ending in a draw.  That proved to be the case this time round as well, but it was close!  we were both using the flank march rule, and as it turned out the British almost scored a coup as a result. 
 

 

The sport begins and Matt moves his troops, the illustrious King's Own Academicals.  A rare picture sans his trademark flat cap, which we had to press into service as a dice bag. Good on 'ya for "taking one for the team" there, Matt.

A ground-level view of my bunker looming menacingly out of the jungle.  You can almost smell the jungle-rot.  Although it must be said that all our club members do, indeed, bathe...

The Chi-Ha was eventually knocked out by a flame-thrower after trading shots with a nimble Daimler, which dashed in and out of trouble taking good advantage of the recce rule.  The Chi-Ha had managed to collect pins like they were hockey cards, but it succeeded in holding the road crossing over the river.

 

When incoming artillery was imminent, I moved my mortar out of the bunker, but artillery and mortar fire on both sides was pretty pathetic that day.

Note giant venus-flytrap-like plants, more at home in a John Carter novel.

"畜生!!"

Flank attack!  My tankette had been immobilized by A/T fire from somewhere, and by this stage of the game was no more than thinly-plated pillbox.  You can imagine my chagrin when, and at the beginning of the penultimate turn of play, Matt rolled for a successful appearance of his dreaded Grant- and as luck would have it, it emerged smack between my defensive line of Japanese infantry and the bunker itself.  

Completely impervious to whatever fire I was able to throw at it, the jungle-green, heavily-armed behemoth merrily dispatched the tankette.  It then proceeded to rake one of my infantry sections with all guns blazing, depleting our ranks dreadfully. 

Matt then had the good fortune to draw the next order dice, and promptly sent one of his own sections of infantry racing out of cover towards my bunker (now empty of troops, as I had had to commit the garrison elsewhere).  It looked like being all over for the Japanese.   

Only one thing left to do...

BANZAI!!

Out of time and options, and with the help of Alessio who walked us through the complexities, I was successfully able to mount a charge against the British troops in the rear, wiping out the platoon and saving the bunker. Being fanatics they were able to shrug off their pin markers and throw themselves at the hated round-eyes.

Next turn they of course paid the ultimate price for their devotion to the Emperor, but only after they had tried close-assaulting the Grant.  These guys were rabid!

Having the Grant perched so close to the bunker was of no avail to Matt, as only infantry could take it out, and his nearest infantry was more than a move away.  So--- the game ended a draw!!  One huge sigh of relief from the Japanese player.  

Loads of fun;  I'm really starting to enjoy playing with my Japanese army.  I'm learning that with the Japanese in Bolt Action, a really aggressive game play pays dividends.  

A visit to the Warlord Games store here last month saw me acquire some more goodies that I can use to smite Matt the next time we face each other in the steamy jungles of Burma.

But our next get together on November 16th is a return to Napoleonics.  One possibility is an all-cavalry action, or possibly a naval landing- if I can get a Martello tower done in time, which is doubtful.  We haven't played a Napoleonics game for some time now, and are itching to get back into it.  

Also on the horizon for early next year is some Wars of the Roses skirmish action, using the Osprey Lion Rampant rules. And Giovanni is anxious for us to try a Darkest Africa game, where I might run an expeditionary force using my long-in-the-tooth collection of Foundry Indian Mutiny miniatures.

Unfortunately, our gaming opportunities haven't been keeping pace with our aspirations!  Hope springs eternal, though.

Gaming, Boozing, and Wounding.

Time for a post, just to keep up to date with things.

First of all, despite originally not having any game scheduled in October due to a lack of room availability at our local community centre, we now find ourselves with a coming up next Sunday after all.  

Giovanni and Brian were able to arrange a game at a British-style pub in Shimo-Kitazawa here in Tokyo.   Paul, the owner who has himself done some gaming in the past, has kindly agreed to let us put on some games there next Sunday, just so long as we have lunch and enjoy a few beers there while we game.  Twist my rubber arm.

It will be Bolt Action again, largely as there may not be a lot of table space and Bolt Action doesn't need much space with all the terrain on the board.

Banzai!!

