Optional Participation CAMPAIGN – Bolt Action Boot Camp

[oriskany 60771xp 4]

Good afternoon, Beasts of War:

For the upcoming Boot Camp, I’m putting together a strictly optional participation campaign.

At its most basic level, this will be a campaign map where the locations of ongoing tabletop games during the boot camp will be tracked, the results tabulated, and the results of the games affecting the larger-scale macro-situation.

We did something similar for the FoW 4.0 Desert Boot Camp in March 2017 … but this one will be a little more focused to accommodate the more focused scale of Bolt Action (smaller units, each side gets only a platoon or so instead of a reinforced company / understrength battalion).

So instead of looking at the whole El Alamein campaign, (First Alamein, Alam Halfa Ridge, Second Alamein – the campaign covered 3 months across a battlefield 40 miles across) this time I’m thinking of focusing more on a smaller division-sized ZOCs covering just a couple of days (one or two battle areas maybe 5-10 miles across).

The focus I’m considering is Operation Crusader (Part 03 of the article series), November-December 1941, for several reasons.

1) Matches what I think we’re getting in the packs.

2) Infantry-based, for Bolt Action.

3) Provides historically-accurate (or near-accurate) opportunity to utilize the trench and urban boards I know they guys are building in the studio and the 4Ground building terrain that will be used on some of the tables.

Also, trying to do a better job this time with leveraging the actual information IN the new Bolt Action books, i.e., scenario play, meshing that with the situation in the campaign, etc.

Here is the map I have drawn up (half resolution, the full-scale map measures 46 inches across)

(Open Image in New Tab for best look)

Okay so far we have ready to participate in the campaign:

@buggeroff
@brucelea
@bobcockayne
@commodorerob
@maxkee
@damon
@limburger

If anyone else is interested in joining this historical narrative, in having your Bolt Action wargames add to the tapestry of a larger narrative context, just ping this thread!  Or if you have any questions, comments, ideas, or feedback, please post below!

In any event, I look forward to seeing everyone at the event, in the live Blog, or in this Friday’s live stream!

[irishsteve 12947xp 1]

Colour me interested @oriskany 🙂

[oriskany 60771xp 1]

There we go, @irishsteve !  Glad to hear it!  Welcome aboard!

As we did with the FoW 4.0 campaign, we’re keeping things super-light, super-easy.

If anything, it’s just a fancy scoreboard.  Except instead of just a column of “Ws” and “Ls”, we’re also showing where the Ws and Ls are in relation to each other, so the battlefield starts to draw its own narrative as we progress.  😀

 

[commodorerob 11076xp 2]

@oriskany Great idea, I will say that although I am there I am not going to be getting the minis for the event, as I already had a load of minis that I am finally painting and bringing. From what I understand the forces will start as around 500-750 points and build up to 1000 over the weekend. So I have been basing my 2 forces on that points but I should have roughly the equivalent of 3 squads of infantry an artillery piece a HMG team and a tank plus HQ unit in my Beds And Herts Platoon 🙂

[damon 7525xp 3]

Sounds intriguing, Bolt Action is quite a ‘killy’ game, be interesting to see if anyone plays to preserve their force from game to game or goes for broke.

[brucelea 7906xp 2]

Getting excited now!

[limburger 21704xp 0]

Is there a 50/50 split in forces ?

It would be kind of weird to see more British than DAK (or vice versa). We can’t have blue on blue fights … but then it might have happened during the actual war.

I’ll be building & fielding DAK forces myself that weekend, although based on my experience at the FoW bootcamp I’m better of not playing if I want to win anything 😉

Then again … the enemy did not score an easy win that time and I probably could have avoided one loss if I had played it ‘safe’ (attacking AT guns with tanks isn’t a good idea for some reason ;)).

@damon : during the FoW 4.0 bootcamp campaign there were no rules for experience/attrition of forces, so you always were ‘full strength’ (= whatever you had built). While it could be fun it would suck not being able to use part of your force in this bootcamp.

I am assuming this campaign will be the same.

@commodorerob : are you seriously saying that there is such a thing as too many miniatures ?
Isn’t that heresy in these parts ? 😉

btw :

Anyone know if BA has rules for running over infantry with tanks ?
’cause I know that’s what I’ll be trying if I get my hands on one in the army we’re building.

[commodorerob 11076xp 1]

@limburger well normally no, but when you are trying to remodel your house and are turning everything upside down and you know you have a seriously huge kickstarter about to drop in november, there comes a point at which you have to put the breaks on for a bit…lol

[oriskany 60771xp 1]

@damon – I would very much like to run the campaign where losses from one battle affected available forces in the next, since it’s the obvious way to run a multilevel command tactical campaign game.

My issue, however, is that this campaign has to coexist with the rest of the Boot Camp without “taking over” the Boot Camp.

In other words, we have seven-eight people playing at the moment, but 24 players at the boot camp.

i.e., not everyone at the boot camp is participating in the campaign.

So your opponent for a given game at the Boot Camp might NOT be in the campaign.  This is especially true if we don’t have equal Commonwealth / DAK players.

So if your opponent hasn’t chosen to participate in the campaign, or if he/she is in the campaign but wants to paint for a while or is in an interview, or is just taking a break or whatever, and you wind up playing someone else …

Long story short, I really don’t want to “impose” conditions in our campaign on other players at the boot camp.  I don’t want to “take over” the event from the BoW studios or Warlord.  So if you’re playing in the campaign and you’ve lost half your force, and the next game you’re playing someone else not in the campaign, I don’t feel comfortable telling that other player – “we have to change your available forces” or victory conditions or what have you, based on previous results of a campaign they may not be participating in.

Now of course, if that other player is agreeable to any scenario conditions, that’s different.  😀  I’m really hoping they might be agreeable to scenario types in particular, e.g., say you lost your previous battle badly and now your next battle we’re specifying you’re on some kind of delaying action defence, etc.  Excuse me, Mr. non-campaign player, is it okay if in your game vs. @damon we specify his force is slightly weakened and on delaying action defence, trading a smaller enemy force for stricter victory conditions, etc. (you have to win by at least 2 game points, etc)?

 

[oriskany 60771xp 0]

@commodorerob – I have confirmed that LRDG units were employed during Operation Crusader, one of many reason I chose this battle as a backdrop for the campaign.  😀

I have heard 600 points initially, increasing to 1000 by the end of the weekend.

I have also seen specific lists, but as far as I know they haven’t been confirmed.

[commodorerob 11076xp 0]

@oriskany that’s great I will have several lists printed out with me so I can pick what is needed 🙂

[oriskany 60771xp 1]

My army and the campaign map shipped out today!  Along with paints, brushes, tools, materials for other games … Should arrive at BoW Studios within the week (yeah, ka-ching …)

[jackieParticipant 647xp 0]

is anyone building and painting the miniatures supplied with the boot camp.

[oriskany 60771xp 0]

Good afternoon, @jackie –

We can’t build or paint the armies we’ll get at the boot camp (to my knowledge) because they haven’t come out yet.  Usually Friday is spent building and painting, and Saturday is actual wargaming with the new armies.

Some people are already shipping out paint, etc., getting it pre-staged at the BoW studios.  😀

[bobcockayne 20723xp 1]

@damon I have a tendency to play to preserve force anyway.

Annoyed the hell out of Mechwarriors in the one tournement as they could never score massive points.

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