Heer, there and everywhere : Adventures in Bolt Action

So, having painted my friends army, we were keen to put them to the test. We agreed 750 points and then threw in a tank each (he wanted to try his anti tank nutters).
I took a Matilda, he brought his Chi Ha.
This was a lot more complex than the handful of European games as both sides had lots of special rules.
A lot of tricks were missed.
Also the first game on a 4×4 layout, which made it quite an intense game (good though)

I failed to exploit some key Australian strengths with deployment, you really need to go through the book and create a bit of a checklist.

Australian forward units have aggressive patrolling, which create exclusion zones around them, this can impact opposition spotters and snipers. So I recommend placing them nice and early, maybe making a ‘safe’ corridor for vehicles.

Place your armour next to infantry and their detection of hidden units doubles in range, I would try to place them late on in deployment to foil the suicide AT units that can hide.

Remembering these can help put your opponent on the back foot, or at least in a sub optimal deployment.

The dice gods decided to punish me all through the game, my first action was my sniper missing, I believe he was firing nerf rounds as he later hit the Jaopanese commander three times and he didn’t die.

Conversely my opponents first mortar short was a hit and killed 4 out of 5 soldiers hit , oh and maximum pins. even my opponent was wincing at my die rolls.

I made a couple of mistakes that cost me heavily, when assaulting make sure you are too close for your opponent to get a free shot in first. I paid heavily with my engineers and commandos, mostly due to my opponents spectacular dice rolls. How often do you see seven riflemen take out four veteran fighters in one roll! With hindsight I should have got into point blank range and shot, rather than getting into hand to hand straight away.

Lots of assaults happened, it was a tense ,claustrophobic game, which seemed apt for a dense jungle skirmish.

Overall, it was a close fought game, overall I think the Japanese shaded it, but my mate claimed a draw

Having banged out my mates’ Japanese army in a week, the next item on the agenda was filling the table. I spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning throwing together some tropical terrain, there’s a tutorial on my ‘Scattering of Terrain’ project.
I decided to put all the elements together to see how a table shaped up. So here’s a mini gallery.

Came together quite well, hoping to have a game on it in the next few weeks. Battle report to follow.

The final day, just bayonets and bases to go.

For the bases I covered 50% in Stirland mud , the other half I used basing glue to which I added a blend of small rocks, a pinch of 2mm static grass and fine green flock. I wanted a pretty flat finish as I planned on tufting.

And that’s it, one table ready bolt action army in seven days…just need to paint my Aussies and Gurkhas now

I finished the dry-brushing in short order and then it was onto the washes, I used a military green from Army painter on the uniforms and Vallejo skin wash on the faces.

No getting round it, time for the straps, I’d been fortunate my friend built them lightly equipped or else this phase would have taken longer

Day 6 I was pleased and surprised how well the the troops had come together. I used a black brown from Vallejo on all the metal gun parts

It was time to take on the tank,  The rattle can primer was the right shade of green already so I went with it. The yellow and browns were brushwork. I found Johns’ tutorial on painting a Chi Ha very helpful here.

A friend of mine had decided to get into Bolt Action, so I tracked down a few ebay bargains to get him going including a starter army. He assembled the figures and the Chi Ha tank, and then hit a hobby wall . I don’t normally do commission work but he was having a rough patch , so when he asked I said I would do it for cheaps (like if I was doing it for a stranger I would have been sticking a ‘1’ in front of what I charged him.

I decided to try out my plastic soldier company primers from Britcon and liked the finish a lot. I think these will be my go to primers from now on. That was enough for the first day.

I started with the uniforms next and decided to paint the puttees the same colour. vallejo green-yellow . I was loosely following the guide by ‘How I paint things’ from YouTube.

Next up was dry-brushing over the helmets and uniforms to pick out the webbing and highlights. I used buff rather than white mixed with the yellow green. I made a point of avoiding black and white paint at any point during painting these troops. I prefer the results as they’re less extreme.

I received a free sprue of Italians, decided to buy a couple more, then set about painting a couple of infantry sections with a view to selling them.

Update: miniatures sold, also got positive feedback from the buyer including a ‘well painted’ comment. This was a boost as a painter as I had turned down a couple of commissions in the past due to lack of confidence.

I decided to make my Soviet vehicles a little dirtier and most rusted than the other allied tanks. I used a slightly different ink wash , mixing agrax earthshade and Coelian green (?). Overall they turned out a shade darker than I was aiming for, but overall I am pretty happy with them

So what’s next, out of the built up models this is all I have left….

I had a good run at the allied forces over the weekend. I painted up everything US/commonwealth that was built.

That leaves me a Churchill, a Stuart M3 , four universal carriers and six jeeps to build and paint. I also have three jeeps for the British paras to finish off.

I plan to do the Soviets next. But taking a break to assemble and prime some more Finn’s, some Ghurkas and some Aussie commandos who look like total murder hobos.

Once the Soviets are done I will be starting my Carnevale project, minis only for now.

I decided to have a bit of a palate cleanser after a couple weekends of building vehicles. I had wanted to paint up a squad of US infantry, this would allow me to have more options for my 5 men from Kursk campaign,when I finally start it.

Things went mostly ok, of course when you spend hours looking for uniform colours and sifting some conflicting and confusing information, only to find a sweet spot; and then go and put the decals on upside down.

I decided to tackle my mountain of unbuilt and unpainted vehicles for Bolt Action. I find vehicles a bit daunting.Which is daft as all my completed ones look fine.