Matt and I will be facing off one another again, and I'll be taking along Giovanni's former work colleague and friend Alessio Cavatore for the game as well.  Some of you may already know that Alessio is the author of Bolt Action, so there will be no creative interpretations of the rules this time!

I have been doing a lot of web browsing on Bolt Action recently, and I have to say that while I really enjoy the rules, I have absolutely no interest in the tournament aspect of gaming that seem to draw a lot of adherents.  Each to their own, and I don't mind reading about how other people are enjoying their games.  But we have our own way we like to play, and the focus on creating lists to strictly-enforced criteria just doesn't do it for us.

Certainly point systems have their uses, but mostly for getting a general balance subject to scenario conditions.  Neither Matt nor myself get hung up on them and would prefer to paint and game rather than number-crunch lists without much regard to how units were actually organized.  That does not mean we are puritanical Grognards about the history, but we have our own comfort zone regarding what can and should be done in a game, and we stick to it.

For example, I am willing to stretch history by using vehicles such as the Chi-Nu, a Japanese medium tank which really didn't see any combat as they were all held back to defend the home islands from invasion.  It comes close to matching the Sherman at best, and it looks cool.  A plausible "what if".

But having Japanese infantry run around in Kurugane staff cars along the front lines and having some dude jump out with a flame thrower as some players apparently choose to do it, is way too "gamey" for me.  Just because something is possible under the rules doesn't mean it should be done, and this one is way beyond the pale as far as I'm concerned.  Sounds more like the Viet Cong with their RPG's and taxis at Tet, rather than the Imperial Japanese Army.

Likewise Matt and I use LMG's such as Bren guns in our sections regardless of their effectiveness under the rules, for the simple reason that historically many nations built their squads around them, and organizing our miniatures squads the same way simply seems the right way to go if you are gaming WW2.  Whether they are "good value for points" is irrelevant to us, and anyway we have been finding them useful enough.

I find that how historical- or otherwise- a wargame can be most often has a lot more to do with the mindset and attitude of the players rather than the rules themselves, be they Bolt Action or Black Powder.  In fact, I still think the original version of the Flames of War rules made for a very satisfying game, and are still well worth playing despite subsequent "improved" versions coming along.  Microsoft Windows has certainly had its effect on people's mindsets, it seems.

So over all, it has been an eventful few weeks.  We have been needing bunkers for our WW2 games, so while making this...

 

...and this...

I managed to do this (avert your eyes if you are the wimpy and squeamish type):


 Ouch.

Emergency visits to the hospital and blood spraying over the walls and floor like champagne at a Superbowl victory celebration does not endear the hobby to your significant other.  

Trust me.

The Sentinel of Cap Guano

Just a quickie post from my iPad. 

I've been in terrain-building mode over the past month, churning out bunkers and jungle vegetation for our Bolt Action games.  But I've also been working on this; a harbour defense gun tower.

This was intended to be a tutorial/ commission job for Giovanni, who originally just wanted a terrain piece to feature a plastic Italeri farm house.  Well, as we discussed it the concept grew from the original one of a fortified farmhouse, into something much more imposing! 

The baseboard is a sheet of MDF and foamboard.  I took a round cardboard gift box and added a tower and stairs from foam offcuts and wooden craft blocks.  The gun is a 24pdr naval cannon from Brigade Games.

The plastic building will be placed in the courtyard to house the garrison, so the finished model should be quite compact.  It will be finished in a warm, buff-yellow stonework suitable for the Med.

Which means Spain, inspiration, and a return to Napoleonics!  Giovanni and I have boats, Matt has Royal Marines and some Jack Tars, so in November we will be putting on a game where the entrepreneurial British descend on the Spanish coast to spike the guns and to see what other merchandise and prizes may be within their reach.

Time to re-read Hornblower and The Aubrey/ Maturin books for scenario ideas.  We'll need a wharf too.

With Enemies like This...

Who needs friends!

Gaming day was this past Sunday, and our Napoleonic miniatures sat pouting on the sidelines like jilted teens at a high school prom, as instead we had my third, and Matt's second, game of Bolt Action.   

We diced for one of the scenarios in the book, and this turned out to be Hold until Relieved. As I had a smaller force than Matt, we agreed that I would be defender.   

