Saving Lord Smythe - a Bolt Action v1 battle.

 

As said in the previous Battle Report we made a day of gaming when we visited Element Games last. One of the things on the agenda was that myself and Fraser wanted to try Bolt Action to see if we liked the system.

Cardboard Fortress was kind enough to bring his nicely painted forces for the British and German armies and ran us through a game of V.1 (because he accidentally picked the wrong book up before leaving the house!).

So we threw an equal platoon with supports on the table, grabbed the scenery to make a good 1940s French village and created a storyline for the game.

I present to you the cinematic masterpiece that is:

'SAVING LORD SMYTHE'*

"August 1944, the allied forces are ashore in Normandy and the counter attack to free occupied France is well underway. 

Lord Henry Percival Whittan-Smythe, Second Cousin (Twice Removed) to the King has gotten into a spot of bother whilst touring the regiments to provide a 'Stiff Upper Lip' morale boost.

Donning his finest First World War dress uniform, the former general has wandered into no-mans land and a passing German platoon has taken note, moving to capture Lord Smythe would be a major coup for the Axis powers.

Lieutenant Jones has been given command of a platoon of troops to effect a rescue operation of the wayward gentleman".

Lord Henry Percival Whittan-Smythe, second cousin (Twice Removed) to the King pictured** in Tropical uniform:

The force I used, once again I must say, fantastically painted by Cardboard Fortress, really looking well when massed together into a cohesive force.

Lieutenant Jones and two orderlies.

Three ten man rifle squads with a Bren in each.

A Vickers MMG team.

A Mortar Team.

A 25-Pounder Artillery team with Spotter.

A Churchill Tank, mk.VII I think (?).

An overview of the battlefield, lots of fenced fields and a few farm buildings.

Lord Smythe is holed up in the central building:

The 'Dastardly Huns depoly':

The 'Plucky Brits' counter deployment:

Sadly, the Germans got the first action dice out of the bag, and their Panzer knocked my Churchill out of the battle with the first shot fired***:

Moving forward the objective comes into sight.

"Ee's over there sir, but there's Huns trying to get 'Im" called out Private Pike.

"Snap too lads, the Kings Second Cousin (twice removed) can't be captured by the Germans" Jones commanded.

A few moves later and the rifle sections have moved forwards into the cover offered by the cornfield.

"Six feet of standing corn is bulletproof men, fear not the enemy machine guns".

And the rifle section on the right flank has pushed into the woods, ready to give Gerry a "bloody good hiding" with their Bayonets:

Sadly the legend of "Bulletproof Corn" died with half of the forward rifle section.

Lieutenant Jones moves in behind them to offer encouragement:

In the woods things are getting a little close:

"Into them, for King and Country" come the shouts as the British charge:

And beat the living hell out of the Germans,

"Up 'em, the Germans don't like it up 'em" cried Lance-Corporal Wilson. Sadly there were no survivors to be taken prisoner (it's never a war crime, the first time):

A rifle section makes it to the ruins where Lord Smythe, the Kings Second Cousin (Twice Removed) is blathering on about "Going over the Top Lads, Good Luck":

During this time, both the German and British Mortar teams and Artillery Guns had been firing. The Germans targeting the MMG in the farmhouse and the British performing counter-battery fire, clearing out the woods on the left flank:

With Jones getting his battered rifle section moving again, they begin to push up to Lord Smythe to securing him from the Huns:

The victorious bayonet armed rifle section, they blood up, rush down the hedgerow and begin to threaten the German MMG and Mortar team:

With that, the remaining Germans retreat, the lure of the Kings Second Cousin (Twice Removed) is not worth the rest of their lives.

Flanked by Lieutenant Jones and his remaining orderly and followed by the remaining British infantry, Lord Smythe marches with head held high, telling the chaps they did a fine job on the Somme, causing some side glances amongst the squaddies:

So Bolt Action, what did we think?

The activation sequence, pulling dice from a bag (much like Test of Honours token pull system) is very good as it means you never really know what is going to happen next.

