I haven’t been posting to this blog much lately, but I have been getting regular Bolt Action games in. My latest was a 1000 point game against a fellow club member.My Americans vs Drew’s Germans. We randomly determined the scenario to be No Mans Land. We set up our forces and attacked at first light. Both our preparatory bombardments hit hard, spreading pins throughout our forces.
I had a fairly mobile force backed up with medium howitzer and a medium mortar. I had used multiple HE units throughout the recent escalation league to great effect, denying the enemy the use of buildings and other sources of hard cover. Unfortunately this time I had switched to the US Army and had to bring an M10 tank destroyer instead of relying on panzerfausts as my anti-tank solution. A jeep armed with a .50 cal was intended to harass my original opponent’s tankettes but did some good work getting rid of veteran SS troops. A MMG armed truck with troops and a jeep with a bazooka team waited off board to rush on later and exploit any weaknesses.
Turn one started off with me trying to buy some time by giving down orders to my reinforcements, which can’t come on turn 1 anyways. One of the interesting twists with this scenario is that one turn 1 your vision is limited to 24 inches, its the crack of dawn and the dust from the preparatory bombardment is still settling. I ran out of units to go down with and had to act, drawing line of sight to a unit of SS in a crater with a spotter and lobbing a howitzer round in hoping to hit, and I rolled a 6! They were huddled together and I managed to kill five of the six man squad! This lone man would be the last German standing at the end of turn six.
The turn continued with Drew failing to activate his Stug, which received two pins in the prep bombardment. One squad of US troops could just barely see a squad of SS and fired, cover and range added up to a 5 to hit. A dozen dice were rolled and ended up killing 3 veteran SS troops. Great dice rolling that would continue through the game, leading to many poor bastards dying for their fatherland! Drew advanced a third SS squad up into a ruined building, springing a squad on ambush at long range. Another dozen dice thrown, another three fanatics fallen to American lead. The return fire did nothing to the ambushing squad.
Turn 2 started with an officer snapping to action both my howitzer and mortar to rain death down on a German sniper. My own sniper failed to act two turns in a row now and might as well have stayed home. Not a whole lot happened this turn, multiple squads on both sides failed to activate due to pins from the prep bombardment, My M10 failed to destroy the Stug for a second turn in a row. My jeep advanced up to support a squad of GIs trying to hold off a full squad of Veteran SS troops taking cover in some woods.
The turn ended with my Bazooka squad rushing up in the jeep and launching a round into the side of the Stug and glancing off the armor, leading to a Shaken result, and leaving the Bazooka squad and a jeep out in the open in front of a little too much firepower in a game where kill points win.
That’s a Stug, A squad behind the building and an officer and the remains of an SS squad hidden in the building on the right.
Turn 3 started with me pulling the first die and launching ANOTHER round into the side of the Stug, only to roll a 1 for damage! Only the pin! The rest of the turn was uneventful, Drew caused one casualty to the bazooka team, the empty transport jeep ran away so it wouldn’t die and drew rallied his Stug to get rid of five pins. My truck full of troops failed two rolls to come on, ruining my plans to save the bazooka team with machine gun and rifle fire.
Turn 4 saw some impressive action. My round started off with snapping to action my howizter and mortar again, a tactic I have come to love. Rounds landed square on a German officer, killing him and splashing damage on both an inexperienced squad and the Stug right next to it. My M10 FINALLY landed a round into the front of the Stug, causing massive damage and sending Hans the tanker to hell! That Stug had shrugged off a preparatory bombardment, two bazooka shells, a howitzer hit and an early M10 hit racking up numerous pins and holding out until turn 4! My truck FINALLY came on board, zooming up the board to pepper a squad with machine gun fire. It’s precious cargo hopped out and fired on the inexperienced squad, which failed the morale check for casualties and ran back to Berlin. 
The turn ended with my .50 cal jeep and a squad firing on a light mortar team which had peaked into the wrong patch of woods, each causing one casualty and wiping them out. Drew has had some poor rolls up to this point, failing multiple activation checks with one or two pins, rarely hitting with any fire and only managing to kill my bazooka team. Most of his force is wiped out at this point, leaving only three activation dice in the bag and one of them is the single SS trooper still alive after my first howitzer hit. all of his units are pinned and I was maneuvering to table him on turn 5.
Turn 5 had me wheeling my right flank around to murder everything wearing field grau on the back field. It was like Napoleonic’s, except I didn’t hate it! All of Drew’s units were pinned and failed activation rolls, which meant that all of my shots missed. 95% of my forces were shooting at three units and I didn’t cause one casualty!
Turn 6 finally saw the end of the Hun menace. 9 German units wiped out, 1 American unit killed.
The Prep bombardment had a huge effect on my win. Veteran units failing activation rolls, many units couldn’t shake all their pins, effecting their fire to the point of never hitting most of the time. I was hit just as bad, but I made my activation rolls and pushed forward. Two howitzer hits made a huge impact, wiping out a veteran SS unit positioned in the midfield to fire on everything and devastating the reinforcements on my right flank. This allowed me to swing around and finish him off in the last half. Getting three kills on 11 dice, 5s to hit and 5s to wound was amazing, TWICE!
Drew was a great sport during this game. I brought a 1000 point list and he scaled down his 1250 point list at the last minute to play me when my original opponent couldn’t make it. He played well and was and lost well, not sulking one bit even to the end. I don’t blame him for not staying for a second game though.
I rate him a 10/10, would murder him again!