It was to be the stuff that legends are made of. Here is an excerpt from the King's Own Academicals' Regimental History. (Thanks, Matt!)

"Early in September 1944, the 1st Battalion was thrown deep into the Kabaw Valley as the pursuit of the Japanese stalled temporarily (?!? -Ed.) at a defensive line of bunkers, thinly manned by some sickly, but fanatical rear guard troops. (Ha! -Ed.)

On the 8th of September a general attack was launched by the 1st battalion of the Academics on six of these bunkers. A company was ordered to attack two bunkers nicknamed Annie and Angus, B company was ordered to capture Bernie and Brutus, while C company was given the targets nicknamed Clarabel and Chummy.

While a success overall, (Ha, again! -Ed.) the battle was to become famous in the 14th army and Academical folklore for the events surrounding the battle around Angus Bunker."

Not 100% finished, but hopefully they will be the next time we play. Ragged soldiers, but bright bayonets.

The rest, as they say, is history. What follows is the version without the Imperial whitewashing by the British official historians. A ripping good yarn indeed.   

The unit activation mechanic of Bolt Action means that the game moves very quickly. One of the unforeseen consequences of this was that I frequently forgot to take pictures of the action as it unfolded, so that this report doesn't have as many pictures as do most of my posts on our Napoleonic games.    

I had placed an MMG in the bunker, supported by a squad of infantry with another squad and various support teams coming on in subsequent turns. 

The British were tasked with turfing the Japanese out and destroying the bunker, the Japanese with making sure they didn't. The river was fordable all along its length, but with the onset of monsoon season in the highlands the river would soon become a raging torrent making it much more difficult for the British to eliminate the Japanese position. So time was of the essence (six turns in fact). 

The British horde:

A jungle-green tsunami...

I had recently painted up a Grant tank for Matt, and on top of that he had just finished working on his new Daimler armoured car. So it was evident that my pathetic, under-armed and under-armoured Type 94 Tankette- whilst being well-painted and undeniably as cute as a button- would be outclassed to an exponential degree in this game. 

In fact, other than some anti-tank grenades and lots of Seishin (a.k.a. "I-do-believe-in-fairies!"), I had pretty much sweet Fanny Adams' worth of anti-tank capability, especially as I wasn't able to find the time before the game to finish my recently acquired Japanese anti-tank team.   

Matt had sent his own ATR team forward to flank the tankette. I had the recce rule, but instead of fleeing decided to brave the shot. He hit it with a a pin, but failed to cause any significant damage beyond having loosened my bowels a bit. His ATR team was subsequently shot to pieces by a squad of my infantry for their impertinence, which was satisfying. 

A Lee-Grant Looms Large. I had painted this for Matt at the expense of time available to work on my Japanese, but the fates were to reward me for my sacrifice.

But at the next draw of the dice, a jungle-green monster appeared menacingly on the road directly ahead of the tankette. Having had placed his infantry to cover the river, Matt ordered the Grant on the table for the first time, providing cover for a following section of infantry tasked with taking out the bunker. 

With the range to reach out and do me some potentially fatal GBH with both its turret and hull mounted guns, discretion was the better part of valour.   

Thank the Gods, I had elected to go with the recce rule; the tankette almost tore its gearbox out while roaring into reverse, and ended up parking itself behind a thick piece of jungle. There it was to remain for much the rest of the game, the crew suffering from terror and diarrhoea while all the time refusing to pass their order rolls.  

And who could blame them, when in a vehicle with all the shell-stopping protection of a sheet of kitchen foil?

Like bringing a plastic spoon to a machete fight.

After the first few turns, things were not looking good for the Japanese. My mortar spotter had been gunned down by the Daimler; we had come out the worst in some sporadic, yet inconclusive and wasteful, firefights. Finally we were just horribly outgunned, with nothing to counter the tank apart from just making nasty faces at it. 

I considered sending a squad of my infantry across the river to attack it in flank; but there were still lots of order dice to be drawn in the turn (most of them Matt's), and it was clear that once my men splashed into the water, they would have been shot to pieces by the British squads lying in ambush along the opposite bank. Aside from having a Vickers MMG in support, the British had the special rule for being good shots. I'd faced them before and knew how devastating Lee-Enfield fire could be. 

