Managed to get in two games against Markus last night, we’d arranged to play Bolt Action and because we got started early, we easily had time for two games, so after the first one we switched roles and played the same scenario on the same table, something that’s always fun to do. Markus had set up a great looking table before I arrived, and we rolled for the scenario – 4: Hold Until Relieved. I played the defender, with my usual 500 point list of a veteran 2nd Leutnant accompanied by 4 squads of 6 veterans all armed with Assault Rifles. Markus had a 1st Lieutenant with aide, a PTRD AT rifle, medium mortar, a couple of units of regulars with LMG, a large unit of rookies (with LMG?) and a pretty hefty unit of veterans, partially armed with SMG if I recall correctly. Sometime later today, Markus will undoubtedly be posting a batrep to his blog, which if you aren’t already reading, you should be (even if it does verge into fantasy wargaming instead of proper historical wargaming from time to time 
), so you can check against that to see his list.
We placed an objective in the centre of the table, and I chose two units to hide in the woods and prepare to repel the attackers. Markus placed his units at the corners of the board, and so with this state of affairs, we were off:
Starting positions
My other units were part of my first wave (1 more unit) and reserve (my last unit and commander).
Things got off to a great start for me – That unit in silver uniforms (Markus is still painting his force up) in the lower left are his rookies – it’s a large unit, but they’re conscripts, and don’t tend to have a long shelf life.
Russian Conscripts
The first dice to come up from the box was mine, which meant I got to give orders to one of my units first. So, of course, I decided to bring on my first wave unit – right behind the Russian conscripts. This happened:
Eat fiery leaden death from behind, Russian conscripts!
Suddenly there were a lot less Russian conscripts, though luckily for Markus, he managed to make his morale check, and they stuck around. Not for long though – the next action would see them get slaughtered as they attempted to assault me, which also allowed me to make a regroup move and advance towards my brave units manning the objective.
Well, that was easy enough. Looks like this game is in the bag for me then.
I was naturally feeling confident – I’d wiped out one of Markus’ units already at the cost of only 1 man and was sending another unit to help defend the objective. That’s when Markus got the next action and decided to try his luck with his mortar. Now seeing as how this was the first turn of ranging in, he needed a 6 to hit my unit defending the objective. Of course, he got a 6. When rolling for hits, he rolled a 5, and with a penetration bonus of +2, my unit of 6 veterans became this:
Ouch!
The next actions saw Markus send his infantry units into action, sneaking up the gulleys and into the woods.
Sneaky Russians.
More sneaky Russians!
That was pretty much it for the first turn. The second turn, Markus got the first order die, and decided to have another go with his mortar. Since he’d ranged in last time, he needed a 5+ this turn. He rolled a 5. He also rolled 5 hits again, which meant that the remnant of my 2 man unit ended up like this:
Strike one unit.
At least I still had my other unit next to the objective hidden in the other woods…Talking of which, those sneaky Russians were sneaking closer:
I can see you…
My first wave unit had made it to the edge of the woods by this point, and were facing off against a unit hidden in that building you can see there.
We can still save the day!
Then the sneaky Russian veterans assaulted my second objective defending unit, and while I destroyed quite a few of them, they wiped my men out. He also brought on his other infantry units and moved through the woods to take control of the objective. Bastards!
Things aren’t looking quite so great now.
Luckily for me, my second wave reserve were now on table, and they hurried through the woods to take back the objective. Don’t fear lads, we’re still going to win!
Here comes the reserve!
My first wave were getting into a nice position too – a unit on each side of his to try to take him out before we advance and re-take the objective.
First Wave take up positions
There were the first wave unit, sitting in cover of the woods, ready to launch their assault after taking out a few more of the enemy regulars, what could go wrong? Say, that mortar hasn’t fired this turn, has it? Still, he needs a 6 again, what are the chances that he’s going to ge…motherfucker! And there goes the entire unit in one go.
