A blog dedicated to wargaming - especially Bolt Action WWII games. We aim to play the whole game - figures, scenery, terrain and the story - for players and spectators in demonstration and public participation games.
In November we had another Boot Camp, but this time had a couple of themed boards for our recruits to experience a different game than just an encounter or two normal competition armies.
We had 8 recruits join us for the day starting at 10am and finishing at 4pm. A great day for gaming and learning new things. Night fighting is tricky!
Pegasus Bridge
The first game was a game in three parts.
Part One had the British Airborne land in gliders at night and overwhelm the shirkers waking up to guard the bridge. The defenders aim was not so much to win, but to whittle down the attackers. Veterans vs Shirkers is not much of a challenge.
Part two was for the airborne to capture the rest of the bridge, with potential daylight after turn two. Also unbalanced in favour of the airborne.
Last part we had LOTS of German reinforcements. A regular army with a Marder III and on turn three we had veteran Panzer Grenadiers with Panzer IV from the other side of the river.
Ready to face the Western defenders.
It was interesting seeing the difference Bolt Action v3 made. When we ran the game using v1 (!!) over 11 years ago, the shirkers made a lot more impact. In this game they were rolled over as if they were hardly present.
Overall, despite the imbalance, just the concept of an unbalanced game was a fun experience, especially on such a nice board.
St Mere Eglise
Ready for action
Keeping with the theme of dawn on D-Day, we had US Paratroopers drop into the city of Mere Eglise. Using the time honoured tradition of squares of paper for each figure, dropped from a ruler 36" above the table, it was great seeing the fluttering paratroopers drop into the town. A couple landed in the burning buildings so they were counted as casualties.
Very conveniently, a LMG and rifleman both landed in the church tower. Cool! After the chaos of the paratroopers trying to rally and stray paratroopers fighting the patrolling German squad, the Germans had to wake and get their act together.
LMG landed first - where's my loader? Ah, There he is!
A lovely stage of confusion with night fighting and then reinforcements began arriving from another 600 pt army of US Airborne and Germans.
The end result was a draw - which was fitting considering the fighting chaos.
Our recruits were very surprised when we had some goodies to share provided by our very generous sponsors.
A sprue for every player was provided by Warlord Games and War & Peace Games.
A number of lucky door prizes of troop and support boxes as well as some crafting gear was provided by Wargames Atlantic and War & Peace Games. The lads were very excited to have a day of gaming and more troops to build later!
The 5 year old brother of some of the recruits came along and watched. He had brought some of his savings to buy "some Bolt Action" like his brothers. We had picked up a variety of well priced gear at the well run MOAB Bring and Buy in October. He had a huge grin as he tightly held his new King Tiger. What a way to start Bolt Action!
Some of our recruits have attended most of our events this year as well as a competition or two. They are sharing their Bolt Action rulebook and it is VERY well read, spine broken but taped up. It is good to see them enjoying wargaming together.
We arrived early on the day of Victorius 25 at Box Hill Town Hall, and unloaded the very full cars with all the bits and pieces we needed for the game - Battle for Outer Cherbourg.
After a little negotiation with our neighbouring tables, we made a gap around our table so we were able to move from the front to the back and reach all parts of the board.
Satisfied, we stood back and announced to each other we were ready.
Then we realised we forgot to bring a copy of the rule book! Oops. We quickly borrowed a copy from one of our graduates who were playing in the competition.
NOW we were ready!
The doors opened at 10am and the people kept on coming. The first 20 minutes we had a few interested but they wanted to do a trip around all the marvellous demo tables first. Couldn't blame them for that.
The way we run a demo game is that we are in the front of the table on the side of the visitors, showing them the board.
As I said to Sebastian, "Remember the one critical criteria that is needed when you try to convince someone to play."
"What's that?" he asked.
"They're breathing," I answered firmly.
By 10:30 we started our first game. All were new players, although one had watched videos so had an idea of what was involved.
