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!

Return to Voltistrum - Imperial Guard Vs Tyranids.

 

This is a long overdue gaming day.

The first time we planned it my son brought plague into the house and so it was cancelled whilst we recovered from heavy chest infections.

The second time was work related stuff, so Cardboard Fortress couldn't make it.

We finally managed to arrange the gaming day the past Tuesday (14th May) and so we drove to the wrong side of the Pennines to Element Games in Stockport and prepared to roll the bones.

*****

Captain Caldwalle of the Vanquisher 'Indomitable' was back on the line defending against the Tyranid invasion or Voltistrum.

Alongside the Exterminator 'Righteousness', one of the few survivors of the previous battle, the Imperials had retreated and thrown together an ad-hoc force to buy time to defence the planetary space port for the evacuation.

Infantrymen lined up under the barked orders of their officers and armoured vehicles revved their engines, blue smoke erupting from their exhausts.

The Ordo Tacticus had determined that this was the most likely route that the swarm would take, so the force dug in around a long ruined, part buried settlement and ranged in their guns.

Soon the call went down the line from the scouts that the dust on the horizon was the approaching swarm, with new warrior beasts deployed and driving the aliens forward. In response orders were shouted down the line, encouraging litanies were chanted by units. 

Voices tailed off as the sky turned dark above them, and tentacled Spore Mines began to rain from above.

*****

As is customary, we first had ourselves a game of 40k 5th edition*, and again his Guard army** pitted itself against my Tyranid swarm.

The armies met in the ruins of a long lost city which was slowly being swallowed by the desert.

After the previous debacle, Captain Caldwalle was back in action facing the dreaded xenos, determined to halt the force here.

A platoon of infantry regulars joined his under-strength armoured company, along with a Hydra flak tank and another unit of Ogryns to find out how much they can bite off and get themselves into trouble.

The Hive Mind adapted its will and spawned some larger gun beasts as well A directing a huge swarm of sixty Termagants!

With the dice rolled for first turn/size the initiative, the Tyranids swarmed forward en masse, eager to rend the biomass infront of them.

Spore mines dropped from orbit and exploded on the center of the infantry line, and then the Biovores opened by and threw more spore mines at the thin Guard line.

At the rear of the table, the Imperial Guard Hydra Flak battery was obliterated with one shot by the Shrike with Venom Cannon, firing at full range, the command squad showered with debris and shrapnel but suffered no casualties.

With effective fire from the heavy weapons teams holed up in the ruins wiping out the Warriors squad, severing the link to the hive mind and forcing the mass of Termagants onto their instinctive behaviour.

They became priority targets, and the Lictors and Deathleaper emerged from the shadows.

The Leman Russ Exterminator chewed away at the Termagants, killing half of one squad entirely and the Hellhound burnt a swather the the other. Above the Lictors wiped out the Lascannon squad to a man, before being counterattacked by the Ogryn squad, who whilst wounding the beasts, died to a man.

With bodies rapidly falling to enemy fire and the looming threat of the Hive Tyrant the Guard had a last ditch effort of firing, but it was for naught, as nearly all their infantry was wiped out, the Hydra and Hellhound destroyed or immobile, and the only effective units left on the table were the Exterminator and Vanquisher Leman Russes.

*****

Whilst enjoyable and a good time rolling bones, this isn't my favourite game of 40k which I've had in truth.

From the moment we rolled for the first turn and then I "seized the initiative" by rolling a 6, my dice seemed to be "hot".

I don't think my Biovores missed a single shot due to scatter, and the Spore Mines deep sticking and not scattering was another lucky roll i think.

The Guard may have been too strung out in the line to concentrate fire, a bit like my last game with the World Eaters , but I genuinely think Cardboard was unlucky and I was really lucky with my rolling.

The Hydra could have made a real impact with it's quad Autocannon, but it got blown up on the first turn, likewise the Hellhound managed a good turn of immolating Termagants, but was then picked off in turn, and I do think a normal Leman Russ would have been a better choice than the Vanquisher.

I left my Hive Tyrant too far out on the flank to actually have anything to do which was a waste, a bit of overkill in that he charged and mulched a single officer/sergeant who was all that remained of his squad, and I still need more Synapse creatures in the army overall.

