USMC First Tournament

Tabletop Kingdom in The Hague (The Netherlands) organised a tournament today to Commemorate D-Day. The turn out was a bit on the low side with only 10 players but still it was a great day of gaming and meeting other Bolt Action Hobbyist.

The tournament organisor had made three missions for us to play and I was very excited to see how my brand new army performed on the battlefield.

USMC Bazooka takes out a Panzer IV

The list I had made for this event looked like this:
 Vet. 2nd Lt. + 1 Vet. Infantry
 Reg. Medic
 Reg. Forward Air Observer + 1 reg. Infantry
 Vet USMC Squad
1 NCO with SMG
4 Infantry with rifles
3 infantry with BAR + Pistols
 Vet USMC Squad
1 NCO with SMG
4 Infantry with rifles
3 infantry with BAR + Pistols
 Vet USMC Engineer Squad
1 NCO with rifle
4 Infantry with rifles
2 Infantry with BAR
1 Infantry with flamethrower
 Inexp. Medium Mortar team
1 Spotter
 Vet. Sniper team
 Vet. Bazooka team
 Vet. M4 Sherman 105mm howitzer
Turret-mounted medium howitzer (2d6 HE)
Pintle mounted HMG
 Reg. Jeep

Total 999 Points and 11 Order Dice


The first round I faced a German Army in a maximum attrition game. In short my FAO managed to pin my opponents Pnzr4 useless, my mortar kept hitting and taking out squads and my rifle en engineer squads managed to succesfully assault the opponents units granting me the victory (13-7).

The second round we had to take and hold three objectives in the middle of the board and I faced a Russian veteran army with an IS2 tank. My sherman was knocked out very early and I managed to call in two airstrikes on my own units. My opponent had no trouble taking all three objectives in the end so I lost (0-20)

The third and final game versus another german Army, I had to move my 2nd LT who was carrying the flag into my opponents deployment zone and kill his or prevent it from getting to my deployment zone. I killed his early and this time my airstrikes were succesfull and my units killed of his units in one big sweeping move (fire and manouvre is great). Even my Bazooka managed to destroy a PnzrIV. It ended up a massive victory for me (20-0) but I felt kind of sorry for my opponent who kept on failing nearly all his rolls.

I ended up with a third place result and Best Painted Army Award. With the giftvoucher I received I bought a USMC M3A1 37mm anti-tank gun and some other small stuff.


 Tired but satisfied I went home after a great day of gaming. The painting award is something I really appreciate. Shows that all the hard work was well worth it.


Cheers,
Seb

Pacific Sherman Finished

As promised in my last post here are some pics of the finished Sherman. I added some streaking, oils and then rust, dust and mud using Vallejo Pigments.

Bolt Action USMC Sherman

I'm really happy how it turned out. My USMC infantry units now have a nice little tank to support their advance! Semper Fi!

Pacific Sherman

USMC Sherman in the Pacific Theatre

Cheers,

Seb

Painting a Sherman

I'm currently painting up Warlord games' 1/56 plastic Sherman produced by Italeri . You can check the link to get all the details and information.

The model fits together seamlessly and has nice details. I used an airbrush to paint on the basic layers of vallejo Brown Violet 70.887 (93) and highlighted it using the modulation technique.

I then added the decals and painted on the damage effects using the stipling technique. Next I will add a streaking effect using oils and then paint the details before I pull out the pigments and varnish.


So far I'm pretty pleased how things are going so I want to get this Sherman finished soon. I'll post some more pics when it's done.

Cheers,
Seb

Bolt Action 1000 points USMC list

When you're putting a Bolt Action force together it's probably best to start off with a basic 1000 point army upon which you can build and tweak once you get more experienced and played a few games. Here's the list I will use as a jump off point for my USMC. It's a list that can count on it's mobility and firepower. Below I will also explain why I have picked certain units.