I explained to many of the players one advantage of a board with multiple levels is that you get all these amazing angles and situations of cover and movement. I explained that in one of our games some years ago, a young lad ran his units up along the railway track. Older, "wiser" players suggested he was wasting his time as all the action was on the ground level.
Then on turn 4, the lad raced his unit up the stairs and captured the objective!
Grinning, the wiser, now more experienced, players apologised and told him he did well.
We ended up playing 3 games during the 6 hours, each having 4 players (with one being a father/son team), so 13 players in total. All were new or had only seen Bolt Action on line. As we have experienced in the past, by the end of turn one all players had a good grasp of the game mechanics, by turn two they started realising implications of dice, cover, range and weapons, and by turn 3 they knew what to do with only a little guidance from us.
650 point, 6 to 8 dice forces worked really well. Each pair of players shared a dice bag, but they could fire across the board at the other opposing player.
Typically turn one or two when a tank fired across the railway line made all players far more conscious of the possibilities!
The board had three objectives. To capture one, you needed at least 3 men from a unit within 3 inches of the objective at the end of the game.
One objective was the fountain with the girl cooling her feet in the water, pretending to ignore the young lad singing on his guitar.
There was plenty of cover, but players quickly worked out the impact of having no cover (bad) and the impact of who gets to move first or last. At times I had to volunteer a spectator to pull a dice from the bag so the players couldn't blame me or their opponent, especially when the dice pull was critical.
This objective was the mysterious wooden crate labelled "From Palestine to Indiana State University".
It was on the flatbed of the train carriage, overlooked by the bridges, with tunnels and balconies. Lots of shooting and racing! The power of pinning a unit affected the last turn with the British failing morale rolls, the Germans above failing morale, and the German unit on the platform charging through and grabbing the objective with the last dice. Victory!
After 6 hours of games, we didn't actually need to open the rule book. Ha!
War and Peace Games sponsored us with some Bolt Action figure sprues. We built a number of sample figures of all types from various armies, found some appropriate containers and packed them with some newspaper so the figure wouldn't get damaged and labelled each one appropriately. Every player received a figure as a thank you for playing.
This was greatly appreciated by the players as they had something tangible to take home to remind them of their experience.
Do these demo games work? We know they do. A quarter of the players in the competition at Victorius 25 were our graduates from the Bolt Action Boot Camp last year.
The demo games we ran some years ago resulted in many new players still in the hobby today.
I started playing back when I was 12 (that's a long time ago!). The Nunawading Wargames Association ran their Open Day and I played my first war-game. Great fun, and I have been a gamer ever since.
Victorius is the latest development from the open games days the club has been running for almost 50 years!
It was a dark and wintry Friday night in Albury when we set up the hall ready for the inaugural 2025 Kings Birthday Border Clash tournament. As we had plenty of space and folding tables, we were able to provide a very civilised gaming setup with space and an empty table between the gaming boards. This allowed players to properly set up their gear on the central tables and have space to store their troops on the edge of the boards.
The DemoGamers were able to provide the 6 gaming boards plus a very detailed demonstration board. We need to do some more scenery days to expand our roads, hedges, trees and more to properly fill the boards!
The tournament attracted 12 players, of which 7 were new - that is, they had played less than 5 games before this event. We are not counting just competition games, but any games at all. Our seasoned players enjoyed the varied tables and opponents who improved each round of play. The first round had more basic questions, but by the third round every player was having more challenges as all the new players had mastered the basics and were trying new strategies and tactics. The best part of new players is that they don't know certain moves aren't normally done. So when they are tried in the game, all participants learn why they aren't normally done, or discover some interesting new options to try next time!
Here are our volunteers and the layout after finishing set up around 9pm on Friday evening.
We always try to ensure our historical boards tell a story. It's always more interesting fighting over "The Manor" or "The Factory" or "The fishing Village" than just a random collection of terrain pieces.
As part of the Tournament, we not only supplied the 6 boards, but also 3 tournament armies, 4 demo armies and the spare dice and tapes as required. We want to ensure that all the new players get to enjoy their day with all the right gear.
