For the second game Orion and I played on Tuesday, we returned to North Africa and our campaign in Tunisia!
Friday, 25 December 1942
An urgent message went out to all allied forces in Tunisia! The Squadron Commander Lord Flasheart's Spitfire has been shot down over Tunisia. Flasheart must be rescued lest hundreds of women (and possibly a few men) start throwing themselves from rooftops across England!
Italian forces in the area have likewise been alerted - capturing the British lord would be a great propaganda victory!
SCENARIO
We essentially used the rules for a Battle Scenario with the Top Secret victory conditions, Quarters deployment zones, and Meeting Engagement deployment type... with the following changes: to take possession of Squadron Commander Lord Flasheart, he must be engaged in a "close assault" and subdued (because he will assume any military forces approaching are "wogs" and therefore THE ENEMY (basically there is a chance that Flasheart will shoot and eliminate one member of any squad attempting to take him). Also any time the squad escorting Flasheart takes casualties a d6 should be rolled and on a 1 he is killed and the shooter automatically loses (for the propaganda losses due to the shooting or poor Flashy!)
FORCES
Italian Forces
(Elements of 69th Infantry Division “Provolone” - 667th Infantry Regiment and LXIX Tank Battalion)
Rifle Platoon
Platoon Commander - 1st Lieutenant - 30pts (Regular)+ 2 Runner/Batman @10 = 50 points
Infantry Section 1 NCO and 4 men with Rifles 50pts (Regular), +5 additional men @10, +submachine gun @4, + light machine gun @15 = 119 points
Infantry Section 1 NCO and 4 men with Rifles 50pts (Regular), +5 additional men @10, +submachine gun @4, + light machine gun @15 = 119 points
Infantry Section 1 NCO and 4 men with Rifles 50pts (Regular), +5 additional men @10, +submachine gun @4, + light machine gun @15 = 119 points
Colonial Troops Infantry Section 1 NCO and 4 men with Rifles (Inexperienced) 40pts, + 3 additional men @8 = 64
Armoured Platoon
M13/40 - Platoon Command Vehicle - 125pts (Regular)
L3/33 - 65pts (Regular)
L3/33 - 65pts (Regular)
AB41 - 100pts (Regular)
Semovente M40 75/18 - 170pts (Regular)
Total: 996 pts
American Forces
(Elements of the 92nd Infantry Division)
Rifle Platoon
Platoon Commander - 1st Lieutenant - 30pts (Regular)
Infantry Squad 1 NCO and 5 men with Rifles 50pts (Regular), +6 additional men @10, +submachine gun @4, + 2x BAR @6 = 136 points
Infantry Squad 1 NCO and 5 men with Rifles 50pts (Regular), +6 additional men @10, +submachine gun @4, + 2x BAR @6 = 136 points
Forward Observer - (air force or artillery) 75pts (Regular), + Radio Operator @11 = 86
Medic - 23pts (Regular)
Sniper Team - 52 pts (Regular)
Heavy Weapons Platoon
Platoon Commander (2nd Lieutenant) - 21pts (Inexperienced)
Machine Gun Team - 50pts (Regular)
Light Mortar Team - 35pts (Regular)
Armoured Platoon
Sherman M4 Medium Tank - 247 pts (Veteran), + Command Vehicle @10 = 257
Stuart M3 - 130 pts (Regular)
Jeep - 18 points (Regular), + pintle mounted HMG @30 = 48
Total: 1004 pts
THE GAME
Squadron Commander Lord Flasheart out in the desert, had already drawn the attention of a group of local ladies and lingerie and carpet merchants...
Italian Colonial troops make for the Squadron Commander!
One of the flanking CV-33 tanks takes fire from an American Stuart tank! A glancing blow gives the Italian tankers some pause!
An Italian Semovente M40 75/18 rolled onto the scene and blew up the Stuart!