Likewise the shooting system with adding modifiers to a 4+ based on range, movement, cover, etc.

I really like the ranging in rules for the artillery guns, that was very good. 

As well as the "National rules" with the Germans getting more shots from their machines guns and the British getting more rifle shots due to their volley fire training.

The more cinematic, rather then simulation, aspect of the game, some people complain that the game is too "gamey" and not historical enough.

It was good for a laugh.

Someone once described Bolt Action as "a WW2 movie game rather then a WW2 game" and this is an apt description I think.

Could I possibly see myself playing and collecting Bolt Action in the future?

Possibly, I know the sci-fi Konflikt '47 game is based off of the Bolt Action rules and I like the super-science Weird World War 2 setting, so maybe.

Maybe even a North Africa collection featuring the 8th Army and the Afrika Korps?

Until next time, have nice day...

*Probably not a cinematic masterpiece!

**I found this picture but no other information on Google, other then "Officer in 1940 Middle East uniform".

***Just after I had finished admiring the tank and saying how it was my second favourite WW2 British tank, behind the Cromwell!

A Weird War* - A Xenos Rampant project, part 2.

 

This is another introduction post to the Weird War Project, this time we run down Cardboard Fortress's plans for his force and what he's looking at collecting.

As per the rules, his list comes out to 40 points**, and includes one armoured vehicle, ready for our mini-November vehicular challenge.

Now he already has a sizeable Bolt Action German force as far as I'm aware, so when we were discussing things, he wanted something to either field alongside, or as an antagonist for smaller games.

Enter the Finnish Survivors, we haven't decided just how things have changed in our world yet, but the remaining Finnish forces, along with some Germans, are hard-bitten survivors of everything which has been thrown at them, and they keep on defending against everything...

The list:

A squad of Elite Infantry:

The cream of the German elements of the force, definitely the Heavy Armoured troopers. The Heavy Weapons upgrade represents their firepower.

A Greater Xenomorph:

Now this is awesome, but definitely a blindside move. As far as I am aware, this is the only Xenomorph unit in all three forces!

When we were discussing ideas, a Finnish Bear God, Otso was mentioned, and then I was linked the above image from Etsy***.

Is this the spirit of the land rising up to defend itself alongside the troopers? Is it just a bear which has been experimented on and escaped?

Who knows, but it's awesome.

Obviously it has the Fearsome rule because who wouldn't have second thoughts trying to fight a normal bear, nevermind one wielding swords?

High Powered blades allows it to attack tanks and regeneration is self explanatory, both suitable things for a 'god'.

This though proves one of the things I love about the Rampant games, you can take a miniature and add it to your force by tweaking rules around it, you're not limited to the prescribed themes of the bigger games.

Onto the regular troops:

A ten man unit of Finnish veterans, normal rifles, but the Armour Piercing rule represents their increased accuracy.

A ten man unit of German Grenadiers:

These soldiers have the stabilised weapons rule to represent their StG44 Assault Rifles.

Finally a recon team with Sniper Rifles:

Because you HAVE to have a Sniper unit in a Finnish force, it is the law. Given the legends about the snipers of the era against the Soviet army, this is a stereotype which I fully support.

The bottom two models are the K'47 snipers from the German range, which I felt could be suitable additions to the Finnish boys above.

Finally, the armoured vehicle:

The second focal point of the force, the Bear is definitely the main focus, the Walker is a chunky model which fits well with the ideas behind the force in general.

Whereas I wanted a tank in my OSE, here we went full "Weird" and added one of the cool walker models from Warlord Games.

Obviously it uses the Walker upgrade, as well as Armour Piercing (Fortress has chosen a lot of AP for the force...hmmm...).

Having seen his German tanks, I am really looking forward to seeing this painted up.

So a preview of what's to come from Cardboard Fortress, just Chris's German's to preview now, and we collect bits for the kick off in October.

I am really looking forward to this project, as it's a setting which I've always wanted to explore but never had the inclination until the Xenos Rampant rules came out.

Sure there have been other games, but I've either never been able to generate interest, or had a look at the rulebook and said "nope".

