No prizes for guessing which German special rule I completely forgot in this splendid game of Bolt Action with top chum Steve! It’s been a little while since Steve and I had a game of BA. He's been largely focussed on Kings (see report of our recent
excellent encounter here) but was now keen to dust off his lovely Russian army. We were due to play in his man-cave (a spacious garden shed) but the very hot weather meant we de-camped to the somewhat cooler climes of his lounge.
Here’s the table – I particularly like the effect given by the lichen. Must get me a bag!
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| Somewhere in the east... |
After the obligatory cup of tea and a good chin-wag we set to with Key Positions again (well, that
scenario with Dave was a hoot).
Turn 1
With no troops starting on the table (other than snipers and observers) this
turn was all about advancing. My chaps made the best use of the cover
afforded by the church walls in the centre and the orchard on the right
flank. Steve, with superior numbers, advanced all across the line.
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| Jerry advances to good cover |
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| Here come the Russians! |
Turn 2
My Panzer IV rumbles on to the battlefield (okay, it’s a Stug... I
recently moved house and the Pz IV is still in a box somewhere!) and
blasts away at the Russian tank. It’s a hit, but rolling a ‘1’ for
penetration saw the shell harmlessly ricochet off the thick armour.
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| Both forces advance into cover while the AFVs battle it out |
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| Panzergrenadiers in the orchard |
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| Russians in the fields and lanes |
Turn 3
Things
really began to hot up this turn. I opened with a spectacular FUBAR that resulted in my squad in the churchyard opening fire against their
mates crewing the MG42 by the orchard. Two of the three machine gunners
fell dead but thankfully the last chap held his nerve.
Steve’s heavy
mortar targets the German assault squad on the road. Rolling a natural 6
Steve drops the shot plum on target and wipes out the entire squad!
Ouch. The German squad in the field next to the newly cratered road
promptly failed their command test and went down. Suddenly the left
flank was looking a bit frail.
Poor command rolls dogged the German
forces this turn with a total of four failed tests from my nine units – there’s not much
you can do when you roll 10s and 11s. This meant that the Russian horde
could continue their advance with very little German shooting to oppose them.
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| FUBAR! :o( |
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| The pesky Russian heavy mortar |
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| Now you see them ... |
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| ... now you don't! |
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| Take cover! |
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| The fourth failed morale test this turn! |
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| End of turn 3 and the Germans are keeping their heads down |
Whilst Steve made another cuppa I took a few "across the table" pics. Most came out a little too blurry (camera phone!) but these two are okay I think.
Turn 4
The Russian tank had two lucky escapes this turn.
The Pz IV shot hit but bounced off the armour, so a brave Grenadier with
a Panzerfaust stepped forward to blast the enemy in the flank. I rolled
a 5 to hit ... then, needing just 2+ to penetrate, the dice bounced and
rolled a 1. It gained a couple of pins but that didn’t seem to bother
the crew as they continued to roll forward spraying bullets into the
squad sheltering in the churchyard.
The Russian heavy mortar team, buoyed by
their earlier success, targetted another German squad. This time it was
the large veteran squad who’d moved out of the orchard across the fields
to claim an objective - see the pic above. Steve rolled another natural 6. The 10 man squad
was rapidly reduced to just 2 men, an LMG team, plus they picked up a
heap of pins.
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| Another ricochet |
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| A faulty panzerfaust? |
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| "Hans, can you hear a whistling sound?" |
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| Incoming! |
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| End of turn 4 |
Again German command rolls
were dreadful – but at least there were no more FUBARs. What on earth
was going on with these chaps? The result was several squads of Russian
SMG armed troops getting perilously close and virtually unopposed. Gulp!
Turn 5
At
last my Panzer commander got all his ducks in a line and put a shell
right through the Russian tank. But... it still wasn’t knocked out, instead
it was ablaze. The Russian crew had four pins by now so Steve rolled
2D6 looking for 5 or less, but they’d had enough and leapt for safety
as the tank brewed up.
Steve’s heavy mortar actually missed yet
another of my squads – we were both surprised ;o) Next turn the squad
(at the edge of the field in the pic below) would need to pass their morale test otherwise that mortar was bound to
blast them.
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| The T-85 is finally knocked out |
This turn saw a lot of close range firepower dished
out by Steve’s Russians, with most of my squads already having several
pins it wasn’t looking good for Jerry! I managed to inflict some casualties in return but Steve’s men (and women, Reg) had the best of it.
Turn 6
First
dice out of the bag was black – so time to get that squad moving before
the mortar zeroed in ... yup, you guessed it, they rolled high and went
down instead. Steve wasted no time with the mortar, requiring a 5+ and rolling yet another
natural 6 to blow the grenadiers to smithereens as they crawled through
the wheat fields. That pesky mortar had accounted for more than a third of my
army.
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| End of turn 6 |
Turn 7
Steve had at last managed to get one of his dog
bomb teams in range of my Panzer. I’d blasted them with everything I
could muster in previous turns but one still made it through the hail of
bullets ...
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| Not so nice doggy! |
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| Woof! Woof! ... BOOM! |
And that was pretty much
it. Steve held two objectives, I held one and the fourth was still
contested. So a win for Steve 2 to 1. However, in terms of casualties
the result was much more in favour of the Russians. Another superb game of Bolt Action. My thanks to Steve for being an excellent host :o)