Here are a couple of highlights of the day. This photo shows the successful advance of a German squad with a panzerfaust, close to the very heavy Churchill tank. Boom! A well spent 15 points for the panzerfaust.
We were relaxed about painted armies as we knew we had so many brand new players. Everyone understood that grey "ghost" armies are OK, just so we can bring new players in. Even so, we had many well painted armies which really worked well with the detailed boards.
Sometimes, the dice gods are not on your side. As players quote "Bolt Action Happens" when the vagaries of the dice rolls dismantle their best laid plans.
Here the squad went to pass an order test with only one pin. 12. FUBAR! They then rolled friendly fire and shot at the officer team right next to them. All hit, but no wounds. Phew!
Another sad tale was the Flak 88mm attempting to pass an order test and getting a 12, then run off the table. Boom. A very expensive order dice abandoned in the field. At least the player with most FUBARs won a prize and choice from the prize table.
The sponsorship for the day was exceptional. Plenty of choice for certificate winners and after they all had a go, there was enough for all participants to have a pick. No one left without prizes worth more than their entry fee.
We have been asked to show the boards we used in the tournament so here they are:
The Bocage Board - Normandy
Lots of bocage which counts as hard cover, and a lot of it is sight blocking terrain for infantry.
Deceptively open in patches, then blocked in others.
The Chateau - France
Bordering fields and a manicured garden. More open areas, with hard and soft cover walls, plus rough grounds for the wheat fields.
Jungle Pipe Factory
Railway line through bamboo jungle and paddy fields.
A lovely mix of hard and soft cover, lanes of fire and hiding places and buildings to fight over.
The City that shall be named
We have collected lots of lovely buildings over the years and wanted to see how a game worked with lots of buildings in Bolt Action v3. It worked well, despite all the fears from the changes to buildings made in v2 and carried through to v3. Yes, being in a building when facing a tank or gun is sad, but you can move through buildings and the tank can't catch you! And you can pop up behind a tank really easily. Viva la Panzerfaust and Bazooka!
Time for more roads!
Our Lady of the Snow - Winter Church board
A very large church dominates the board with fields, hedges and walls and a smaller house with orchard.
Turn 2 with only 1 shot fired. Bad French positioning.
Peter and I ran a playtest of our 1940 factory board. You can see our forces in our previous post. It was always going to be a challenge for the Germans considering the number of troops the French were fielding. So I was given the advantage of playing French.
Tuen 1 the French placed one of the medium howitzers in a great spot. Well, "great" until the German PzIII rolled on board, fired and killed half the crew.
The Germans placed all their infantry to attack the factory while the French split their troops to capture both the factory and the warehouse.
Another French error was placing the mighty FT17 in reserve. Clever tactic allowing the FT17 to go 12 inches a turn in Reserve, but flawed as I picked the flank where the German infantry weren't.
Swarms of men surround the factory
Ah well.
Luckily, the Germans placed their light howitzer on that flank.
The end of turn 2 ended with four squads of French facing all the German infantry.
Turn three saw the FT17 pop on and attack the light howitzer in the flank, killing on crew. The French advanced into the building shooting another of the crew and the remaining fellow chucked it all in and left to fight another day.
The factory saw a frontal assault by a French inexperienced squad wipe out a German squad, to be destroyed in turn by the nearby Germans.
More assaults destroyed each other until all that was left was a half German squad in the central building, a full French squad at the edge of the factory and various 2 man squads.
Sneaky flanking FT17 - Much faster!
You can't see the piles of casualties the HQ climbed over.
So at the start of turn 3 the Germans decided they could not make a difference and called it. Chickens!
All up a good but short game and we learned a few more important tips.
1. Don't place the Howitzer in danger when you have spotters.
2. Place reserves on reserve at the end of the turn.
3. The Germans need to get into the buildings quickly and place their full force on one flank, supporting each other.
It is always a good game leaving you to try it again.
Our first public play test went very well. We ran two games at The Company of Dice meeting showing 8 players the fun that is Bolt Action.
