28 June - Bolt Action vs The Brother

Well we finally managed to get together and fit a game in. The Brother had spent what time he had this week finishing off some more of his British for Bolt Action, so German's in hand I drove up to his place to get our game in.

Unfortunately he didn't quite have a 1000pts painted up ready to go so a quick adjustment of my list down to 850ish and we were set to go. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing but we rolled for the mission and managed to roll up Top Secret which is the only scenario I've ever played so far in a two player Bolt Action game. I know he'll ask me to get you all to excuse his WIP building on the close edge of the first photo.




The scenario starts off with all our troops in reserve but being able to come on in the first turn. The objective is to secure the intel in the centre of the table with an infantry unit and get it off the table edge before the six (or possibly seven) turns have elapsed. The first turn saw both of us get everything on but our troop carriers on, The Brother's with a five man regular infantry squad and mine with my 2nd lieutenant and his attendant. Some early order dice left myself with a few early pin markers and casualties, while my usual skill with the dice left the British basically untouched.

The first of many misses from my Hetzer

The second turn saw a plethora of British order dice pulled early giving The Brother a chance to move in on my positions and lay down some more pins and a small amount of casualties. My ten man regular unit on the left flank did what I was hoping and drew the fire of the Cromwell, going down and managing to gain but a single pin and no single casualty. Unfortunately my Hetzer failed to hit again, leaving the task up to one of my smaller panzerfaust equipped units who fired all four of their single shot weapons, with only one hitting. Then a massive penetration. Here we go..... snake eyes, no damage at all, although it did give him another two pins to deal with next turn so not a total loss. We also saw his Bren carrier enter the fray, while my 250/1 refused to come on leaving me with the HQ still sitting around waiting.

Left flank at the end of turn 2

Right flank at the end of turn 2

Turn three and now some serious carnage began on both sides. Finally the Hetzer managed to land a hit on the Cromwell. Again massive penetration. Two damage table rolls incoming....... What have I done to offend you oh great gods of the dice?!?!?! Two twos, well on the bright side it's now immobile and has six pin markers so I'm pretty sure it's out for the game now at least, just in the most unspectacular way possible. Meanwhile on my left flank I managed to wipe his Veteran unit from the table before they'd managed to do much more than a single pin and rifleman kill.
However he than began to demolish my poor unit on the side unloading his five man squad, moving another central ten man squad and opening fire with his Bren carrier. This left them a tattered remnant with but four men left after all three had finished their activations. I attempt to rally the poor men, but they felt they'd prefer to keep their heads down and see what happened. He also moved his last ten man squad up to the intel marker securing it. His last dice saw his forward artillery observer plant his marker down near my HQ, 250/1 and most successful unit this game. Things were not looking great for me. The only thing left to me was to move the 250/1 up slightly and position it so I could attempt to throw a little support toward the unit and attempt to get some pins on the centre of the table to attempt to stop him getting that intel off.

Fresh rifleman unit begins it's attack

The centre doesn't look too friendly either

The 250/1 attempts to support my rapidly
collapsing flank

So last turn The Brother lay down his artillery marker as I'm sure you'll recall from the last paragraph. Now he has to roll to see what happens...... a one! Disaster for him and to be honest this will have more effect on his game than anything I've done at this point. I move the marker up to the centre of the table which, as you'll remember, he currently has locked down quite handily. The final result after the shells stop falling is terrible. The forward observer himself has fallen to friendly fire along with the Cromwell that I was unable to do much more than halt. His HQ and two remaining units are alive but are now so shell shocked they will have trouble doing much of anything for the rest of the game. This also gave me a firm advantage in order dice for this turn.

My order dice definitely gave me the edge for this turn and I took full advantage of it, throwing pin markers on both the central units and cutting them down even further, but unfortunately it wasn't enough. While I'd stopped the British from securing the objective I was unable to get it off the table before games end. His squad held off long enough that I was forced to fire on them with my HQ (who bloody missed them anyway) instead of being able to just move in and grab the intel leaving me too far from the table edge to manage to get it off in time. We settled up at the end of the turn, both happily calling it a draw and a fitting end to a hard fought game.

Centre of the table at the time of the draw

Edit: I'll add a link to The Brother's blog as he's got his own post up now for this one as well.


It was great to get in and have a game for the first time in at least four months, we're both hoping it'll be less of a gap this time. We've still got to get that six point Saga game in some time soon now he's got his extra Welsh painted up and we've both got plans to expand the Bolt Action forces from here out as well. Also don't forget to have a look at the Shattered Crown kickstarter now that it's live.