So we had a good day out with friends at Element, and I've got another battle report coming to post.

Until next time, have nice day...

*The reasons for playing 5th edition have been mentioned before in the other battle reports, so I'm not going to repeat them here!

**With a friendly reminder of the Basilisk shortcomings from last time we played. 

Why they made the minimum range 36" on the Earthshaker gun I'll never know.

Infestation - part 10.

 

With a looming gaming day at Element Games, I wrote up a new 1,500 points Tyranid army list and checked off everything I needed for the day when... disaster...I needed a Warrior Prime model and hadn't painted it.

Whilst in conversation with both Fraser and Cardboard Fortress over messenger and with the Plastic Crack Podcast streaming on YouTube in the background I set about this gribbly beasty.

A pair of Rending Claws and a Deathspitter make a powerful offensive combination, which only gets more powerful with the biomorph Adrenal Glands.

This thing can also regenerate lost wounds and command the lesser Tyranid beasts, so they don't fall back on their "instinctive behaviour".

The now familiar Purple and Grey scheme with Bone weapons was quick to apply over a white primer coat using contrast paints, shades and a little drybrushing.

The usual urban rubble basing, no skulls this time, finished the model off.

At 20.00 hours the model was in its base white primer, and I had to give it a quick dust off before I could paint.

By 23.00 it was finished barring a coat of Matte Varnish which was added the following morning.

Then it was into the travel box with it and the rest of the army:

Three hours to take a HQ model from bare primer to fully finished is very impressive and shows the ease of the paint scheme which was chosen for the hive fleet.

I'll obviously be doing a report of the battles to come, but I'm sincerely hoping it doesn't fall victim to "New Model Syndrome*" but we'll have to see.

Until next time, have nice day...

*This is an observable effect, as nearly everyone has a story about a new/freshly painted model which has done nothing/been killed on turn 1/never showed up from reserves or something along those lines.

Often it's a very expensive HQ or Vehicle unit.

Female Custodes.

 

As my last gaming day was cancelled, so I can't bring you a second Tenth edition 40k battle report, I figured I'd talk about the biggest controversy in the GW Hobby at the moment.

FEMALE CUSTODES!

DUNDUNDUNNNNNN....

I'm not going to sit here and spout on about how most of the stuff we love in life is aimed at "Straight White Dudes", because i can't be arsed arguing the ins and outs of historical marketing and economics.

What I am going to say is that I think it's a cool idea, but poorly executed on GWs part.

GW lore gets "retconned" all the time, not an unusual occurrence given that for most of the lifespan of 40k the lore was stuck at One Minute to Midnight, right before the 13th Black Crusade*.

I say this not as a way of saying that they shouldn't change things, it's their universe and we just play in it. I say this because GW actually moved the timeline forward now with each edition since 8th.

They could have had a full story segment building up to Custodes reinforcements and some being super-soldier women.

What did we get?

A two page fiction spread in the (admittedly mediocre) Codex and a TWEET of all things saying:

Now, the two page fiction is great, the Blood Game** she is playing is really well done and her end game move is brilliant, only thwarted by a naval officer who defies orders and informs on her!

I for one would have read an entire novel based on introducing her to the universe. The newest generation of the Emperor's Guardians.

Genetically altered and uplifted to Custodes status due to losses suffered by the Ten Thousand Robute Guilliman took from Terra during his Indomitus Crusade.

Something like that.

Personally, rather then female Custodes, like a lot of people I would have loved to have seen the Sisters of Silence and the Adeptus Psykana expanded upon and given some love.

Or even, and this was a discussion between myself and Chris many moons ago, maybe expand the Sisters of Battle range to give them some more options if you're that desperate for women in power armour***.

Naomi from Sword n Steele has a great video outlining everything here, I agree with her points. I disagree with parts of the community now targeting her as being "anti-woke" simply for stating her opinion.

Things are getting too heated with real world identity politics getting involved with the little plastic soldiers.

The point is that GW were lazy when introducing a new aspect of the Custodes army and it upset a lot of neck beards.

It was so serious it even made the Guardian newspaper!! 

