Battle of the Bulge - Bolt Action Campaign by Andre77 and Bothi

As said before, if you want to see this battle in chronological order hit “View Oldest Entries First” on the left.

Turn 6 – The fight for the pillbox

The situation was this. The Germans had 8 veterans occupying the pillbox (the Americans managed to snipe two guys). The Americans had two Squads in charge distance to the entrance of the pillbox. One with 9 guys and one with 12  guys. Statistics say that you need about double the amount of troops in Bolt Action to assault veterans defending an obstacle with regular troops. 8 vs. 21. So this should be no problemo right?

The first American squad (squad inbetween with 9 men remaining) charged. And they got slaughtered. First they lost 3 men in defensive fire and then got annihilated in close combat only killing a single German. Suddenly the Americans only had 12 men left vs. 7 remaining veterans inside the pillbox. At least there would be no defensive fire this time.

Squad right charged. Killing 4 Germans in the first round of combat and also loosing 4 men. A tie and thus another round of combat. 3 vs. 8. This should be it. But in the second round of combat they only managed to kill a single German. Fortunately also the Germans whiffed their roll only killing a single GI. Another draw. (if you lose a round of combat your entire squad is annihilated in Bolt Action). 2 vs. 7. This time the Americans made short process and killed the Germans outright losing no more guys.

The pillbox was taken with horrific losses. This was the victory for the Americans. But was it?

There still was German officer who technically could counter charge the pillbox. He only had to make his command check…

(he received a few pins from the artillery barrage earlier and never managed to get rid of them)

… but like the entire game the officer wasn’t able to make a single check, the Germans rolled an 11 and the officer got the hell out of there. The only remaining Germans were the mortar team on the far left, which was quite to far to make a counter charge. They recognized the situation and pulled out.

This was it. The Americans won!

This was a very hard fought awesome game. The Americans managed to nearly entirely wipe out the German force and capture the pillbox. But it was a very close game nevertheless. That last melee could have easily gone the other way resulting in a German victory. And the Americans took heavy losses in the process. We calculated it through. The Americans killed more points, but lost more bodies in the process.

But in the end they pushed through. Much like in history the 9th infantry division did. It’s 2:0 for the Allies.