15th September - 13th September Bolt Action Vs The Youngest

With Christmas fast approaching I've been hassling the daughters in regards to what they would like to receive above and beyond their main presents (their computers are horrible out of date). The Eldest has requested extra things to do with the digital world, but The Youngest asked for minis. "What sort of minis" I exclaimed. "Well, I was thinking maybe Bolt Action but I'm not sure until we play" came the reply. Well what's a Dad to do, I quickly threw down a 3' x 4' board, cluttered it up some and we sat down to work out what we'd be fighting with. Being a bloodthirsty lass she wanted to do a Maximum Attrition scenario. We went Germans Vs Japanese (now before anyone gets up shouting, but they never fought against each other, I'm well aware of this but we were playing for the sheer joy of playing so historical accuracy took a distant second place) the Germans being mine and The Youngest using The Wife's Japanese.

Our forces were relatively well matched

• Two squads of infantry with single LMGs and a SMG in the hands of the NCOs. (Her's being ten man squads, mine being a six man with four panzerfausts {just in case and as time would tell a complete waste of points} and a seven man)
• One MMG three man team each
• One 2nd Lieutenant accompanied by two riflemen
• One armoured vehicle each, a Chi-Ha for her and a Marder III for me

We opted for complete unit kills being the winning option.

Turn one saw very little fire exchange with both of us trying to enter the field of battle breaking LoS where possible and hugging cover where it wasn't. Luckily for me I drew the last order die for the turn and managed to get my Marder on in a position where it could hit most of her left flank (where it then sat for the game) and opened fire with a HE round at one of her infantry squads taking out a single solider.

 During turn two The Youngest got her squad you can see on the table in the shot up against the farmhouse. My MMG team managed to kill a couple of men out of her other squad, but she was quite happy to lose a few men for the glory of the Emperor whilst getting into the position she was after. Her squad opened fire with the LMG being slightly out of range with the riflemen and managed to kill one of the men in the fire team. The Chi-Ha rolled ahead aggressively against the advice of her Dad and took a shot at the flanking Marder missing it completely. It's return shot took out her vehicles tracks.

 Turn three gave her the opening dice and she wisely took another shot at the Marder with her tank, but alas she didn't quite penetrate the hull. The next few dice were hers and she advance her squads again opening fire on the MMG team but missing this time. Her MMG team moved to a position where she could fire at my team and with my activation I took a shot at her team missing it completely. My infantry move forward my left flank heading into the trees and the other into the other standing house. The Marder finished the turn again hitting the Chi-Ha and taking it out of action with nice roll on the damage table, it also strafed the infantry in the ruins with it's MMG killing another couple of men.

Turn four saw us exchange our MMG teams in the first few order dice, her's killing mine, but my squad in the house opening up and taking a quick revenge. My next order dice saw the game turn to her favour and was pretty much the blunder that cost me the game. I moved the seven man squad up through the trees and opened fire at her HQ unit, barely managing to take out one of the accompanying riflemen. Doesn't sound to bad until you release I'd misjudged the distance between myself and the infantrymen on the other side of the farmhouse. "BANZAI" a massive handful of dice later and there wasn't a single man left to surrender to the squad of fanatics. The Marder kept up it's slow and steady kill rate taking out another three men from the other squad, reducing it to five men.

Turn five. Oh turn five how you haunt me even today, days later. The first order die for the turn was of course hers. And wouldn't you know the same squad the decimated my other squad was within charging distance of the squad fortified up in the house. The reaction fire managed to kill six of her men, but the remaining four got into grips with the German's in the house (The house allowing both sides of the combat to strike simultaneously) but to no avail all four hit and killed my soldiers compare to three of mine which saw the remaining three men surrendering to the katana wielding officer still standing in their midst.

I've forgotten how it happened to be honest but somewhere along the way I'd lost my HQ unit as well which left me solely with the Marder who decided discretion was the better part of valor and pulled a tactical retreat.

She totally enjoyed the game and has decided for Christmas she wants an Italian force.

In other news I've finished off my Dreadball Zzor and I've got a few kickstarters I'm backing at the moment but I'll put them up in a separate post tomorrow at some stage