That article is a bit "baity" just giving you a heads up, but what do you expect from mainstream journalism.

I expect a lot more of this sort of thing to come, especially given that Amazon is now tied to the company to make a TV series (you don't want to know my feelings about Rings of Power).

I'm not sure where I was going with this post, just a bit of a rant about the hobby space and what's happening really.

Until next time, have nice day...

*God the Eye of Terror campaign book was SO good at building the atmosphere leading up to the war. Just a shame GW retconned that as well with the shitty Marvel-esque crap then pump out now.

**Blood Games are an interesting thing. A Custode goes outside the Imperial Palace wire and has to attempt to assassinate the Emperor by any means necessary. The Custodes still stationed on Terra defend and then they analyse the data from the "game" afterwards and improve the already formidable defences of the Palace.

***Hell, I'd like to see female Catachan warriors to mix in amongst my Catachan company.

10th Edition 40k - World Eaters Vs Grey Knights.

 

Yesterday (as of writing this) I visited Fraser over in Stockport, after our traditional "Wobble down to Element Games" we headed back to his to chat general shit and hobby.

A sobering moment was when we realised we'd been friends for nearly twenty years now...

He mentioned that he'd played a couple of games of 10th edition 40k and had found it enjoyable, then asked if I fancied a game and trying it.

So we booted up the Warhammer ap and he whipped up a couple of forces from his collection.

(Apologies for the unpainted miniatures, he's near blind and can only paint for half hour-hour at most, and I work full time and have my own stuff and his other projects to paint, so these will have to wait).

The World Eaters warband;

Led by ANGRON, a Lord Invocatus (on Juggernaut) and a Lord Executioner.

There were two units of ten Berzerkers, a unit of ten Terminators, a unit of ten Jakhals and then a unit each of Three Eightbound and Exalted Eightbound, finally my two Dreadnaughts:

Fraser fielded his Grey Knights (which have been sitting at mine to be painted and I never got around to it);

Kaldor Draigo leading three Librarians, two units of ten Terminators, a strike squad of five Grey Knights and THREE Dreadknights:

Once we'd cleared the table and deployed the mat and terrain, deployment looked like this*:

With everything ready I used the Scout ability from the Lord Invocatus to push his unit of Eightbound and a unit of Berzerkers (that's all that was within his range) forwards six inches, then promptly lost the roll off for the first turn!**

I won't give a turn by turn account, just the highlights.

Two Dreadknights decide to push on the flank facing the Lord Invocatus:

After getting shot up and killing an Eightbound, they promptly "forgot the ball***" and got stuck in:

My fantastic dice rolling led to the Thirteen wound Dreadknight being still alive and on ONE WOUND.

In true fashion, the Juggernaut, the mount did more damage then it's rider. That's even with the rider having double the attacks of the mount and a special rule to reroll.

I forgot the Eightbound's special rule at this point.

In the center somewhere, the Terminators shot half the Berzerker squad away and forced them to run towards them**** ending up in combat, alongside them was all 415 points of thr big man himself, ANGRON!

Now here's where it gets interesting, Angron projects and Aura around himself which works on him and every world eaters unit up to 6 inches away. You get to choose from a selection of three, so I chose the option which let me re roll hit rolls.

This combined with the Blessings of the Blood God giving them lethal hits AND the relentless rage ability which they all having giving them +1 Strength and Attacks on the charge***** meant that i was rerolling everything which wasn't a "6" to try to fish for more "6's".

Given that ANGRON hits on a 2+ makes this worthwhile. 

The Beezerkers did stuff at the end of the line, tagging two Terminators and a Librarian to fight them:

SIXTEEN attacks from Angron later and thanks to Fraser using the stratagem "True Silver Armour" which negates armour save modifiers, the big guy had killed two Terminators and thr Berzerkers nothing...

CLOSE COMBAT ARMY!!!!!!!

(I am calm).

SKIPPING BACK OVER the Lord Invocatus and the last remaining Eightbound managed to kill the Dreadknight and moved to fight the second one following:

Some time later in the game, Kaldor Draigo and his unit of Terminators teleported in and managed to get the charge off to attack Angron. 