Not to sing the praises of XR again, but the agnostic, simple, old school approach to the rules is their best selling point in my opinion.

The fact that I can use one book to represent forces from WW2 all the way up to 40k and anything I can think of is a major selling point to me****.

Well until next time, have nice day...

*A personal favourite pulp style setting.

**Some may be wondering, why we are building to 40 points, when the game usually runs at around 24 points.

I chose the higher points total so that we could include a varied amount of gear AND a vehicle, without us just having a squad, a character and a vehicle for the force. This is mainly a painting/modelling project, and the ability to play the force is a bonus.

But as these forces will spend a fair amount of their life sitting on the display shelf, they HAD to look good at the end of it to justify the expense/effort.

***Not only is the though of a Bear God awesome, but that is a great model. I'm not going to begrudge someone buying cool toys to use on the tabletop!

****In fact, I'm going to use XR for my various Iron Kingdoms project's, a fact I've mentioned before, but messing around on Battlescribe has shown how easy it is to sort Warmachine forces for the game!

A Weird War* - A Xenos Rampant project - part 1.

 

I've alluded to making a Xenos Rampant force for a few months after picking up the rulebook early in the summer.

Being a big fan of Dragon Rampant (and with plans to pick up Lion Rampant) I had to grab Xenos Rampant when it was released.

In truth I'd already been tinkering for a while, with the Fan made PDF by Richard Cowen after downloading it from the Dragon Rampant Facebook group.

When he announced that he was working with Dan Mersey to turn it into a fully fledged, produced book, turned out by Osprey, well, to say that I was optimistic about it was an understatement.

Fast forward to the early summer and it turns out that a fair few of my friends have bought the book and have had a read but not done anything particular with it yet.

I messaged a few people whom I thought would be up for an army building challenge and laid down the gauntlet.

Beginning in October, running through November and December, the challenge:

• Build and paint a 40 point force for Xenos Rampant.
• The force MUST include at least one vehicle, which can only be built and painted as a "November Special Challenge".
• The force must fit to the theatre/time period the group decides.

And that's really it, we can purchase and pre build some stuff in September, but painting cannot begin until October.

The vehicle(s) cannot be started until November.

And then December is a chance to finish up whatever is left to hit the completed force.

Chris and Cardboard Fortress answered the challenge, so we dove into deciding which theme we wanted to use.

I drafted a few suggestions and let them decide which direction they wanted to take:

• Weird World War 2 (Konflikt '47), and pick a theater ETO or North Africa (replace the German folklore with desert folklore?).

• Command and Conquer, Red Alert 2** (Soviets Vs Allies, post WW2 tanks and infantry, with super science, mutants and psychics).

• Command and Conquer,Tiberium Sun (GDI Vs NOD around 2020 and near future with mecha and stuff).

• Star Wars (using Legion gear), might be a bit of a longshot as I don't think any of us play this already.

• 40k, the obvious classic, but an excuse for us all to make a small starter force/skirmish platoon, themed around a battle we make.

So, whilst we all have piles of GW gear, and we're all fans of Star Wars (but not the price tag), we decided to go for Weird World War 2.

Nazi zombies, super soldiers, werewolves, strange experimental vehicles, proper pulp-style adventures and villains...what's not to like?

The Konflikt'47 setting by Warlord Games is a favourite, but Xenos Rampant offers us much wiggle room to carve out our own alternate, sci-fi World War 2 history and work from there.

For what has been discussed so far, I believe that Cardboard Fortress will be doing something Finnish related, whilst Chris will be tackling the dastardly Nazi's.

As for my own project, I will be being patriotic and field the British.

Specifically a platoon seconded to the 'Office of Secret Endeavours', a paranormal commando office of my own devising.

This is taken from Battlescribe and gives the general gist of the force.

The first Heavy Infantry unit will be the "character/command" unit and will be based upon one of my favourite comics:

I have plans for various conversions for the characters!

Captain Quartermain, Vampires Mina Harker, the Cyborg-Corporal H.Y.D.E. (High-Yield Destructive Engine), Dr. Griffin - The Invisible Man and lastly Captain Rajesh Nemo, Son of Captain Nemo and captain of the HMS Nautilus.

