Bolt Action: Western Desert Boot Camp Live Blog – Saturday

Welcome to Day One of the Bolt Action Western Desert where we’re going to be having fun with Warlord Games, building up awesome armies and taking them to the tabletop to show off a good old-fashioned clash between the British and the Germans.

Win Prizes

We have some great goodies to give away over the weekend. Each day you’ll be able to snap up an El Alamein Starter Set + A Panzer III & M3 Stuart.

All you have to do is comment on the Live Blog AND on the individual posts to be in with a chance of winning.

Make sure to get involved and find out more about both hobbying AND gaming during the Western Desert campaign in WWII.

We’ve got a great competition in the works for you this weekend as Warlord Games are going to be giving away some awesome goodies!

You can win yourself an El Alamein Starter Set + A Panzer II & M3 Stuart.

There will be ONE given away each day and you can get a hold of it by commenting on both the main live blog AND the individual posts themselves.

If you’d like to check out more you can view the individual components with the El Alamein Starter Set, Panzer III and M3 Stuart sets here.

Which side are you going to play as?

We’ve got a great idea that we wanted to share with you! To get you guys involved at home we wanted to give away some spot prizes to those who create some Bolt Actionbased projects using our Project System.

Make Bolt Action Projects & Win £20 Warlord Games Vouchers!

This can be anything Bolt Action based, be it a unit of soldiers, a commander figure, tanks (John loves those!) or even some pieces of terrain. It DOES NOT have to be desert themed either.

Make sure to select this option when you’re putting together your projects!

See What’s Been Worked On So Far!

We can’t wait to see what you’ve been working on and the kind of things you share with us.

As boot camp starts back for the second day, the guys get back to preparing their miniatures for the table!

Our historical editor Jim (@oriskany) has come over to teach us about the history of the western desert in this mini-series Scorpions Of The  Desert.

Kicking off, we take a look at some of the Basic Infantry Tactics used in this theatre of war.

Watch out for the demo game for Bolt Action, showing off the basics of the game later today. This is a little teaser as we’ve had a whole bunch of new people playing the game this weekend which is awesome to see.

The neat thing is that Bolt Action is SO easy to learn and just gets out of the way so you can enjoy the action.

We’re looking at some quick and easy ways to paint up the Germans as Oriskany finds out how the Afrika Korp are coming together with one of the Boot Campers.

As well as learning more about the game itself a lot of people are still getting stuck into the painting of their armies today.

We’ve seen some of the techniques for the British and the Germans but what has been impressive is that the armies have been very easy to paint – a bit of spray, some additional techniques and a wash and it’s done!

You might have seen these Sikh troops yesterday? Well, the progress has been awesome on these so far today and it looks like we’re going to get a very unique army coming together for this British force.

What other smaller sections of the British force do you think you’d see in the Western Desert?

Gaming begins at the Bolt Action boot camp!

Armies are starting to appear on the table so we take everyone aside to tell them about the various Boot Camp Gongs they can earn over the weekend.

James is also running a Western Desert campaign over the weekend, and he introduces it to the players to see who will answer the call.

When fighting in the desert, mobility is key.

In the second part of the Scorpions of the Desert, @oriskany takes us through the different ways the infantry got about this environment.

One of the great things about this particular theatre of war is that you’re being pulled into one which is very evocative. You will have seen Cass showing off some of the gaming going on earlier.

The change of theatre adds to this very cinematic feel and suddenly you’re not having to deal with dirt being thrown around but blasting sand and crumbling ruins.

A lot of the Boot Campers are playing Bolt Action for the first time, so Warlord’s Charlie takes some of the new gamers through the basics of this WWII wargame.

This is the first of a few videos we will be recording with Oriskany, talking to him about the stranger than fiction characters who fought during World War II.

The first of these is Rommel who left a very peculiar message for his troops.

Make sure to go and check out the Livestream which is going on right now over on the FRONT PAGE and right now HERE too.

Who are you going to be supporting in this upcoming battle; British or Germans?

It’s lunchtime again here at the OnTableTop studios where we’re working on feeding some hungry Boot Campers. Do you reckon they’re enjoying the traditional Western Desert themed hot dogs?

We go the extra mile however and take out the sand…