If......

 I wonder as I drive along on a fifty mile journey having dragged myself from my bed and looking at the heavy dark clouds reminiscent of Mordor in the distance, why, why at almost seventy years of age do I do this to enjoy a few hours of moving wee sojers around a table and surrendering myself to the Fates in the shape of the ever fickle dice. I am not sure of the answer but I love it.

Anyway, I got to Penrith while it was still dry and marched to the Dungeon for a game with Matt Crump, he had laid out a scenario set in Norway in 1940, a German platoon with supports had to capture two bridges and a small village crossroads, the Norwegians of course had to stop them. The Norwegians (Matt) were all in ambush and their troops would not be put on the table until the Germans managed to get within 12" of their die, or Matt could decided to open fire before this happened. The Germans had armour and one truck while the Norwegians had one A/T gun and the chance that their platoons had made up a few Molotov Cocktails (a die roll on entry to the table), and just in case they had a British anti-tank rifle team.

The table was a lovely set up as usual, Matt really goes out of his way to make things look as good as possible and today was no exception. The rules were Bolt Action 1 with a few tweaks, also if anything comes up Matt always errs on the side of commonsense, which I am happy to go along with.

The bridges

The crossroads

My forces

I sent my infantry straight up the centre while the left hand bridge was seized by my truck infantry, 222 armoured car and bringing up the rear a PzII, the right hand bridge was left to the PzI and a squad of infantry. The Norski anti-tank gun, it could have been British, could not contain itself and a shot immobilised the 222, which for the rest of the game became a pillbox, the MMG on the left was quickly left with only one man as crew, not a great start. No matter I kept going forward and started dropping mortar fire on the gun to no avail, but slowly my one man MMG and the 222 began to build pins on the enemy A/T gun and nearby MMG which had an adverse effect on those weapons. Soon I had reached half way to the village and more and more enemy troops were turning up, a sniper quickly took out a squad LMG but did nothing else during the game but attract a lot of lead.

I take the first bridge

I take the second bridge

Norwegian ski troops

Just as I had taken both bridges and got my main force over the stream one of my squads opened up on friends nearby (double six) and killed half the squad. I then took a chance and climbed a hill on the right to force Matt to show what was on the other side and he managed to strike down seven of the squad in one volley, oops. No matter I was still edging closer to the village and the PzI was causing a lot of pain to the enemy to its front, I threw the survivors of the unlucky squad who suffered from friendly fire at a machine gun behind a wall and they clubbed the surviving crew member to death, but then suffered another accurate volley and disappeared. Both sides were now running out of troops and the crossroads could not be taken by vehicles. A last titanic effort brought my surviving squad within six inches of grabbing the crossroads. The game ended after turn 10.

Tank of the match, PzI

So close yet so far

Superstitious, Moi?

A close run thing and a draw as I had held on to both bridges, I have put this aside to play again, possibly at the club with a bit of tweaking for Normandy or the Eastern Front. Matt had a couple of excellent firing turns but also a lot of morale fails, I had some good hits but could not convert them to kills, although I did manage to dish out a lot of pins due to always getting at least one hit if not a kill. The friendly fire was a real kick in the teeth just as I was about to run forward, also my mortar got two hits out of the ten turns, a bit pathetic. Nonetheless a great little game, Matt has expressed interest in trying a Chain of Command campaign next, I shall look forward to that.

I had another Bolt Action game this week on Tuesday at the club against Jimi, a game which has been postponed for several weeks due to circumstances beyond our control. It was just a throw down game somewhere in Normandy. I took three Heer squads along with a Waffen SS squad with two LMG's, an infantry gun, a sniper and a 251/22 which is a halftrack with a big anti-tank gun on it, it is cheap. Jimi had three squads I think one of which was veteran Paras, a 6lb anti-tank gun, sniper and that damn AVRE with the big squad killing mortar, which I hoped my big anti-tank gun would sort out or perhaps the infantry gun would load it up with pins.

So much for the big gun

Another victim

And yes, a third disappointment

I suffered the misfortune of all my deployment dice coming out of the bag against only two of Jimi's, I had hoped to build up a field of fire with the infantry gun and the Waffen SS squad but it was not to be. I did manage to get off the first shot with my 251/22 but it bounced off the British monster, the British anti-tank gun was a bit of a surprise to me and I had not hid the haltrack very well and it became a smoking wreck. Not to worry, I could still hurt the enemy with what I had left, or so I thought. An artillery barrage hit my boys and was only causing a few pins until it hit my infantry gun and wiped out the crew. I bravely struggled on but an aggressive move by Jimi cut down another of my squads and with four command dice gone to two British dice I shook hands and called it a day. Although the halftrack was cheap what is the point of buying a model of one if you do not use it, I have more of the same waiting their turn.

Light mortar

Tough fighters

Jimi's boys flush with victory

If only I had not thrown that Fubar, if only I had not lost that infantry gun.........

I am taking the Italian Wars next week and the week after to introduce Simon and Stewart to Furioso and to scratch an itch after all this painting. Julian will be bringing his troops for a mid-week game on the 30th, so a busy time for the new army. I have managed yet another arquebus unit, Landsknechts this time and have another 16 French gunners that should be finished by club night. I have even more crossbows and arquebusiers to add before putting the French to bed, for now. I also got another French gendarme unit with supporting heavy cavalry, you can never have enough cavalry for the Italian Wars, especially in a French army. Before I start the imperials next year I might side step and build a camp and some fieldworks.