Starting Bolt Action - Fall of Singapore

Our story begins many years ago. After playing a few test games of Bolt Action at my local gaming club, with the club’s Bolt Action D-Day Firefight starter set, I was sure it was a game I wanted to explore some more.

Warlord’s army starter boxes are an easy entry point and looking at those I was immediately drawn to the Japanese Banzai starter army. This was based solely on my interest in Japanese culture and medieval and feudal history and was not informed by any knowledge of historical wargaming or WW2 in general.

As is often the case with hobby projects this box disappeared into storage as no one else at my club seemed interested in exploring the game further.

I did briefly reconnect with this project when I decided to paint the Japanese mortar team for a monthly painting ‘competition’ (more of a motivational tool than a quest for painting glory) at our local club, hoping this may foster further interest in Bolt Action for other club members.

Roll forward a few more years and a change of home and I decided it was time to do something with this box of models, with or without another interested party. So what to do?

As a veteran wargamer it seemed the best thing to do is complete not one, but two armies, so I have the tools to throw down a game for anyone interested, particularly as my new gaming club was much smaller with no starter sets or introductory games on offer except a few Games Workshop titles.

As a total historical gaming newb, I hit YouTube and the internet, and began looking at Japanese involvement and operations in WW2. For someone new to this, the options and permutations were frankly a little overwhelming. However, I was keen on the idea of getting a British force, and early on in the war we have the invasion of the Malayan peninsular and the Fall of Singapore.

A quick perusal of the Armies of Imperial Japan book revealed a theatre selector for this period was described. easyarmy.com allowed me to take a look at the British equivalent selector and a plan was formed.