A Bloody Introduction

The big night has been and gone and I am sitting here licking my wounds, ouch. I was well organised with no one but me here so i skived off at times for five minutes or so during the day to pack stuff, I picked Simon up on time and we were almost the first to arrive. We sorted out the terrain and rolled for sides, I lost of course, I hardly ever seem to win one of these rolls, if it is for initiative, table edge, weather or whatever, I don't know why I bother.

We kept things small as both of us are on a learning curve with Bolt Action, so the table was roughly 4x4 feet, I realised later more room would have been better for me, I set up a small hamlet and as people started turning up the main interest was in the telegraph poles, despite all my lovely work on the buildings. Simon had brought three very large squads of Russians armed to the teeth, two I think had SMG's these were supported by two medium machine guns, the ones with the gun shield and wheels, and a flamethrower, 600 points. Simon likes flamethrowers, I seem to remember him using them to good advantage in a game of Chain of Command, I on the other hand think it is an ungentlemanly weapon however there is now one on the paint tray, just in case.

I should have taken that ruined house.

I took the force I had painted up, three seven man squads, MMG, sniper, mortar with spotter and motorcycle combination, I knew right away my squads were seriously outgunned, 579 points, sadly I couldn't even get a dog with sharp teeth for the remaining eleven points.

The Germans dig in, too cautious, and there is that house, right in front of them.

 We played a simple attrition game and during the first move most of my dice came out of the bag one after the other, I leapt forward to the nearest hedgerows and soon found myself short of cover trying to fit everyone in. I put my MMG on the left to cover an open field while the rest of my guys huddled in the centre with a squad way out on the right making a run along the table. My plan as Simon deployed his troops was to make my main effort on the left, kill off the squad there and then turn on the rest, this started off well until the MMG crew died in a hail of lead. I now brought a couple of squads over but found I was running out of room, I did manage to open up with the mortar and seriously damage the Russians behind the wall, hoping to finish them off I run my motorcycle up the road on their flank and sent more of them to meet their maker, but like proper Russians all this didn't seem to bother them.

Go get them guys.

 Meanwhile Simon moved a squad into the ruined building while advancing his other one along the hedgerows towards my sniper. I made a huge mistake by not occupying the ruined building, most of my wargaming does not and never has involved buildings, and if it does it is merely as a hindrance to movement so I have to change my ways. In quick succession I lost the BMW, one squad and the sniper team, all this at the end of turn four, I wasn't going to turn things around with only two moves to go so I put up the white flag as it was approaching home time.

Time to use the Recce rule.

 What did I think of the game, well I enjoyed it, we did spend a good amount of time looking rules up but I had found an index online and this helped enormously. There are times when the shooting results were particularly brutal, my MMG team and at least one squad can attest to that, but of course it is up to me not to put them in a position where this can happen. The basic rules are just that basic, but there are a lot of little nuances and special rules which make things very interesting and of course the main thing for me is that the initiative dice allow everyone to get a go.

Simon's Russians, very nice.

I must just say that Simon's plastic Russian infantry were lovely, my own reason for keeping to metal despite the excellent box sets is that I don't trust the weapons to say in one piece and I don't have the patience to build the figures. I bit the bullet and ordered two tanks yesterday, a Cromwell and a Panzer IV, although there is not a lot of armoured action in BA my Cromwell will be from 11th Armoured and all my Germans are 2nd Panzer.

I have forward observers and a British HMG on the paint tray at the moment, in the wings are my 'spares' which will be added to my squads to beef them up as this is necessary against those big Russian squads. In the post is the British armoured car, a couple of trucks and those tanks above, next will be more infantry, again to build all those squads up to ten men. The project is endless.