Still, at least the second wave has contested the objective again. Now, there’s only one turn to go at most, so I can at least get a draw. Markus is likely to assault, and I have assault rifles against his SMGs, so it would be pretty even…
We can still get a draw out of this…
And lo, here come the Russians, assaulting for all they’re worth:
We can take them!
And so the game came down to this: If I managed to stay alive, the game would be a draw (Markus had already moved one unit, and mine had moved, so we both had one unit on the objective, and since this was the final turn, it would have been a draw. All I had to do was survive the assault…
Yeah.
And so I lost the first game.
The second game was using the same table and scenario – if we get a chance to reverse roles like this, I enjoy it – for one thing, if the attacker or defender consistently wins by a large margin, you know the scenario has problems, and it’s always fun to see how you do in the same situation as your opponent, I think. I took advantage of the hidden set up rules in my role as attacker, just placing a single figure to represent where my units were before they moved or fired.
Two of my units proceed through the woods
My third unit and commander
My fourth unit, under cover of the buildings, with the two defending Russian units in place around the objective.
I was feeling more confident about this game – my Gebirgsjaeger are pretty good when attacking, since they don’t get the -1 to shooting when on the move, and being pretty hot in assault too. With just a couple of Russian units starting on table, and his other units having to come on table and make their way to the objective to help defend it, it meant I could pour lots of fire onto those defenders before they were reinforced.
Taking out the Russians, one unit at a time.
My plans were working beautifully – two units firing on one of his, even at long range and in cover which meant I was needing 6s wasn’t too bad, since I was throwing 12 dice from each unit. The first defending unit that you can see here was swiftly knocked down to just a few men.
On the other flank, a similar story.
The next turn, I managed to destroy them utterly, and my other flank units were moving nicely into position too, laying more withering fire into his other defending unit and causing a few casualties, but more importantly giving him quite a few pin markers. Markus ordered this unit Down, which meant they were harder to hit, and he kept them that way each turn, which meant one less order die in the box but he could also recover one pin each turn automatically. Good tactical choice there.
Wiping, wiping, wiping out the Russians.
With some inspired shooting, I managed to destroy both defending units. Victory is assured!
On my turn I failed my orders roll with a double 6 and then get a “friendly fire” result on the FUBAR roll, with my commander in the house there being the nearest unit to fire on. Luckily for me, I needed 6s to hit (yay hard cover) and even with throwing 10-12 dice, I managed to avoid throwing a single six for that turn.
Anyway, I’m still in good position here, I still have four good units marching in…
That D12? That’s the marker we were using when the mortar was firing.
See the Gebirgsjaeger marching through the woods?
See the mortar firing at the unit marching through the woods, needing a 6 to him them yet again?
That happened.
Even with that catastrophe, I had three units on the objective, was putting them on ambush orders, and with some inspired shooting had taken out that verdammt mortar finally.
We’re going to win!
You can see the Russians hiding in the gulley at the back there. This was possibly the final turn, so Markus had to act. He sent his unit of regulars running to the objective to contest it for the draw, and I opened fire with one of my ambushing units. Because of the huge size of these Russian units, I only managed to kill something like 8 of his men, and he made his morale roll to keep the remaining two going. The other ambushing unit I was saving because he had another unit ready to run too, this time his rookies which I would probably have been able to wipe out.
Final turn…
And so it all came down to whether we’d have another turn – if not, it was a draw thanks to those two brave Russians, and if we did, I’d be able to destroy them and would have two units ambushing his conscripts when they made their run, rolling a total of about 22 dice, needing 2s to hit and 3s to kill, so would have had a very good chance of doing so. To get that extra turn, I needed to roll a 4+ on the die. I rolled a 3. A draw it was!
These were two really fun games, coming down the wire on each game (though I have to say that I was pretty much destroyed by Markus in the first game, mostly thanks to that mortar, whereas in the second game I was much closer to winning, with most of his units gone or very likely to go if we’d had the extra turn). Markus is a great opponent, and I look forward to seeing his report for the battle on his blog. Go and look at it when it’s up, there’ll be even more pics (and not quite so blurry as some of mine).
