Bolt Action Australian 1000pt Far East Army

I bought the new Armies of Great Britain army book for Bolt Action over the weekend.
Its nicely laid out, and has rules and armies for the entire war.  This goes from BEF early war Europe, the African campaign, Normandy, Market Garden, and even the far east is split into 2 parts, the fall of Singapore (early, 1941/42), and the Burma Campaign (later).  It also "covers" all commonwealth troops but really that's assumed in the special rules that you can give your army (so no Australian vs Canadian vs Polish special rules as FOW does).  This was by design and allows you to decide how you think the different nationalities showed themselves.

My Australian 28mm troops fit perfectly with a reinforced platoon of the Burma Campaign.
The entire army is veteran.
Probably give them the "Rapid Fire" special rule giving the a bit more firepower.

1 x 1st Lt commander - 90pts

1 x Medic, 30pts
1 x Forward Arty Observer, free for Brits

1 x Sections, 9 Men, 1 NCO+SMG, + LMG, SMG, 156pts
2 x Sections, 9 Men, 1 NCO+SMG, + 2xLMG, SMG - 176x2 = 352
1 x Sniper Team, 65pts
1 x Med Mortar Team, 65pts
1 x Med MMG, 65pts
1 x Matilda Frog, 186pts

Total: 1009pts

And I have all the parts that I need.  I would have preferred to use the regular Matilda tank with them, but that isn't allowed in the far east.  Only the flame throwing FROG/Murry that the Australians used. Really looking forward to when the Japanese book comes out so I can buy a proper tank for them.

If I find that they need some more AT power, then I might drop the Lt down to 2nd, maybe make the Frog Regular, and add a PIAT section (although technically I don't think the Australians used PIATs at all, and certainly not in the jungle).

I will say the army books seem a bit "generic", but there are some special rules in there which make it worth it.  Generally speaking, veterans are the same the world over.  And all infantry sections has an NCO, 10 guys, and a machine gun.  The real value of the books come from the vehicle section which contains all the different vehicles that each country used.

I will probably also have to do a Fall of Singapore army for Kokoda, but will give the green Aussies lots of defensive cover etc. against experienced Japanese troops, or give the Japanese hard objectives to get, and the Australians play a rear guard action.  It will also have to be a smaller army since I don't have any more.  No tanks in that one either (maybe Milne Bay)..

Bolt Action AAR

I was visiting the Bay Area last week and was able to attend my old gaming group.  Even though generally people are more pre-20th century, we do go in for WW2 every so often.  This was our first outing with Bolt Action by Warlord Games.  The pictures are not my own, and generally don't follow the action, but I figured I could give an overall idea of how the game plays.

We were playing Russians.  Our squads were split up, and we had far more armor on the table than would normally be the case.  It was 1000 points a side, with the Russians trying to take a center objective.  The Russians had several squads with Sub-machine guns, a KV-1, and 2 T-34s, including an MMG and higher up teams.

 The Germans setup to defend the objective with reserves.  The Germans were effectively a Panzer Grenadier force with a Pz IV, a Wespe armored artillery, a half track, a Pak40, a couple of trucks with infantry squads.  The objective had an MMG in the bottom of a building.

Here's a shot of a green unit of Russians trying to assault the Pz IV.  They were unsuccessful both times, but it was worth it to see the assault rules.  Assaults are very bloody.  The Russians were able to pin down the MMG in the building and shooting was able to kill the 3 crew.  Small crews are quite vulnerable as far as we could tell.  The pak40 crew also fell to shooting.  I suspect we did something wrong.

This was a faceoff between the Wespe Gun and 2 T-34s across the main road...

The Wespe nuked one for the T-34s. I do like that there are no templates to worry about.  The 2nd T-34 took down the Wespe with a stationary fire shot.  Moving and shooting gives a small disadvantage to firing.

I really like the rules.  Its like 40k in its simplicity, but without any special rules for a great many special troops. Of course there are special troops and rules, but everybody is human, and all troops have a use.  Some people might find the tank rules a bit bland (light, medium, heavy, very heavy guns, and softskin, light, medium, heavy, and extra heavy vehicles) but you definitely think like a tanker in support of infantry, and you generally only get 1 tank per 1000 points anyway.  Great stuff.  Can't wait until the British and Japanese source books come out.  I can finally finish my Australian force and start the Japanese.