The best part about giving public participation games is we get to meet new people and share the fun that is Bolt Action. Part of that fun is the different ideas and perspectives new players provide which we had not considered during our preliminary testing.
In the game (Scenario Here) the German river defenders have a Panzer III N - the one with a light howitzer. We figured this would act as a mobile pillbox patrolling along the docks and annoying the Russians. One player was having a challenge in turn 2 when the Russians were hiding behind the docks and he couldn't get at them as well as he wanted.
So he asked, "Can I go onto the ice?"
After a few blank looks as my son and I considered the question, we figured that was a fun idea and said, "Why not?"
We decided that if the tank goes on the ice it has to roll a dice whenever it uses a RUN or FIRE order. 1,2,3 and it cracks the ice and sinks.
After the flying leap as the tank charged onto the ice, the roll of a 4 meant the ice stayed solid. But nothing else could be achieved that turn. Next turn the Russians on one side charged up over the docks so they wouldn't get hit in the open by a howitzer and MMG. So the Panzer III turned its turret and shot the Russian MMG, blowing it sky high.
"Yeah!" cried the German player.
"Now roll for the ice," we instructed.
1.
"Ah, well," he said.
"Cinematic," we all agreed and the game continued.
We have had to make a few changes to the scenario, making the Germans roll a morale roll before firing on their first turn, to represent their recovery from an assumed preliminary bombardment. No pins, just a morale check to fire on the first turn. That should balance up the opening charge across the frozen river.
There is the additional bonus objective if the two Russian forces meet. This is trickier than it sounds as any city game is quite deadly on forces.
In our second game the Veteran Siberians had only their NCO remaining. The last remaining land based Russian squad was within 12 inches. It was turn 6 which meant it was time for a "Cinematic moment".
The NCO charged from the Harbour offices across to the other Russians. A squad of German Volks Grenadiers had been positioned in the second floor of the neighbouring factory with an AMBUSH order. There was a small gap between the buildings through which they could see the running Russian and they elected to fire on the NCO. 10 attack dice resulted in 3 hits. Of those 3 hits, one dice rolled a 5 which meant the NCO was killed.
So close.
The players looked at each other and said, "Cinematic" and the game raced to an exciting completion.
Overall the game worked very well. Even though the Russian player considered calling an end in turn four of the second game, I suggested he continue as in Bolt Action, anything can happen and players must always remember the adage, "I'm not dead yet".
Sure enough, the game ended up being a draw after a series of amazing moves, with all players getting very strategic over their use and timing of each order dice pulled from the bag. Also, as both sides were fighting intensely over the objectives there was great confusion with fire from units activated from each bag, resulting in a lot of "fog of war" moments, such as "Where did he come from?" and "Oops, I forgot about those guys".
Thanks to all those that played and the guys from The Company of Dice for a great club and venue. We ended up as exhausted and thrilled as the players after each game.
Which is why we enjoy being the Demo Gamers.
After many weeks preparing, we finally had our first playtest of our new demo board for our Attack on Lorient Submarine Dock 1942 game. We had a couple of challenges as we needed to have 6 x 600 point armies and 3 objectives.
The Armies:
Allies:
Commandoes by Sea
These fellows arrive by rubber boat (6 inches movement) and can grapple up 6 inches from a fixed point in one turn.
HQ 2 men, 4 squads (6 men: LMG, 2 SMG, 3 Rifle), Sniper Team with "Up and at 'em" special rule.
The view from the Police Station
The commandoes come by sea
Commandoes by Land
These fellows come in from the right hand side of board when looking at the dock from the beaches. Same as other force but replace Sniper with MMG team.
Partisans
HQ, 1 squad of Veteran Guerillas (LMG, SMG, 6 Rifles), 3 Partisan squads (LMG, Pistol, SMG, 7 rifles), MMG team. They have the modified special Partisan rule of 2 Bombs set into the War memorial in front of the police station. If one goes off, the memorial and second bomb is destroyed. Basically it is 2 chance for the bomb to work.
