We Got a Game Played You Know.

Its whole purpose, was to have the shed for gaming. Lots of games have been played, but if I am honest, not a lot has been played recently…

This little book turned up in the post and changed all that.

Bolt Action is a game I like and have played a lot over the last year.  We haven’t played it for a while though as the next shiny thing came along I guess.  I have a good sized and fairly well painted (by my standards) German army. With a few small tanks…

Tank War allows more Tanks…  And all manner of other vehicles as well…  But mainly MORE TANKS!

My collection of vehicles for the Germans (lazy person that I am) is a smattering of painted models, and a collection of, mainly, diecast-prepainted vehicles.  1/43 and 1/48 scale do well (if slightly larger than the ‘true’ 28mm scale).  They are also usually cheaper and easier than buying plastic or resin kits.

We set up in the fields around a small hamlet and rolled for the amount of objectives. this is when we found out that we would be playing with only one…  It was, from that point, always going to be quick, and bloody, as all our units would be focused on gaining and holding the sentry box at the centre of the table.

First blood went to the Americans with their first Sherman gaining an easy kill on a German transport. Its surviving German Medium Anti Tank Gun quickly set up with the only field of fire it had left open to it, but without its tow it would not prove very effective for the remainder of the game.

The American plan to move forward early and take the first shot left their lead Sherman open for multiple shots in return.  It weathered most of these but finally the weight of fire proved sufficient to destroy it outright.

Focusing so much on one target bunched up the German forces and left them in the open for reprisals though.  Their AT Gun and Puma were soon smoking wrecks as the battle raged on elsewhere.

The other flank saw the lighter armour and faster units converging at a pinch point to the right of the objective. The only way through to the objective would mean going through the enemy column.  German Panzerfaust armed troops and a plucky little Panzer 38(t) were too much for the light American recon vehicles but would be held up long enough to stop them reaching the objective.

As the game came to a close the Americans were unable to move their remaining units up to support their initial advances and the Germans managed to hold the objective to win the game.

 

This played quicker than normal Bolt Action and was a nice change. We did not use the advanced crew rules or crew skills this time round but will be looking to get the guys to try an escalation style campaign over the next few games to add in these rules. It looks like quite a few more tanks are going to be seen on the table over the next months.