Bolt Action Game Using 1/72 Miniatures

Steve, that guy from Cheat'n Steve's, and I had our first 1/72 scale bolt action game last night. We used a few fun custom rules, which I'll leave to him to explain on his blog. The initial game consisted of two roughly evenly platoons. Despite the German forces being dug in and ready for attack, the American forces annihilated the German defenders. A swift and efficient American advance took control of the bridge.

For the second part of the campaign, each side was giving reinforcements. The loss of the bridge would have allowed Allied forces easy access the marsh. With this loss risking other German fronts, I was given a platoon of Stugs supported by an infantry platoon. I choose to bring the stugs on first since my troops lacked transport. The stugs worked amazingly well. They thrust deep into the American lines, using their machine guns to suppress forward deployed troops, and regain control of the bridge. The counter attack was risky, but some very unlucky shots from the sherman tanks meant that the stugs were able to close down both roads to American vehicles. With losses of two tanks, Steve's posture changed to defensive, and he prepared to fight back the advancing German platoon.

Every part of the game was enjoyable. We used custom rules, we ignored points, and we tried move models in keeping with military doctrine(or john's doctrine which uses medics as scouts). I hope Steve has some photos of his squads advancing to the bridge during the first part of the game. It looked incredibly realistic. I learned a lot from the game.

• Stugs are great in bocage
• I need to learn how to maneuver squads in a mutually supporting way
• I shouldn't fear losing some troops if it means I can redeploy to a better position
• 1/72 plays wonderful without any modification to Bolt Action

Various WWII

 28mm Tiger and Puma

The table setup for a 28mm game. All of the terrain is scratch built.

 Heroic 28mm on the left, and 1/72 scale on the right. 

I played my first game on the new table last Saturday against Owen's Russian forces. I was committed to using both the Tiger tank and Puma armored car and consequently faced down two T34 tanks and bucket loads of soviet infantry. It was a lot of fun to finally play on the table, and more photos of the battle are coming.

Take a look at the Sherman turret next to that King Tiger turret. I know which one I think wins in a fight. On the bright side, the German tanks were poorly welded due to difficulties in the manufacturing process. This meant that an allied shots that would not normally be able to penetrate the King Tiger's armor could still cause spalling on the interior. Basically the welds came apart and shot through the interior,  damaging the vehicle and potentially killing the crew. We'll see how well this big cat does against a full Sherman platoon in an upcoming game. Even five on one it doesn't seem fair.

Basing Miniatures to Match the Terrain

Normally wargaming terrain does not match the basing of the miniatures used on the tabletop. My latest push has been to make all of the the models, terrain, and even the table itself, match in every way possible. This means using the same dirt tones from the roads on the vehicles, and having the same basing applied to the miniatures. Above, you can see the result. Now these photos do not show the rest of the terrain features that will go on the board, such as a norman church, small house, bocage, and telegraph poles, but it does show how well the bases match the table.

One of the interesting side effects of making everything match, is that despite the low-ish painting quality of the infantry, they look really good on the table. I really like how the bases are minimized from view. If I hadn't started going to historic miniatures gaming conventions I would not have even attempted such a think. Maybe I need to make building a table part of every army building process.

Bolt Action Final Stretch

 

The American forces are almost complete! At this point, we can almost play the Bolt Action scenario I've been working on. I'm pretty sure the allies players are going to enjoy this kind of fire power, especially because full tank platoons are included. I have some final work to do on the trucks, and have to paint another 50 riflemen, but overall, I am really really happy with the progress I've made.

The mud is a mixture of weathering powder and plaster, slathered on. I then used a flicking brush motion to add light and dark oils over the top of the mud patches. At first I thought I may have gone overboard, but when the force is viewed together it looks really good on the table.

One oddity of batch painting like this, is that my infantry are a much lessor quality than the vehicles. I may go back and rectify that at some point, but I suspect this will be the standard for a while. Conventions and club games are rough on miniatures, so it makes sense to stick with more durable paint jobs.

1/72 Scale Bolt Action Part 2

With pin washes in place, the vehicles are really starting to look the part. This is the point that many people stop. For me, this is finally the step where I can start weathering the vehicles. This means painting on chips, adding streaking grime, adding watermarks, adding dust, and adding mud. Once all of those things are in place, these will look less like toys and more like scale models. On the other hand, they are far enough along now to be used in some preliminary games. That is a pretty big step forward in our 1/72 scale model inventory.

1/72 Scale Bolt Action US Army Vehicles

With my 1/72 scale terrain ready to play on, and my german forces ready for battle, I decided to use the winter storm we've been having here on the east coast to batch paint up some vehicles for my American forces.  Pictured here are 3 M3 half tracks, 4 Sherman tanks, 4 M10 Wolverine tank hunters, four trucks, and two M7 priests. The kits vary from quite nice plastic model kits, to very lackluster armourfast fast build kits. Despite the wide range in detail, I think these will look great on the tabletop once they have had pin washes, chipping, streaks, and weathering powders applied. 

The German forces already have 5 stugs at their disposal, along with a howitzer, and an anti-tank gun. I may paint up a few panthers and a tiger to fill out their list, but once these Americans are finished we'll be ready to play. 

I've been kicking around how I'd like the first game to go, and I think it will begin with first contact, followed by waves of reinforcements. That will probably play much better than just giving the players all of the toys at once. The American forces will have a platoon of Shermans and a platoon of infantry to advance through the crossroads. Germans will have a prepositioned anti-tank gun and a full platoon of veteran Heer infantry. They'll be packing a lot of panzerfausts and panzershreks in addition to ranged in mortar shots. Germans will eventually get a stug zug or tiger as reinforcement, while the American forces will be able to call on an armored infantry platoon and an M10 wolverine platoon depending on the shape of the battle. I think it is important to have a bunch of potential reinforcements, and then let timing and disposition of them depend on the situation on the ground. A key to this will be the German team deciding to lure the first platoon into a trap. But you never know how players will decide to act in a GM'd game. That is probably the best part of running one of these. 

Normandy Table WIP #2

We are having a fun snow weekend here in DC, and I had the chance to work on the table this morning. The river went in after a slew of water issues, and then plants were added all around the water areas. I came up with what I though was a great idea to cast up a bridge, and managed to get it done and placed just before leaning on it. The cracks will need to be covered over with debris. The tanks on the table are for 28mm Bolt Action. The table was built for 1/72 gaming, which will make the fields feel more like fields.

Normandy Table WIP Step 1

They look a bit rough at the moment, but once the gallon of glue dries I'll be able to move onto the next step, which is smoothing out the roads and making them more of a tan color. These work as muddy roads, but I'd like the center of the road to be dry. The river section will get some work tomorrow as well, gaining rocks and foliage. The bridge i ordered will not arrive until next week, so the water effects won't be able to go in for quite a while.

So, with that laundry list of things to do, I am pretty pleased that this only took half a day to get to this point. I think once all of the details are added it will start looking more the part. I am hoping that the board is spongy enough to allow me to use pins to stick in trees and telephone poles. That is the main purpose of the test.

One of the down sides of the board so far, is that even in this wet state, the models are hard to see. Their bases match the boards well enough that visually the troops kind of hide on the table.