The secret weapon stolen from the British
Battle on the U Boat
The German Defenders
Kriegsmarine
The ship Captain, 2nd Lieutenant HQ, 4 squads Kriegsmarine (LMG, SMG, 8 rifles), Regular MMG. 2 squads are patrolling at the start of the game, the rest are asleep in the Hotel or houses near the submarine, MMG set up on ambush.
Port Defenders
HQ, 4 regular Heer (LMG, SMG, 7 rifles), MMG. 1 squad within 6 inches of winch house guarding secret prize, another on patrol anywhere, MMG set up on ambush.
HQ, SS Veteran squad (LMG, SMG, 6 rifles), 2 Heer Regulars (LMG, SMG, 8 rifles), MMG team, Sdkfz 222. These guys come in from edge near the church, top left corner.
"We killed someone!" - newbies celebrating their first kill
The Objectives
Background:
On return from a secret mission (so not recorded in the history books) U 505 was hit by a RAAF plane and severely damaged. The U boat was carrying 3 stolen prototypes from a British Research Laboratory, codenamed Ironsides. 2 were destroyed in the bombing and the surviving Ironside is stored in the Winch house. The U boat contains the plans for the German Secret laboratory to which the Ironside is destined.
Meanwhile Father Pierre is in custody in the prison with information critical to the resistance.
The Commandoes by Sea and Kriegsmarine must control the submarine superstructure in order to get the location of the German secret laboratory.
The Commandoes by Land and Port Defenders need to capture or retain the surviving Ironside stored in the Winch house.
The Partisans and SS are in a rush to get into the Police Station and rescue/interrogate Father Pierre.
How did the game go?
We had a couple of new players who volunteered to help us out: my daughter and my son's girlfriend. Neither had played before and so were a good testing ground for the game. They played the Port Defenders.
The only way to protect the prize
2 Commandoes vs 5 remaining Kreigsmarine
The game began in Night time and from turn 3 we rolled to see if dawn broke. The game stayed in night time until turn 7! This really meant lots of close combat as ranged shots were very difficult having to roll for the options to see at longer ranges.
The game worked well. We will make some fine tuning of some of the forces, but the battle was pretty well balanced. The Germans retained control of the Ironside, while the Commandoes captured the U boat and the Partisans rescued Father Pierre.
We are ready for our first public playtest at The Combat Company Warehouse next Saturday 21 March from 10am.
Once we have done some more testing we will publish a full scenario as usual.
Today we had an enjoyable game teaching a friend how to play Bolt Action. We are grooming him to be a Demo Gamer Sergeant as our experience at Cancon means we will be needing more people helping us run demo games.
We have created a Youtube video giving a turn by turn run through of what happened, but here are some more details to help.
To show that we are not completely obsessed with buildings, today's board was a combination of fields and forest with only two small buildings.
Each army was 2 x 600 points as follows:
Germany:
Infantry with Sdkfz 222 in Forest:
1 x Regular HQ (2nd Lt, with 2 men)
3 x Heer Regulars (9 Men: LMG, SMG, 7 Rifles, 1 x PzFaust)
1 x Regular MMG Team
1 x Regular Sniper team
1 x Sdkfz 222
Total Pts: 609, 7 Order Dice
Forces coming on turn 1 - fields side
Panzer IV H and Volks Grenadiers (in fields)
1 x Regular HQ (1st Lt with 1 man)
3 x Volks Grenadiers (8 men: 5 x Assault Rifles, 3 x Rifle, 1 x PxFaust)
1 x Pz IV H (No side skirts)
Total Pts: 602, 5 Order Dice
Russians:
Infantry in Forest
1 x Regular HQ (2nd LT with 2 men)
3 x Regular LMG Squads (10 Men, SMG, LMG, 8 Rifles)
1 x Regular Medic
1 x Inexperienced Free Rifle Squad (6 men, rifles + AT grenades)
1 x Regular Med Mortar
1 x Veteran Tank Hunter Squad (4 men, SMGs, AT Grenades)
Total Pts: 603, 8 Order Dice
Turn one with the Germans advancing in force
T34 and Infantry in fields
1 x Regular HQ (2nd Lt with 1 man)
2 x Regular LMG squad (SMG, LMG, 8 rifles)
1 x Inexperienced SMG Squad (6 SMG)
1 x Inexperienced Free Rifle Squad (6 men, rifles + AT grenades)
1 x T34/85 Tank
Total Pts: 601, 6 Order Dice
And the Russians moving to meet them
This was quite a lot of men to go into the fight. We had two objectives, the T intersection near the houses and the bridge in the forest.