Bolt action USMC are usually outnumbered vs a Japanese army

 (78p) Vet. 2^nd Lt. + 1 Vet. Infantry

(23p) Reg. Medic

(75p) Reg. Forward Air Observer

 (128p) Vet USMC Squad

1 NCO with SMG
4 Infantry with rifles
3 infantry with BAR
Entire squad has Anti-tank grenades

(125p) Vet USMC Squad

1 NCO with rifle
4 Infantry with rifles
3 infantry with BAR
Entire squad has Anti-tank grenades

(134p) Vet USMC Engineer Squad

1 NCO with rifle
4 Infantry with rifles
2 Infantry with BAR
1 Infantry with flamethrower

(45p) Inexp. Medium Mortar team

1 Spotter

(67p) Vet. Sniper team

(78p) Vet. Bazooka team

(245p) Vet. M4 Sherman 105mm howitzer

Turret-mounted medium howitzer (2d6 HE)
Pintle mounted HMG

Total 998 Points and 10 Order Dice

 My thoughts:

 -          2nd LT. +1 inf: pretty basic and I usually go with this whatever army I field. Veteran and small team is still hard to kill. Keep the 2nd LT. close to the infantry squads to help them make their morale tests.

-          Medic : Pretty much got that for the cheap extra order dice and might do something, not counting on it though.

-          FAO : Using the American special rule of two airstrikes it’s pretty awesome but I will have to avoid rolling the 1’s. I will try and eliminate enemy armour with it or clumped up groups of units that make a juicy target for the pins.

-          Vet. USMC Infantry squads : Vet's are harder to kill and can take 3 BAR’s, also the American move and shoot rule make this a mobile threat. I added anti-tank grenades to keep my opponent on their toes when they have a lot of armour and since my list lacks anti tank guns.

-          Vet. USMC Engineers : same as the Infantry squads but can only take 2 BAR’s and no anti-tank grenades but added a flamer for threat and flavor. Most opponents fear the flamer.

-          Inexp. Med. Mortar : I field this at the back with the spotter up front in hard cover. They never really get’s pins this way so don't have to take any morale tests and can really threat immobile units like artillery and weapon teams. Cheap to field them as inexperienced and doesn’t affect their to hit roll, needs 6’s anyway.

-          Vet. Sniper : you love them or hate them, they are usually an auto pick for me to take out weapon teams, NCO’s and of course the opponent’s sniper

-          Vet. Bazooka team : It’s a vet small team and threat to enemy armour but I don’t bank on it doing anything other then being a bullet magnet because the opponents usually fear them. That takes the pressure of other units.

-          Vet. M4 Sherman 105mm howitzer : Biggest reason I picked this is because of the medium howitzer that has 2d6 HE shots and Gyro stabiliser and I added a pintle mounted HMG to deal pins to multiple units.

 With 10 order dice I will probably be just under average against most opponents as players usually take from 8 to 14 order dice lists in 1000 points games.

So there you go, the first list and a pretty solid base to build upon. If you have any questions, ideas or suggestions please let me know and leave a comment.

Cheers,

Seb

*NEW!* The Bolt Action Pacific Blog

Just in case you missed it... I started a Blog about the project I'm currently working on. Bolt Action "War in the Pacific". It will feature my USMC army vs my Imperial Japanese Army and the making of a complete jungle themed wargaming table with all the scenery.
I have planned for this project to last 1 year so that one year of painting up about 2000 points of USMC, 3000 Points of IJA and the complete build with scenery of the gaming board.Besides that I will do product reviews, battle reports and tutorials and add some articles about Bolt Action in the Pacific theatre.
Have a look if you haven't already...

http://boltactionpacific.blogspot.nl/

Poldercon 2015 VIDEO

Last week I organized some Bolt Action Demo games at Poldercon. A “small” gaming convention with a twist. Participants of the convention get a list with all the demo games of the day and have to register up front which games they would like to play and then play 4 games of 1,5 hours during the day. If you like to see this explained properly and see some shots of the show please watch the video below where Richard Clarke from “Two Fat Lardies” explains it much better.

I already posted an article with lots of pictures of my award winning Demo table, if you’re interested you can find the post here.

Cheers,
Seb

Poldercon 2015

My Bolt Action Gaming table

This weekend I hosted the Bolt Action demo game at Poldercon. This was the first wargaming day organised by wargamers that want to learn people new games to play. About 100 people pre-registered for the day and about 30 different games were played. As I was doing the Bolt Action Demo on my own I didn't get to see a lot of the other games but there were some stunning tables there and all with great models on them. It was therefor much to my surprise that my table was voted "Best looking Table". A proud moment indeed.

My home table, 100% made by me. Pictures taken by various participants of last weekend's Poldercon. I have started making this table about a year ago and I keep adding stuff to it. Most recently the bases for the houses and the pigs pen. Hope you enjoy

Cheers,

Seb