Also pictured are a couple of Finnish Pak 40’s and an SS howitzer which was a swine to assemble as there are no instructions anywhere!

Having primed the allies with Army Painter Army Green, I then went over the bodies with a base coat of Olive Drab from Vallejo. Next step was to add decals. I realised doing all the decals in one go would lead to me being sat in a corner rocking and making meeping sounds. So I elected to work on four models at a time. I went a bit rule of cool with a bit of research with the decals. Avert your eyes rivet counters.

The first four tanks are nearing completion.I just need to add rust , dust and a bit of mud. I won’t go mad on the allied stuff , but the Soviets will be a little worse for wear .

I use a range of products: Vallejo pigment powders, rust effects paint, AK and Citadel mud paint, dirty down rust, maybe some chipping medium. Not all on the same tank though . Might even stick some snow on the Finnish ones.

I like Nightwish and Hanoi Rocks, so I knew in my heart that a Finnish army was inevitable. This would be my first army where there wasn’t a box of plastics I could buy to form the core of the army of the peg, so to speak.

I shopped around and picked up support elements, some metal infantry from various sources (Warlord, MarDev, Parkfield). Did some homework one vehicles, found I had several sat in my model mountain. I also picked up some STL files of gear and a box of early war German plastics. I robbed some forager caps from my fallschirmjagers, found a couple of WW1 Wargames Atlantic helments, which fit the Finnish helmets. Swiped a couple of sprues from my unbuilt Russian horde for arms and weapons. And off I went.

My Finns are still waiting to get painted, working my way through the Aussies and Gurkhas currently. However I did make a start on their tanks.

I decide to go with the 1943 camo scheme, which was applied in the field, meaning I could get away with a bit of roughness

I used masking tape cut into jagged strips, then painted the brown colour on the exposed areas, having done that I added more masking tape then painted the green. I still haven’t got round to the weathering and decals, but that won’t take long. I’ll include a picture of the finished article when I start painting the whole army

I got together with my fellow Bolt Action enthusiast over the weekend. We played a 1500 point area control game. I felt like I had suffered for lack of infantry in the last game, so I made sure I had plenty of squads this time around

We pushed out of our starting sectors and the battle played out on two fronts, the fiercest fighting was in the south west where I tried to flank his artillery. My panzerschrek crew halted his m10s’ advance down the main street and though immobilised he was still able to attack my unit holed up at the crossroads along with his troops in the house diagonally opposite, the fighting was bloodiest here and both units were ultimately destroyed.

4th April a friend of my mentions he was thinking of getting a Japanese army, I told him I had nothing to fight against it. Although I had been considering either an Australian force or Finnish, his decision swung it for me.

I started to have a look round to see what was available. I wanted to be able to cobble together around 1500 points. I got a set of commonwealth troops, the Jungle fighters box and the usual support stuff, arty, mortar, MMG, sniper, AT etc. I then got enough to make an infantry squad from Eureka games. Vehicles wise, I got a matilda, an M3 from warlord and a couple of trucks from Rubicon. Had I been playing a desert army I would have picked up an M13 as well. I still grabbed a set of the decals for those for the kangaroos.

This is where my spring challenge was born…

I have been slowly accumulating the odd blister pack here and there over the last few months. Arty, mortars, support stuff. Also picked up some non-Warlord metals for NCOs for my Fallschirmjagers, Russians and Yanks.

Could be a possible spring clean challenge, although ,given the amount of these containers I have i am considering a series of ‘box challenges’ where
I take a box and just paint everything in it.

I finally got to road test my table, a friend brought 1000 points of Polish Paratroops , beautiful paint jobs. With hindsight, 1500 points may have been better as we had a lot of table to go at.

Proved to be quite a swingy game, but his tough as nails troops were more than a match for my limited foot soldiers. Although my veteran MMG holed up in a building and proved a major pain. My not handing my Puma to him on a plate might have caused a different outcome, my good luck with an artillery barrage was also a help.

The British Airborne starter set seems a popular choice, iconic regiment and it’s the cheapest one . I followed the recommended colours from Vallejo as I did with the Germans for the main. I also threw in a box of Wargames Atlantic Bulldogs and swapped a few heads around to get some slightly futuristic troops for possible Xenos Rampant or Konflickt 47 shenanigans in the future.

These guys took longer than the Germans and I really had to force myself to get these finished.

I even built a whole gaming table for Test of Honour part way through. I am easily distracted

These are the Warlord recommended colours:

• Khaki Grey (Vallejo 880): Denison Smock basecoat
• Dark Green (Vallejo 893): Denison Smock camouflage, helmet and neckscarf
• German Camo Medium Brown (Vallejo 826): Denison Smock camouflage
• English Uniform Brown (Vallejo 921): Trousers and canteen
• Russian Uniform Green (Vallejo 924): Helmet camo strips, PIAT, mortars, guns, Respirator Bag
• Scarlett Red (Vallejo 72.012): Beret
• Khaki (Vallejo 988): Helmet camo strips, gaiters, webbing and backpack
• Iraqui Sand (Vallejo 819): Rope

I was pretty happy with the results, I have more buildings to make, so I can switch up the ratio of urban:rural

I want to add more regular hedges and bushes, fences and some barbed wire barricades. I want to have some terrain I can use in multiple settings (Silver Bayonet, 5 Leagues etc)