I've already bought the model for Mina, from the 02-Hundred Hours range, and I'll be picking up H.Y.D.E. from the Secrets of the Third Reich range. I've found a suitable mini for Griffin, who needs no conversion, which just leaves the two Captain's to convert up.

The second Heavy Infantry unit, is a squad of Autonomous Robot Infantry from K'47:

I really like these models, and the story of Alan Turing making them adds to the period flavour.

The two Light Infantry Squads and the main force:

Two ten man units of Tommies, hardens to fight against whatever the Nazi's can throw at them, I haven't made them anything special like SAS or Para's as I wanted to normal infantry to contrast the "Weird Shit".

Support wise, a 5 man Sniper Unit:

Because Snipers are cool, especially these models.

And an Anti-Tank unit:

I am undecided whether to use a couple of 6 Pounder Gun Teams (with two crew per base and separate Sergeant model) or a group of 5 guys with PIAT's***.

Or even, stepping away from the Warlord Games:

West Wind Productions have a range called Secrets of the Third Reich, and they do these wonderfully characterful Anti-Mech/Tank rifles as part of their British range****

Lastly my vehicle for November:

I already have a Churchill sitting new in box, which I'd bought cheaply and never got round to doing anything with*****.

I'm hoping it has the AVRE "flying dustbin" mortar in the box, but not sure.

I'm not sure whether to Weird the tank up or even how, or to leave it as stock?

So, I'll post an update later on in the month as I gather details from Cardboard Fortress and Chris about their respective plans.

Until next time, have nice day...

*A personal favourite pulp style setting.

**Red Alert 2 is a personal favourite video game, and one which I think XR would handle really well, I may plan this for a future solo project.

(Seriously look at the cutscenes on YouTube for some great acting 😉, the soundtrack is *chef's kiss* like all the C&C soundtracks actually).

***As awful and cheaply made as the PIAT was, there are stories of men doing heroic deeds with the weapon.

****If I was doing soviets, I would definitely add these charming ladies to the force:

*****I would say I planned it as such, but I'd be lying.

Urban Terrain, drybrushing is hell.

 

Greetings, this is the third part of the build of these first scatter terrain pieces (I swear I will get round to fnishing the Municipal Building and the Bar I started).

 Part One and Part Two are here for the building process.

This third part is after the last details were added, and the floorboards were blended into the "Bolt Hole" piece. I also added some final drybrushing in a further grey colour and some black on around the upper windowframe of the wall, to simulate where soot had built up as if the building had been on fire and that was the last standing part of it...until a shell drops and blows that bit to smithereens, but I digress.

Here is an overview of all four piece's together:

They really came together well, here's a photo of the two rubble piles, with some Imperial Fists for scale:

The smaller of the two comes roughly to the Primaris Marines waist and the larger obscures the miniature, except for the very top of their helmets and backpacks...or the back-banner in the case of the Sergeant.

The "Bolt Hole":

You can see the darker areas where I drybrushed to make the soot effect. I nicknamed this piece as the Bolt Hole because I originally had in mind gaming using Terminator:Genysis models (more on that in a later post) with this and based the idea a lot on the Future War look with the piles of rubble and randombits of wall left standing which the resistance are using for cover. Adding to this the oil drum (which could, rather dangerously, be used for a firepit) and the fact that I added boards over the window made it seem like an old hideout type place.

Finally, the telegraph pole which I need to finish the detailing for, but is functionally complete:

I took pains to add some black drybrushing towards the top half of the pole, as in real telepgraph poles (at least in the UK) there is often a tar which is applied to the poles, this helps stop the wood rotting, considering our famously wet weather here and was something I wanted to add.

I do have to modelling up the connection box and wiring to add to the piece, as well as finish the camper van for the flat area, but it is usable as it stands.

I'm going to focus on my Orktober project for the time being this month, and work up some more terrain once I've gotten the greenskins sorted I think.

Until next time....

 

  - Lewis