I played a stratagem to give my Berzerkers "precision strikes" in order to pick out the attached Librarian in the unit, killing him would give me some victory points as I had drawn an objective about killing characters.

Dumping 7 of the 9 hits from my Berzerkers on the Librarian I forced Fraser to fail his save:

Whilst Draigo and unit fought first because they charged, I chose to play the stratagem ",Khorne Cares Not..." which reduced incoming damage from weapons on Angron, thus saving me part of the way through combat to hit back.

MANY dice were rolled, I mean MANY.

The Terminators had 40(!) attacks and then Draigo waded in with his attacks as well, leaving Angron on 3 wounds.

I hit and killed another two Terminators with Angron, but then he hit me back.

"You're going to need to make three 5+ saves"

"GODAMMIT!":

With Angron no more, my Berzerkers crumbling and aura buffs gone, I decided to throw everything in a deep striked my reserves onto the board.

Ten Khorne Terminators and Three Exalted Eightbound appeared and lined up for a charge into the center, needing Twelve to make it!

"GODAMMIT!":

The final Berzerker squad died to a man and the Lord Executioner took Draigo to his final wound, but I couldn't do enough damage against him:

Afterwords with the help of YouTube F1 pundit 'RocketPoweredMohawk' I summed up the game with this image:

So what did I think of 10th edition?

It's certainly a lot better then the cluster fuck that was 9th edition.

Positive thoughts:

• There is a lot less off table bullshittery going on then first expected.
• Aura's for buffs seem to be very important in this edition, whilst ANGRON is the big scary model, I think he would have been better served being surrounded by Berzerkers and buffing them constantly with rerolls, rather then wading in piecemeal.
• The fight phase and order of fighting is very good in my opinion as it gets both sides involved all the way through, rather then just being told which combat were doing now.

Negative thoughts:

• Every unit has a special rules, I mean EVERY UNIT, and true to form for GW, the same rule will have three or four different names because it HAS to be named this way for one army, this way for a second army, etc, ad infinitum.
• Character Deathstars are back as a thing.
• The game is still very "admin heavy" overall. A lot less then 9th edition where you would spend more time looking through the rulebook/codex, but it's still there.
• The competitive side of the community seems to be in control as usual and GW just seems to be making knee-jerk reactions to rules changes based on this.
• Female Custodes.******

A few of my grumbles are because this was the first game and a learning game at that.

Fraser was happy that he didn't have to explain everything because I'd watched a few battle reports on YouTube beforehand.

Wrapping your head around the special rules per unit is still a bit much as they aren't the "Universal Special Rules" of old where you know instantly what Stealth, Furious Charge, Infiltrate were, because everything has to have a unique name.

Seriously the "Blood Surge" ability of Khorne Berzerkers is the same rule used for Black Templars, I just think it's called "Righteous Fury" or something...

I think that you'd have to get four or five games under your belt with an army to start to see a proper battle develop, as rules will start to slot into place by that point.

I enjoyed the game overall, mainly because I knew I lost because I messed up, not the game.

I should have clumped together around ANGRON rather then spreading out to cover the board to take advantage of the buff aura he projects. Deep Strike whilst powerful is a double edged sword, as I found when I failed the charge, so a huge chunk of points was sat there staring blank eyed.

If I manage to get the day off next week, I'm going to head over to Frasers again and have another game, faster this time hopefully as we'll have a bit of a grounding to start with.

Until next time, have nice day...

*And this is where I made my first mistake by spreading out too much. I should have clustered the main body of Berzerkers around ANGRON.

**This was to set much of the theme of the game.

***One of the all time classic quotes from Bloodbowl, the Chaos coach shouting from the sidelines "FORGET THE BALL, GET STUCK IN!"

****"Blood Surge: if a model is removed as a casualty, the unit runs D6 inches towards the nearest enemy unit and can end up in combat, counting as charging" great stuff and allowed me to get then in a turn earlier.

*****The Old "Furious Charge" ability. Because you do not get a charge bonus in 10th edition, so it has to become an army rule or a stratagem...

******The internet has lost its collective mind over this, and it's something which isn't important, but I have my own thoughts on it, which I will address in a future Blogpost.