End of Round One - forces converging on the blissfully unaware Squadron Commander Lord Flasheart! This particular piece of desert is beginning to look very crowded!!
A squad of Americans are the first to make it to Squadron Commander Lord Flasheart, who promptly shoots one of them, mistaking them for Italians!
RAT-A-TAT-TAT! The other CV-33 lights up the American Jeep that had been shooting up the Italian Colonial infantry!
rrrrooooOOOOOOWWWWWWRRRrrrrr... RAT-A-TAT-TAT!
An airplane from Flashy's Squadron (which should have been a spitfire, but due to budget constraint and availability during the making of this producion, is played by a Typhoon!) strafes the area making all the Italians duck!
BOOM!! the American Sherman tank blows up an Italian armoured car!
KA-BOOM!! The Italian Semovente gets it's second kill, blowing up the Sherman! Yikes! There goes all the American anti-armour capability...
(I haven't finished assembling the other Italian armour kits... I WAS planning to build them as M14/41... but now I'm rethinking that...!)
The Amerian Rifle Platoon commander gets riddled with bullets from one of the Italian CV-33s...
(I mean... he was just standing there... IN THE OPEN... like I wasn't going to take him out!)
(also, the American Sniper Team had taken out the Italian Platoon Commander! So...)
Enraged by the loss of their Platoon Commander, one of the American squads charged the CV-33 (because we really wanted to try out infantry close assaulting a light tank!) but they just couldn't get any shots in the vision slits or grenades in the constantly moving tracks and they were obliged to give up their attempt!
The Americans slip away with the Lord Flasheart, much to the relief of hundreds of women (and not a few men!) all across England (and anywhere else Flashy has served! (WOOF! WOOF!)
POST GAME
This was a fun little game I'd been wanting to play for a while. If I were to do it again, I'd make an extra rule that the unit escorting Flasheart cannot RUN (he's got a bum leg from the landing, see, nothing to worry the ladies or anything, but there's just no rushing the Lord Flasheart)! As it was, once one squad had gotten to him, it was just impossible to catch up...
It was fun to try out all the Italian armour!
Not going to lie... it was fun to blow up those American tanks that have caused so much trouble for my more infantry-based forces!
Looking forward to the arrival of my British tanks and having some tank battles against the Italians!
But also... I like the idea of limited infantry engagements - like the one we played earlier in the day in the Pacific, or the one I played with Brent in Burma last week.
I was reading on reddit that one group regularly runs tournaments at 800 points but only allows an infantry platoon plus a maximum ONE element from element from each other type of platoon... so Rifle Platoon plus up to one armoured vehicle and/or one heavy weapon (MG/Mortar) and/or one artillery piece (howitzer or AT gun), etc...
I was also thinking infantry engagements at 500 points with limited attachments - I don't LOVE the idea of every infantry platoon always having a sniper team AND a forward observer attached... both get a little overpowering in smaller engagements!
Where will we go to next!?
Posts
I like the idea of rifle platoon +1, is essentially what previous editions were. But armour is also really fun, and playing against the italian armour made me have to be smarter about how I used my tanks (clearly not smart enough!) methinks i wouldnt mind playing a different game mode with similar lists, but I sub the sniper for good ol bazookie!
ReplyDeleteThe 800 + one thing from each other platoon...? It's basically what first and second edition force building was, right? Or a little less... because you could have a tank AND an armoured car... a machine-gun AND a mortar... which always seemed silly to me!
DeleteAnother thing I liked, in theory, about the Five Core rules was the support tables - rolling on a random table for what is supporting your Squad this game... could be nothing... could be a heavy tank... or just some temporary better stats for the one game (because everyone was just feelin' it that day?!) - I say IN THEORY, because it kind of requires that you have an extensive selection of all the possible support equipment!
