Victorius 25 - The Battle for Outer Cherbourg

Before the crowds arrived

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!

The Battle for Outer Cherbourg - Promo

 On 16 August we will be running the Bolt Action demo game for The Battle for Outer Cherbourg at Victorious at Box Hill, Victoria.

Here is a video providing a bit of an overview of the board and plan for the day.

We are greatly looking forward to joining the Nunawading Wargames Association and all the other players for an exciting day of gaming!

MOAB 2017 - Day Two

The Mighty Renault fit through the double doors.

Day two of MOAB 2017 is over and we are resting our feet and voices. Another 10 new players joined us today making a total of 26 players for the weekend. This is a great result for us and more young people, and Father-Son teams, may join in the fun of Bolt Action and historical wargaming in future.
Our plan to use both 500 and 900 point armies worked really well, combined with a board on which we can play two or three independent or combined games. This allowed us to get more players through than our previous method of fixed starting times of 9am, 12pm and 3pm.
For example, today we were able to fit in four players with 500 point armies in a combined battle on half of the board. Then after a few turns we started two other players using 900 point armies on the other side of the board.

The Russian Support goes Boom!

Not long later, once the 500 point players had a very close finish, two new players with 900 point armies took their place and had great games too. We highly recommend this more dynamic approach to running a public participation game. Everyone that visits has their own timetable and plans and the better we can fit in with them the more likely we get new players.

Sonja the Medic doing her job

It was really handy having use of a spare table next to the main board. We were able to set up each army with the accompanying Easy Army listing allowing prospective players with a line up of armies to choose. We didn't mind if some of the match-ups weren't fully historical as we were still able to have fun games and learn the rules and play style of Bolt Action. Russian vs Australian, Finnish vs German, German and Russians side by side against the British and French - they all worked great.
The spare table also allowed us a place to put all the upper levels of buildings once players entered into the city and Railway Station!

Yahtzee! But he wanted a 6

We realised that while our table may have been 4' x 8' it is actually a larger fighting area as most of the buildings had multiple levels, probably adding another few square feet of potential.
Enjoy the photos from today's games and we look forward to seeing you at our next event.
Thank you to the MOAB organisers for all their support and to Andrew and the Bolt Action competition for the great co-operation we were able to achieve.

Nice Walls. But they were in the way of the Cromwell.

The Russians assault the Cromwell

Today's fight over the U Boat

The Finnish troops getting ready to rush the U Boat

Winter Germans assaulting through the Railway Station

Nah Mate. We don't like 222's shootin' at us.

MOAB 2017 - Day One

German MG Team waiting for the oncoming enemy

The first day of MOAB was very busy for us. 16 new players learned how to play Bolt Action and enjoyed the scenery.

Forces gathering to capture the Station Main Hall

A young player fighting with the mighty Renault

Situated right next to the Bolt Action competition and the canteen was a prime location to capture the attention of any onlookers that expressed interest. As we expected, the presence of the U Boat and Railway station amongst three dimensional terrain gathered a lot of interest.
We ended up not using the concept of "spawning" forces from points on the board, but we did use a combination of 500 (5 dice) and 900 (8 dice) forces depending on the availability of players. That worked our very well.
Typically the smaller forces finished a game in 60 to 90 minutes and the larger in 120 to 150 minutes. So most of the time we had two games going at once that were not synchronised.
The last game was a synchronised game with 4 players using the larger forces with each team waiting until the whole turn was completed.
The game finished in 2.5 hours and players all had a good lesson in how Bolt Action works.
This post has a selection of shots taken throughout the day. Our sore feet and tired voices testify to the busy day and the smiles and thanks we received from the players was very rewarding. We had two Father-Son teams who had enjoyable games, ending in draws which mean both players won!
A couple of players came up to us pointing out the index in their books and saying "Thanks!"
(Here is the link to the index if you don't already have it)

Renault Assault!

Details of the board and some the armies we have used is here.

The Germans were not scared of the Renault

Tanks at knife fighting range

 Now for some rest on on to day two tomorrow.

It was a lazy little cafe - and everyone wants it!

We took a Cromwell along for protection!

Fighting under and around the U Boat

"All Aboard!"

A winning strategy - use the index!

Company of Dice Bolt Action Tournament a success

Game 1, Turn 1 and the "Fear Tank" FT17 died

Yesterday was the Company of Dice Bolt Action tournament and 20 players fought a very enjoyable 3 games with their 750 point armies.
Every board looked great and presented its own challenges and all armies were painted well. This combination of great boards, armies and enthusiastic players meant many enjoyable games. While my son, Peter, played his first tournament, I was assisting with rule and situation queries which is an important role. This provided me with the opportunity to see all the games and take a selection of photos across them all.
Many of the players were playing their first tournament and many were also graduates of our Bolt Action Boot Camps.

