Aaaargh!

My first club night in a month and full of enthusiasm I chose Bolt Action and a game against Simon's Russians, 900 points although I would have liked more. I wanted to use my Stummel so in order to do so, as the thing is for some unknown reason classed as a tank, as is the halftrack with the rockets on the side, I had to take two platoons as I also needed something to take on the inevitable KV1. I therefore ended up with four small squads, two of them veteran with two LMG's instead of one and a sniper. My plan was to bring down a lot of firepower on the big Russian squads and wipe them out.

Stummel.

  We rolled for the scenario and got Breakout from the 'Barbarossa to Berlin' book, the Germans had to get units into the western side of the battlefield or off the table, the Russians got points for killing German squads etc. The attack was at dawn therefore sighting rolls had to be made before the onset of daylight. The Russians set up along their line and managed to get two units dug in, this, along with the hidden rules meant these guys were almost impossible to hit, the chance of hitting the others was almost as bad. But hey ho, is that the sun coming up?

Some of Simon's lovely Russians.

 No, it wasn't the sun coming up, in fact the sun didn't appear until move six, this completely ruined my plan of superior firepower as I could not see anything, and when I did my guys either went to ground or missed completely. My so called veterans on whom I had been depending on to deal out death and stop the usual sneaky flamethrower were worse than useless.

Panzer IV

The KV1 turned up after a delay and the Panzer IV managed two shots at it, both hit but bounced off, the KV did nothing in return. My only success was the Stummel as I had predicted, it caught a Russian squad trying to sneak up and assault the Panzer, the HE shot caused enormous casualties and as the squad failed its morale it dispersed. Time was up and I had read the victory conditions wrong, although I had wiped out two Russian units I did not get points for them, I had no one on the Western table side as it would have been suicide to have run guys up there and suddenly the lights came on. Simon had killed one full squad and therefore got two victory points.

Useless veterans.

 A very disappointing game for me, partly due to me being a bit useless and partly down to terrible dice luck, for instance, four LMG's firing and getting no casualties at point blank range. The main reason though was not getting daylight until the very end turn, how unlucky is that, this negated my Plan A and I had no Plan B. I also think that the scenario has to be chosen before we start so that the forces can be tailored somewhat for that objective, because it is a game and not a simulation. We did manage to get through the visibility/night fighting rules which otherwise we would not have bothered with, would I use them again, probably if I had to or give a more specific intervention of daylight. My commander's watch must have been fast. At least the Stummel came through, yessssssss.

I have at last got back to my SYW painting, I am at the lace stage for the grenadiers and managed to do five of them in 45 minutes the other night, home alone tonight so I hope to get all the lace done on the remaining figures.

I have went a bit daft again with the cash lately, I got a couple of books, some new Winsor and Newton Series 7 brushes (ouch) and two more pieces of kit for Bolt Action, one for each side.