I imagine that's possible in larger centres where there are stores that carry historical stuff (bolt action stuff, in particular). You could roll what's going to be the support for next week's game and if it's something you don't have, just roll on down to the game store and buy that ONE THING, paint it up and there you go... when you live in a place that doesn't stock stuff and everything is mail ordered and you have to make larger orders to make the shipping worth it, or hit some free shipping level, that's trickier...
I would be down for a game where we run a core 800 infantry force and then roll on support tables, but I feel like I dont have the depth required for the americans (although half the support stuff is things I own.... For early war anyways)
DeleteIt looks to me like that American squad could have just picked up the Italian CV-33 and tipped it over. ha ha
ReplyDeleteSounds like a fun and quick scenario.
SHHH!!!!! Don't give Orion any ideas! That's what her Space Wolves did to my Imperial Guard tanks when they did field exercises against each other!?
DeleteLOL
DeleteSounds like a Space Wolf thing to do (or, what was it? Catachans? The ones who looked like Arnold and crew from Predator). I did like the look of Space Wolves back in the day, and had started to create an army, but didn't get far and ended up giving everything to a friend and her husband, as they were getting into 40K.
We've played a few games of 40K with my Tallarn Imperial Guard versus her Space Wolves (Space Marines!) and I suggested that since we're nominally on the same side that maybe they were "field exercises", lasers set to stun, bolt guns firing beanbags or paint munitions and stuff... there was a LOT of Space Wolf infantry charging tanks and utterly destroying them and we joked about them getting a little too exuberant and flipping the tanks for funsies not realizing how FRAGILE normal humans are and killing more than a few of them in the process!
DeleteGreat fun game! I really like the Italian colonial troops they look great! Got to love a fez!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Ha-ha! Thanks! I do love fezzes!
DeleteGreat looking game. Do you find third edition quite different from the second? If so, is it more enjoyable, less enjoyable or just the same?
ReplyDeleteAlan Tradgardland
Thanks Alan!
DeleteI never actually played the Second Edition rules! I played the First Edition rules when they first came out, but that was twelve years ago... so... I can't say I really remember that much about it. The main thing I remember is drawing activation dice from a cup or bag - and that's still the same! Other than that though.. the only difference that is plain to me is the force composition/army building rules - which is some ways makes things a little more flexible and you have more options... but also is a bit weird.
There's a whole article about it on the Warlord Games commumity site that can explain it better than me
https://warlord-community.warlordgames.com/bolt-action-third-edition-army-composition/
The thing is, if you want a medium mortar team... you need to take a weapons platoon now... with it's own platoon commander and at least one other mortar or machinegune-team... and then you COULD take up to three MORE mortars and/or three more machine-guns and/or anti-tank teams (like bazookas)...
If you want to take an anti-tank gun or howitzer, you have to take an artillery batter with it's own platoon/battery commander.. and then take up to three more artillery pieces AT guns or howitzers or whatever - stuff that had no business actually being in a battery together...
If you want a tank, you need at least two armoured vehicles to form an armoured platoon, though it can be a mix of armoured cars and tanks and jeeps with machine-guns on them...!?
I mean, these are all "official rules" that are used in tournaments that can be used or discarded as your play group sees fit...
I am sure there are other things, but I couldn't tell you what they are.
Am I having more fun? Sure! But that probably has to do with other factors than JUST the rules... which is a much longer story... the short version is Bolt Action was a hard sell in 2013 as pretty much ALL the people interested in playing WW2 games were playing Flames of War with 15mm miniatures and were pretty hostile to the idea of trying something else.
If you're enjoying playing with the second edition rules, keep playing with them!
Ha-ha! I looked it up on Board Game Geek - I played exactly four game of Bolt Action (First Edition) almost EXACTLY 12 years ago in February of 2013! If you're looking at this blog on a computer, you can look at the Blog Archive over on the right and click on 2013 and on February and there are after action reports right there!
DeleteA great little skirmish level game with a BIG nod to Blackadder, one of my all time favorites!
ReplyDeleteHa-ha! WOOF! WOOF! Glad someone got it!
Delete