In the event, I was able to count on an unexpected ally in the shape of the Royal Artillery. The scenario gave Matt two opportunities to call in off-board artillery. He had held off on the first turn, and called for it on the second, targeting the bunker itself. 

Unfortunately for him, there must have been some kind of administrative snafu at HQ, so the barrage ended up being delayed by not just one, but two turns while all the time his troops worked their way closer to the bunker. When the order did go through, the barrage landed right on top of the bunker. 

However, it would also take in everything within an 11" radius around it. This resulted in the rounds coming down and plastering not only the bunker and any Japanese in the vicinity, but also Matt's tank- along with his infantry squad advancing right behind it. Pins and hits galore; the tank was knocked out and the battered squad came out with four pins, with the survivors hunkered down in fetal position while their ears bled.

Closer...

...and closer...

BOOM! An almighty eruption of tissue paper (we forgot to bring the kapok).

In contrast I got off lightly, with the "woodpecker" in the bunker only receiving one pin- which it later shrugged off. A nearby sniper team copped three pins, but as there was nothing in their neck of the woods they could shoot at that didn't have several inches of armour plate protecting it, this was no big deal. 

I must confess to not being overly demure and restrained at the moment of victory; I was bloody ecstatic. Matt, for his part, learned the hard way not to get too close to incoming of any side. He took it- and my gloating- as a gentleman and sportsman should, hey, what? 

In one fell swoop, this effectively tore the guts out of the British attack, as without a honking great HE gun at their disposal, the bunker was to prove well-nigh impossible to take out, given that there were only a few turns remaining.

Empty space showing area of mutual annihilation.

There was some further action along the river, where as I mentioned my infantry had taken plenty of hits. In desperation, one of my depleted squads fearlessly banzai'd a squad of British infantry as they got close, and destroyed it. My men paid the price as the few survivors were then mowed down by fire from the British units on the other side of the river, but in doing so they delayed the British attack on that flank back by a precious few turns. Eggs, omelettes and all that. 

In the twilight moments of the battle, the British managed to flank the Japanese command group and massacre it to a man, but too little too late, and anyway there are plenty more officers to be had off the Ichigaya assembly line. 

Time was soon up, and with the river rising the British would have to pull back. This left the Japanese in possession of a thorn in the side of the British advance, and able to consolidate and strengthen the salient, while conversely the British would have to commit more resources into assaulting it sometime in the future, with the prospect of heavy casualties against a well-entrenched enemy position.  

Ah, the sweet smell of success. A glorious victory for my Japanese, due very much to the spectacular "own goal" by the British artillery (clearly Indian or Glaswegian gunners with fifth columnists in the ranks). You'd have to ask Matt for details about the great "Rangoon Rumble", an almighty brawl between the RA and the Kings' Academicals that took place after the war.

We both really enjoyed the game and the scenario. In the three games of Bolt Action we've played so far, it has been one Japanese defeat, a draw against the US Airborne, and now a Japanese win. I'm doing a lot better with these guys than I usually do with my Napoleonic French.

The mechanics are simple and there are no reams of charts to look up, so we can concentrate on the tabletop tactics rather than the rules. And we are really liking the order dice system; it makes for interesting decision-making and maintains the tension. Things can change fast, and Fortune is always a fickle mistress.

In fact, we are wondering if we can adopt something similar for our Black Powder games.

NB- To be fair, Matt has informed me that while his tank was well and fairly toast, since the game he checked again and found out that if anything the damage was underestimated. Aside from probably wiping out all his infantry rather than just pinning them, the MMG in the bunker should have been sent to Nirvana as well.

Chalk it all up to experience- oh, and pass me another shot of celebratory sake. 

 *****  

Finally, I would like to remind everyone that La Bricole- our small but ever-so-friendly Napoleonic wargaming forum- is up and running again after yet another cycle of migration (and neglect- I kept failing my morale rolls for some time after the damage it did, and the migration couldn't have come at a worse time given all the stuff I had going on in my life at the time).  

We'd like to make it more than just a Napoleonic forum, and widen the scope to anything that falls within the Horse-and-Musket period (with a little corner of the forum for other projects as well!)

Here is the address; please update your bookmarks if you haven't done so already! 

 http://bricole.forumer.com/

From Bautzen and Barossa to... Burma?

