Bolt Action - atlernative history skirmish game 2

A couple of Thursdays ago, my Mate and I played another Bolt Acton Skirmish game set in my alternative history setting.

 Having limited figures for the setting didn't stop us including a couple of mortars and an observer (two observers in fact, one of which was an air liaison officer.) in the game. We just allowed for them to be deployed hidden or out of line of sight for the game.

 To balance the extra Australian forces, the Chinese were given prepared earth work defenses, and some barbed wire.

 Added to this, the Australians had to cross a river using a fallen tree.  I mistakenly gave my Mate the option of placing the tree anywhere along the river, something that turned out to be a game changer.

 I made the river and the earthworks especially for this game, but made them generic enough that I will be able to use them for other games.

 The earthworks are still a work in progress, as I didn't have enough of the same colour paint to paint over the sand.

The Chinese set up

 To speed up the game, we allowed for soldiers to be activated in groups of two or three until such times as combat actually started.

The river the Australians needed to cross

Looking towards the Chinese positions

The Australians start their approach.  I am particularly pleased with the reflections of the scenery in the river.

The Australians get within range of the fallen tree.  The mortars are setting up behind the hill to the left

Crossing the river

 This was at this stage of the game the 'game changer' kicked in.  The Australians were out of range of 70% of the Chinese in their earth works. As a result, and due to bad dice rolls, I was only able to pin two Australians with my initial fire, and they shrugged that off with a successful rally test.

 After rallying the scouts crossing over the bridge, the mortars fired some smoke to give cover to the troops crossing the river. This blinded the 30% of Chinese that were in range.

 Figuring this game would be lost quickly, I moved some Chinese out of the earth works so they could get into the fight.

 In an attempt to out flank my position, one of the Australians was taken out of the battle with one of the few shots that actually inflicted damage.


 Time for playing was running out, and my Mate remembered he had a Beaufighter on call.

 As we had added the use of indirect fire to our game, it was simple enough to use air support as well.

 As with the mortars, the Australian's had some jolly lucky dice rolls, and the fighter bomber came in when and where it was needed.

My Mate finally remembered he had air support

 
 Even with the earthworks, the Chinese suffered heavy casualties and all that was left was for the Australians to clear the trench and check to their wounded.

The Beaufighter heading back to base.

  Again we were very happy with how easy the Bolt Action rules are.

  One thing that is important is to keep the normal BA rules for air support as they are, and not adjust them to skirmish games. Otherwise planes are too powerful.

 We did have some questions about the indirect fire rules which I intend to ask about over at the Warlord Games forum. 

 As mentioned, the lack of figure for this setting makes for very limited games - I can get plenty of extra Australians, but I can't get any heavy weapon or support figures for the Chinese.

 As a result I will dust off my 20mm Australians and Japanese for a historical Pacific campaign, as well as work on my alternative history Europe '45 setting.

Bolt Action - learning the rules AAR

Last week I played my first game of Bolt Action with my friend. We played a skirmish using my house rules for skirmish play.
 Basically the rules remain the same, but individual figures are given orders instead of whole sections.

 Whenever we play a new set of rules we play through the game by reading through the rules & practicing each major ruling before going to the next stage.

 With this in mind I "chucked" some scenery on the table to block a bit of line of sight and we begun playing through the various phases of the game.

 Using my Alternative History as the background for the game I played the evil Chinese, while my Friend played the Heroic Australians.

 The distance between the troops meant we were able to practice allocating orders and movement before any combat occurred.

The Chinese deployment

The Australian deployment

Chinese dry fire and movement

The Australians advance

The Australians take cover as the Chinese open fire on them

Both sides advanced and the Chinese initiated the firefight, pinning the lead Australian scout.

 Returning fire, the Australians kill one of the Chinese and pin some of the others.

The Chinese casualty meant that some of the Chinese were outside the command radius, meaning I had to move those troops back in to command. This put a bit of a dint in my attack as I had to draw my left flank in a little.

 We ran out of time for the game, mainly due to talking after catching up for the first time in over a month, but the Australians won on body count alone.

 We found the rules worked very well. They are simple enough to learn and play, yet give enough scope for tactics and the initiative system can cause some tense moments when issuing orders.

 There are a lot of people bagging 'Bolt Action' but I don't see what their gripes are all about. The few things I wasn't so happy with I changed. Simple. See an obstacle and climb it.

 Maybe these nay sayers need to do just that - build a bridge and get over it.

 We intend to play a lot more games of Bolt Action, especially as it is easily adaptable to other periods.  I would like to play more games using the Australians vs the Chinese, but there is a general lack of figures in the Chinese range that will make this a bit hard to do.

 Hopefully I will remember to take more photos of the next game as well.

Bolt Action: Skirmish

For anyone interested in using the Bolt Action rules as a skirmish game you can download my first draft of the adaptation from here

The draft is focused towards the Vietnam war, but intend to use them for WW2, Vietnam, the Rhodesian Bush war and Modern conflicts.

'Nam Project - an AAR of sorts

 I have not played a game for a while due to 'real life' being busy, and wanting to make some extra scenery before playing my next game.

 I was able to play a game this weekend which was quickly thrown together for one main reason: my copy of the "Bolt Action" rules arrived a few days ago and I wanted to play test them to see what they were like.

 I had to do a bit of prep before playing as a) the rules were intended for WW2 Platoon plus level of play and not the Vietnam war, and b) I was playing them solo at 1:1 skirmish level.

 It was also the first time I had used my printed game cards, and they added to the game a lot.

 With these adjustments in mind I have the following AAR to share, complete with dodgy photos:

Mission: the LRRPs were to patrol to a small village and conduct a search for signs of the enemy.

 (Note - this is not the type of mission LRRPs would normally do, but I wanted to use the new buildings I had made).

 The LRRPs approached the village and made for the huts by crossing over the rice paddy.

 It was while half way across the paddy field that the first signs of the enemy appeared. These were spotted, and one was just a false alarm, but the other was the LMG detachment from a VC squad.

 The VC fired at the LRRPs, but the shots were in no danger of hitting the LRRPs. One of the VC charged the lead scout, but was dropped by one of the other team members before the VC could charge in to melee.

 The other VC were quickly dispatched by the LRRP team.

 Making it in to the village unharmed, the LRRPs spread out to search the village when they are again attacked.

 One of the VC fires an RPG towards the team, but the shot goes wide and explodes harmlessly beyond the LRRPs.
 The LRRPs make short work of the VC RPG team and again continue on with the mission.

 Having searched two of the four huts, the LRRPs are again interrupted by the appearance of a VC command group.
 Two of the VC are quickly dispatched, but the leader was pinned and took a few turns to deal with.

A random event sees the appearance of a cobra on the scene. Fortunately for the LRRPs it appears a good distance away from them, but it did make things tense for a few turns until it moved in to the jungle and out of sight.

 The mission continued with a few random shots winging their way at the LRRPs from the jungle, but there were no more interruptions while the team completed their search and then called in for extraction from a near by helicopter.


Game Notes

 I made a few changes to the rules to allow 'Bolt Action' to be played as a 1:1 skirmish game.

I used the weapons list from the rule book with no problems, adjusted the distance allowed between figures, and used counters instead of order dice.

 Overall the game played very smoothly and the game flowed quickly as there wasn't much need to keep referring to the rules to look up what the procedures were.

 I did have to re-read the melee rules to make sure I was reading it right as it is very nasty to those involved.

Having played the game using the Bolt Action rules I will continue to do so, as they are very easy and produce a good result for a game.

I will need to type up my rule adjustments and additions for future games, and if anyone is interested I will be happy to share my notes with them.