The game worked out to be an excellent introductory game for our friend. He had never played any wargame before, the closest similar thing would have been Risk or computer games. As we have experienced so often he had the basics worked out by the end of turn one and by turn 3 was making excellent decisions based on his options available. By turn 6 he was seeing so many choices he could make and plans being decided on and then trashed as the situation changed with almost every order dice being pulled.
Our forest area has lots of hills and gullies, uncrossable rivers and rough ground bridges with lots of sight and cover challenges. (As a side note it was interesting that the bridge was one we built about 10 years ago for another 28mm gaming system. This just shows you how our investment of time and effort into scenery can provide benefits for may years to come.)
Laser pointers are cool.
We use two key tools when determining line of sight and cover questions.
The first is a periscope (instructions are here)
The other is a new tool, the Army Painter - Targetlock Laser Line which was available shortly from War and Peace games but it sold out very quickly. New stock should be arriving in about 4 weeks. This laser pointer meets Australian laser power guidelines and you hold it above the board and point down, giving yo a lovely line on the board.
By turn 2 the Russians are getting control of the T intersection
Like many games, the first couple of turns are manoeuvring with not too much firing, then suddenly the troops are close enough for much more dangerous activities. The hard part is keeping some forces out of the thick of the fighting so they can take - and hold - the objective in turn 6.
In this game we had two very equal tanks - the German Panzer IV and the Russian T34/85. Turn one had the German player coming on first, which meant the Russian could then on come on and fire at him. Rolled to hit and succeeded. Then needed a 3+ to do any damage, but rolled a 1. Tink! Just a pin.
Both houses occupied, Russians ready to charge.
Turn 2 both tanks missed each other. Turn 3 the T34 hit and once more only scored a 1 to cause damage. Another Tink! In Turn 4, the Panzer IV had enough of this playing around and moved across to the house and decided to affect the objective.
The T34 raced across, hit and once more caused no damage. But in turn 6 - the critical turn - the Panzer IV failed morale and had to reverse away from the objective and go down.
This left the Russians in control and not enough Germans able to force the issue.
The Russians won the fields.
Charge!!
We win. Move back over the hill.
Charge!! Capture the bridge.
The Germans outmanoeuvred the Russians and decided to force the issue with some frontal assaults over the hill. Less than 6" away meant they were able to fight with no incoming fire and won the first combat, removing the Russian LMG squad. Close Combats are great!
The next attempt was a charge against the Russians holding the bridge. Poor rolls meant the attacking Germans, even though hitting first in the Russian flank, still killed less than the Russians and were defeated. Now there were not enough Germans left to wrest the bridge from the defending Russians.
Bah. Charges are stupid. Until next time.
At the end of the game we all stood around and smiled at the results.
The German HQ is the only German unit contesting the objective.
But the Russian HQ has solved that problem.
"Let's do it again," my sons said and the friend agreed. It was pretty impressive how well the new player did in the second game. In that game the result was a draw, one flag each, and the friend lost the battle, he agreed that he had actually won. He enjoyed the game and played Bolt Action, which is a win regardless of the score.
Now we will play more games and get him involved in some modelling and painting.
"But I've never painted before and I can't paint," he protested.
"Not a good enough excuse," we replied, "You'll learn that you can model and paint good enough for the table top. Don't worry about how Peter paints. He has been doing it for longer and has a gift. Just remember, it just had to look good enough from about 3 foot away tabletop standard - and that is not a difficult task."
And so it begins.
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