US Paras ready to storm into a building

Stuart being circled by marauding Germans

We were told by a few players, "This is all your fault," and before I could respond they smiled and said, "Thanks."
I was chatting to the tournament organiser about why Bolt Action attracted such a wide variety of players and they all displayed such strong sportsmanship. I believe it is due to the nature of the game, especially the order dice mechanic. Also, the rules are generalised and easy to remember with only a few specialist rules that apply to relatively rare situations. This means that those that like to squeeze rules to get minute advantages are stymied by the "Bolt Action" cinematic results. I have a few examples to show in this post but in general, a player's plans cannot survive contact with the enemy. All plans have to be contingent whilst many trick plays rely on a combination of events happening. The more convoluted a plan, the less likely the dice imps (those creatures that seem to control when a six or a one appears) will co-operate.

Marines assaulting entrenched Japanese

Unsupported tank taught a fatal lesson by the Japanese

At the same time, the player who is flexible and works to combine the odds in his favour through supporting his units, combinations of unit type, ranges and firepower and is quick to overcome adversity will succeed. I always think the best wargamer is one that can accept the vagaries of results and push on with his second, third or umpteenth backup plan as well as take advantage of the surprise success or opponents failure promptly.

British defending ruined house

Bolt Action Cinematic Moments 

Inexperienced French charge into enclosure to capture mysterious blue box

Peter had his little FT17 tank which he planned to use as a mobile, yet slow, pillbox but it was destroyed in the first turn during game one.  This meant a new plan that did not rely on that support.
The 3rd photo in this post shows a US Stuart tank being surrounded by three light German vehicles. At this point he had 4 pins, but a little later when he had 5 pins he pulled off a Bolt Action moment. The US player rolled a 4 to pass the order test. He then rolled a six and six to hit the Panzer II that had been annoying him for a number of turns, then a 5 to penetrate and a 6 to kill. Both US and German player were surprised by the result and the game went on, both smiling that the surrounded Stuart had hit out at his annoying attackers.

Regular French step in to avenge dead comrades. 

I have shown two photos of tanks that were successfully attacked by infantry. The Russian tank was caught within range of the Japanese tank fighters at the start of the turn. The Japanese rushed out of the nearby building before the tank had moved and succeeded in destroying the tank and moved on.
The Panzer III below was destroyed by a small team of tough fighter British commandoes. As the tank had Advanced, they needed 6s to hit the tank. They achieved 3 hits on the toughened rear, so needed a 5 to get superficial and a 6 to get a full hit. A 6 followed by a 5 killed the Panzer III.

British Commandoes teaching a lesson to unsupported Panzer

The French assault on the courtyard of the beautiful Desert compound containing the mysterious blue box was a tug of war with many bodies piling up in the sand. First a squad of 11 relieving French Inexperienced soldiers rushed into the courtyard. Heavily armed German veterans charged in from the other side and killed all of them. Then a defending French Regular squad charged out of the house and fired on the veterans, killing about half. It was a vicious battle for control of the objective.

Amazing last turn excitement

I leave the best Bolt Action moment for last.
The objective for this board was on the destroyed glider in the centre of the board. The US player had told me how he was sure he had lost this game in about turn 3 so was just going to rush the middle objective and hold his ground. Under the wing was a sniper team and 4 inches away (so could not control the objective) was a medic team. The Germans were all around. The US player called down an air strike on the largest German squad, killing it and inflicting pins on every enemy and friendly unit in range.
The last turn was a rapid series of order dice pulls and every German unit quickly advanced and fired upon the sniper. Every unit hit, but after 8 hits only the last shot achieved a kill on the sniper. The very last dice roll in all of the game was for the medic to see if he could save the sniper. A 6 was rolled to the cries of amazement and laughter from players and spectators alike.
Both players laughed loudly and shook hands. It was a draw, but the type of draw where both players considered themselves equal winners.

Thanks to Bryan for organising the tournament and Joe and Spyros and Byron for their organising the club and the sponsors for the great prize support.

Bolt Action Boot Camp at MOAB 2015

We are getting ready for the next Sydney Games Convention - MOAB 2015.
This is held on the October long weekend at the Sylvania Heights Community and Youth Club.
We will be running 3 games a day on the Saturday and Sunday - 3 & 4 October.

So come on and join us in a great game of Bolt Action. The main game will be the Attack on Lorient Docks 1942 which we have much more details here (Video) and here (background) and here (first playtest including army lists).

In summary we will have 6 x 600 point forces:
Commandoes by sea, Commandoes by Land and Partisans
vs
Kreigsmarine, German Port Defenders and German SS Reinforcements.

Commandoes ready to attack some Port Defenders on the bridge

Kreigsmarine defending the sub from Commandoes

This is a great game with a board filled with great scenery surrounding the 42 inches of U-505 submarine goodness.

No experience is required.
Everything is supplied - Demo Gamers Sergeants to guide you, troops, rules, dice, tape measure, periscopes, laser guidance - the lot!
The games start at 9:00am, 12:00 midday and 3:00pm.  Each game typically lasts about 2.5 hrs and gets increasingly exciting as the last turn arrives.

Commandoes by sea (with some in the sea!)