Over the last month I've been speed painting my first Bolt Action force in preparation for the the Auckland Open tournament this coming weekend. Luckily I had been making good progress as another one day event popped up last weekend which gave me a chance to start playing and get some practice.

After I little bit of playing around with lists I decided on the following Late War British force:

• Second Lieutenant with 1 Riflemen (Regular)
• 2 10 man Infantry Squads with 2 SMGs and LMG (Regular)
• 1 8 man Infantry Squad with 2 SMGs (Regular)
• 1 Light Mortar Team (Regular)
• 1 Piat Team (Regular)
• 1 Reece Carrier with LMG and Anti-Tank Rifle (Regular)
• 1 Cromwell Tank (Regular)
• National Characteristic: Rapid Fire

I had started working on this list before our main shipment from Warlord Games arrived so it was designed to use the 10 man Italeri British Infantry plastic set as much as possible. But this wasn't an issue due to its versatility and wide variety of weapons options.

Since I had no hands on experience with Bolt Action I decided to go with a quite safe looking list based on a large number of infantry with a few weapons teams in support and backed up with the Cromwell and reece carrier. Not really knowing the difference between inexperienced, regular or veteran troop types I chose to stick with regular for everything.

Game 1: Hold until Relieved vs Italian Veterans

My first game of the day I was up against Daniel and his Italian force including:

• Lieutenant
• 2 6 man Paratrooper Sections (Veterans)
• 1 6 man Infantry Section (Veteran)
• Medium Mortar
• Howitzer
• Sniper Team
• Flamethrower light tank
• Assault Gun

My plan for this game was to use cover of a large forest to advance my infantry to within assault range of the Italian troops defending the central objective, while my armoured support arrived from reserve on the flanks to threaten any Italian reinforcements.

Things started off well, with my rifle sections only taking light damage in their approach to the objective and managing to wipe out the Italian paratroopers in a hail of rifle fire. Then everything went downhill very quickly, as Daniel's flamet­hrower tank flanked onto the table behind my Cromwell and destroyed it, followed shortly thereafter by the destruction of my Piat team.

With all my anti-tank capabilities destroyed my infantry were defenseless and were quickly burned off the objective resulting in a comprehensive loss.

Key Lesson: Flamethrower tanks are brutal so watch out!

Game 2: Maximum Attrition vs US Marines

• Lieutenant (Regular)
• Medic (Regular)
• 8 man Veteran Marines with 3 SMG, 3 Shotguns and Anti-tank Grenades
• 9 man Marine Rifle Squad with BAR (Regular)
• 1 Sniper Team (Regular)
• 1 Medium Mortar (Inexperienced)
• 1 MMG team (Regular)
• 1 Bazooka Team (Regular)
• Sherman with HMG (Regular)

For the second game I was up against another Daniel, this time from the West Auckland gaming club TCOW and his US marines. As this mission was all about attrition I played very defensively, with my infantry advancing into the cover of trenches and preparing to ambush the marines as they got within range.

Once again the game started well, with my artillery bombardment destroying the US mortar and pinning the MMG.

However I was let down by my Cromwell and bren carrier being significantly delayed in reserve and Daniel took the opportunity to destroy my small units on the right flank with half his marines and his Sherman providing fire support.

My Cromwell arrived very late in the game and promptly destroyed the Sherman before it was immobilised by a bazooka shot.

With both my large infantry units still pretty much intact and hy Cromwell alive I thought I had managed to secure a victory, as some of Daniel's most expensive units were out of action.

However upon reading the mission objectives I discovered that players received 1 point for each unit they destroyed, and the overall points values were not important. As Daniel had wiped out 5 of my small, inexpensive units as opposed to the 2 I had killed he secured a 3 point victory.

Key Lesson: Make sure to carefully read and understand the mission objectives at the start of the game.

Game 3: Point Defense vs Fallschirmjäger

• Lieutenant
• 3 FJ Sections
• 1 HMG
• 1 Tiger

For game 3 I had to split my force into 2, keeping half in reserve while my 3 rifle squads, Piat team, and Lieutenant deployed hidden in cover to defend 3 objectives.

My opponent Damian, also from TCOW, deployed his small elite force together and prepared to advance towards my right flank. The first turn was quite uneventful, with all my units remaining hidden and Damian's force advancing rapidly towards me.

At the beginning of the second turn the Tiger shot up the road into point blank range with my infantry and unleashed a hail of machine gun fire killing several. However Damian had neglected to target my Piat team, who thanks to some good rolling prompting destroyed the Tiger!

Things got even worse for the Germans quickly, as my final action of turn 2 was to call down an artillery barrage with my Forward Observer. This landed at the beginning of the third turn before the German infantry could react and some more lucky 6s rolled meant that they suffered significant damage.

My reserves also arrived and quickly mopped up the remaining paratroopers for a 4 point win for me.

Key Lesson: Don't take the chance of ignoring the threat of small anti-tank teams.

Game 4: Envelopment vs US Infantry

• Second Lieutenant with 1 Infantry
• Medic
• 2 10 man Rifle Squads with BAR, NCO with SMG and Anti-tank Grenades
• 1 HMG Team
• 1 Sniper Team
• 1 Medium Mortar Team with Spotter
• 1 57mm Anti-tank Gun
• 1 M8 Greyhound with HMG

My final game of the day was against another TCOW alumni Greg and his US infantry force. Envelopment is quite a different mission, as the attacked I had to advance units across the table and off the table in order to score victory points while the defender had to destroy my units to win.

As Greg's infantry units had to deploy first he had spread them out across the table, with his anti-tank gun in the centre with some fantastic fields of fire. However this let me concentrate my entire force in a refused flank when they advanced onto the table.

My pre-game preliminary bombardment pinned a number of the US units and some horrible luck on dice rolls meant that Greg was unable to shift the forces on the far side of the table for a number of turns.

Greg's sniper did manage to pin down one of my infantry squads towards the centre of the table and was gradually whittling them down over the course of the game.

The central anti-tank gun was still a large threat, however once again I was extremely lucky with my artillery strike and destroyed it before it could inflict much damage. This let my infantry overwhelm the defenses on the right flank and move off the table, while Greg's Greyhound stubbornly refused to die but inflicted only token damage.

The result was a 4–0 win for the British.

Key Lesson: Snipers can be very effective; rolling lots of 6s when using artillery is very, very effective!

Final Results

So all up I had a 2–2 record but as I received the maximum number of points from my 2 victories this put me into equal 3rd place on 8 points total. Second was a US Airborne list and first place went to Daniel, my first round opponent.

Suffice to say I was really happy with my result, especially given that these were my first ever games and I had a great time with Bolt Action. With a few games under my belt I'm looking to make some adjustments to my list in preparation for another event this coming weekend.