It took a long time for me to decide whether to post this here or not.  It is definitely not Napoleonic-related, but doesn't really fit in with any of my other blogs- and I am not going to bother making a new one for me to ignore! So I crave the indulgence of all you Grognards out there as I now set the clock 130 years forward, from 1814 to 1944. 

But it does explain why things have been quiet on this blog recently! 

I confess to having been (somewhat surreptitiously) working on a 28mm Imperial Japanese Army for some time now.  

It's something I've always wanted to do, having played with the plastic 1/32 Airfix figures as a kid, and the increasing number of excellent 28mm miniatures and choice of vehicles for the period eventually pushed me into it.  

My Japanese infantry will represent the 4th (Sendai) Regiment of the 2nd Division, IJA. They served from China, Guam, and then on to the Solomons where they were part of the Aoba Detachment.  This force played a big part in the Guadalcanal battles which pretty much gutted the regiment, although it went on later to serve in Burma and to garrison Singapore.    

It was also the regiment my late Father-in-Law served in during the war, so I thought it would be a good choice- not that the uniform would be that different from any other infantry regiment at the time! 

It didn't take a lot of work to twist Matt's (rubber) arm into doing some British for the Burma theatre, so in due course Matt and I played our first Bolt Action game yesterday at the monthly meeting of the West Tokyo Wargamers this past Sunday.  And it was a lot of fun!   

We had long been anxious to give the rules a go.  I had some figures finished and ready for gaming with, but decided I couldn't wait to get them all painted before playing a game (and gaming is always an incentive to paint more!).  I didn't want to use unpainted figures on the table, so I decided to make do with those figures in my collection that were at least 80% finished, which turned out being enough for me to organize a game.  

Matt, on the other hand, has always been a prolific painter and his squads were all ready- right down to having their individual names painted on the bases (the squad of nineteenth-century pugilists were to do particularly well!).

First impressions are very positive.  The game moved quickly, despite us being totally unfamiliar with the rules, and it had just the kind of "Commando Comics" feel to it that we were looking for.

I grew up in Canada where I never saw them in any bookstore, but I first came across the Commando comic books when I bought my first ones on a trip to Bovington Tank Museum way back during a visit to the "Auld Countrie" in 1973.  I remember having devoured them all on the trip back to Brighton.  My grandparents took due notice, and would regularly send us bundles of these small comic books. Must have had about fifty during the years.

 

IIRC, "politically-correct" they most certainly weren't by the standards of today.  But I read each one cover to cover until they fell apart!  

Now as history, I find the Pacific War pretty dark reading (as can be most wars, but even more so in this case as it was just so brutal).  As a game I therefore want to keep things light.  So I look to Commando, Valiant and Warlord comics- not to mention Hollywood- as my muses for this period.

For the game I set up a simple scenario, set somewhere in Burma, 1944. I had two squads of IJA infantry and command, a heavy mortar and sniper team.  In addition I had a MG-armed Type-94 tankette, which I also refer to as the "Two-Man Mobile Crematorium (Tracked)".  This was a resin model I picked up from Kazu's Warlord Games' shop here in Tokyo.

Kind of like cooking a roast; hours of preparation only to be eaten in a blink of an eye.

These were to face off against Matt's three larger squads of British, a Boys A/T rifle, and a light mortar.  Pretty balanced forces, actually.

We already had the river pieces, and Giovanni had made loads of jungle vegetation bases for a future Darkest Africa project, so terrain wasn't a problem (although we have lots more to make after raiding the local pet shop for fish tank accessories).  

The hut was one of the Sarissa Productions MDF kits from Warlord Games.  It was quick and easy to assemble, and the only change I made was to cover the rather uninspiring planked roof with teddy bear fur that was then soaked in PVA and combed into shape while still wet. I haven't painted it yet, as I was unsure how to go about painting an MDF kit, and anyway it looked natural enough on the table. I might give a light wood stain later, but it's not a priority.

My Japanese infantry and support weapons are metal models that I have bought over the last couple of years from a variety of manufacturers; Warlord Games (their jungle fighters are just fantastic), The Assault Group (TAG), and Brigade Games.  Matt's British are from the Perry Twins' North Africa range, painted jungle green.