Extra Tobruk Pits

I recently bought Hellfire and Back!  the FOW early war in the desert book.  Pretty fun stuff, especially all those silly light tanks flying around.  Anyway I've been looking for a way to modify my Australian MW Div Cav force to an Early War force.  A "morph" if you will, since all the equipment except the Grants is usable EW.

Since I'm not going to buy a another infantry platoon and command for them just yet, I figured I could make a decent Tobruk Defense force.   Since my other favorite tank, the Matilda II features in that.  Haven't bought the Matilda yet, but I did buy a pack of "Tobruk Pits", which are MG nests in a small concrete bunker like thing.

The blister comes with 2 nests, and 2 of each nationality that uses the pits, 2 brits, 2 aussies, 2 french, 2 italian, and 4 German (2 early, 2 late).  It seemed a pity to waste the extra guys, so I measured and created on a 3D printer 2 more pits.  These will be usable for my Germans if I do any Beach/dug in type scenarios.  So LW of course.

Here's a pic of the finished pits.  The printer isn't SUPER high res, so I had to do a bunch of priming and sanding to get the surfaces smooth.  The "ground" doesn't matter as I will cover that with pummace anyway.  Anyway they came out really nicely.  Hopefully the paint will last the test of time.  The originals are on the right, the new ones are on the left.

And while I was doing 3D printing, I figured I would finish the turret ring for my 28mm Matilda II tank for my jungle Aussies.  I might want to change the gun from a 2lbr to a "Frog" flamethrower but it'll be fine for now.  The turrent just never fit on correctly, but its nice and snug now.  Can't wait to get this guy done.  And it will probably inspire me to pick up a few 15mm versions for the FOW Aussies.

The original tank:

Bottom of the sanded turret:

New turret Ring.

28mm Australians Snow Followup

Ok, this'll be weird but I wanted to give a followup to the snowy dull coat problem I was reporting last post.

Someone over on AmbushAlley forums suggested painting on olive oil over the snowy looking parts.  I was surprised and delighted to say that it worked perfectly.  I wiped off the remaining oil and the snowy surface is no longer snowy.  The pic is below.  I tested on this guy, and when it worked, I did the rest of the snowy squad.  Thank God I didn't have to repaint them again.

The original:

And post olive oil:

28mm Australian Platoon Continues

And in case you haven't had enough of my obsession with my old homeland, here are some 28mm Jungle Australians to be used in Burma or Kokoda Trail campaigns.  Haven't started their Japanese opponents yet, but I'll get to that..

So first up, a group shot of the entire platoon.  Granted, no Heavy MGs or Mortars (or tank support) yet, but still a good start for a skirmish game.

And squad 1 next up.  

 

Squad 2:



The command squad with a some really nice sculpts by Brigade Games.  The other more cartoony guys are made by Artizan.  Both mix well, but I prefer Brigade as they have a more "Rodin" feel to them somehow..  Maybe its the lack of eyeballs. I dunno.



I have kept my squad ID numbering system, so you can see Squad 3 here with an MG as one of the corporals/fireteam leaders.  The main reason I do the MG labeling is because the Bren guns these guys are carrying aren't the most obvious.  You can also see on the middle guy a white powdery looking effect on his base.  More on this in a moment.



Squad 3.  You can see the white powder on the middle guy... grrr

Here's a close up of one of the worst.  This happened before when I'd finished painting my 2nd squad.  I dullcoat sprayed 'em, and it looked like they had just come in from a light snow storm = HORRIBLE looking.  It looks worse in real life.

Anyway in case anybody out there has run into this "white powder snow dullcoating disaster", I looked it up on the web and found that it sometimes happens with dullcoat, either because of humidity, or over shaking, phase of the moon etc. etc.  Here are a few links that hopefully should help.  I'll probably try spraying one guy again with dullcoat to see if I can't get rid of the snow.  Quite bummed about it because these fig sculpts are so good, and I want to get moving on their Japanese counterparts.

http://airfixtributeforum.myfastforum.org/archive/cotes-and-varnishes__o_t__t_3476.html
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?183180-Brush-on-matt-varnish