Back to the game, and the objective was a wounded British intelligence officer who had sought refuge in the hut, which was situated next to a tea plantation (what better place for a British officer to meet his fate). A detachment from the Royal Loamshire Regiment was given the order to rescue him- or at least prevent him from falling into Japanese hands- while the Japanese in their turn were on their way to find and deliver him to the tender mercies of the Kempeitai.

They started off closer to the hut, but had less cover than the British who were advancing through jungle- slowly, but unseen. 

The game was going well for the Japanese until the third move. 

My beloved Type-94 tankette didn't last long; it managed to put a pin on a squad of riflemen who were hiding at the edge of the jungle, only to fall victim to a Boys A/T rifle team, who lucked out with their die rolling.

"大便!"

It has been written that woes come not in single spies, but in battalions, and this proved to be the case.  Shortly after my tankette was carbonized, I ordered the squad nearest the hut to leave the cover of the jungle along the bank of the stream, and to race directly across the open field to the doorway. 

In doing so, I learned that you really, really don't want to get caught out in the open by British riflemen.

In what proved to be an absolute turkey-shoot, I lost most of my squad in single shake of the dice. Being Japanese with the fanatic rule, they did manage to stay around to fight it out but what with the losses they suffered, this squad was pretty much no longer capable of inflicting any really significant damage on the enemy. 

I had been warned.  I had read online that in Bolt Action with a Japanese army you need large squads- ten or twelve rifles rather than the seven-man squads I was fielding- and I could see why. The Banzai! rule makes the Japanese pretty fearsome, but units need to be large enough to absorb the inevitable casualties they will take as they charge into close combat.

All this time, the mortars were blazing away at each other ineffectually, but I think I was doing something wrong- a re-read of the rule book is called for.

Over at the hut, the third British squad was infiltrating the jungle, and boldly charged the Japanese to their front- my force headquarters! The Japanese C/O drew his katana and along with his bugler charged into the foe- with predictable results. 

 

In the midst of all the carnage, my sniper team had managed to slip undetected into the hut, where they began a desperate search for the Intel officer. To do this, we assumed that he would be hiding in some cupboard, and that the Japanese would find him on a roll of six per soldier in the hut.

Well, either the officer was hiding in a Tardis, or the snipers had spectacles the thickness of coke bottles as they failed to find him before the victorious British squad climbed the stairs and dispatched the snipers with nary a care in the world.

The Intel officer was thus spared the cruel fate of being in the clutches of the kempeitai, and was escorted back to the British lines for debriefing and a good hot cuppa.

It was all over bar the shooting. My other squad had learnt its lesson about crossing over exposed terrain, and aside from taking potshots at the British who were taking out the hut, they spent their time lurking more or less ineffectually along the riverbank for the rest of the game, until they were wiped out after being assaulted front and flank.

Pretty gutless behavior for a Japanese commander, it has to be said.  Mea Culpa.

 

After making short work of my infantry, the British ended an absolutely topping day's sport by wiping out the Japanese to the last mortar crewman, who was sent to join his comrades at Yasukuni when the British C/O himself, along with the company sergeant, splashed across the stream to take him out in a burst of tommy-gun fire.

Bolt Action was a blast. We really liked the order dice system- it kept the game going back and forth without having to herd gamers back to the table because of long periods of inactivity. The basic mechanics were simple and easy to remember and the game could have gone either way (had I not thrown away half my infantry!)

The game took less than three hours, making one this size ideal for club play.  Most importantly, there was much laughter all round, so time well spent.

Really looking forward to the next game.  I have some US Marines waiting in the wings as well, so that if Matt can't make it with his Commonwealth troops, then maybe there may be some Solomon Island actions looming in the future.

*****

Lest it be thought that we haven't been keeping the Faith, there was indeed Napoleonics being played at the club on Friday.  

Giovanni and Sada had this rather spectacular looking game, the French trying (unsuccessfully it turned out) to seize La Haye Sainte from its Kings German Legion and Hannoverian defenders.  Here are some pictures, so please call off the hounds and put away any pitchforks!

We have another games day scheduled for August, but being the summer holiday season for a lot of people we've no idea what will be on the agenda yet.