Bolt Action: Blitzkrieg 1945

 I got a game of BA in vs Nathan, last Friday. Craig et al have been having all the BA fun and I haven't played in a good while. The one BA light on the horizon is that it is nearing time for the first Finns from my Baker Company Kickstarter pledge rewards to arrive. I am not sure how far down the list I am, but the first on the list has his! Chris ordered twice what I am getting, he will be VERY busy painting. In the meantime, it was my battle hardened Soviets vs Nathan's Germans. To change things up a little, I didn't take the free inexperienced infantry squad (which, to be honest, always annoyed me, so cliche) and took the suggested historical option for a piece of inexperienced Soviet armour instead. We were doing 1000pts and the mission was 'Maximum Attrition'.

A free SU-76. You'd think a free AFV would be awesome. However, this one has no AT upgrade, has the armour of a light tank, and is open-topped. In BA terms, that means small arms can pin it. That's right, a free AFV that can be pinned by anything an will struggle to un-pin, has little anti-armour utility and is a dedicated fire-support platform with an inherent -1 to hit for being inexperienced. Still, beats having a lot of free rifle-men because Soviets 'must be a mindless horde' (we are only forced to do that if playing FOW...)

Since this was 1000 pts, my other great plan was to take an artillery FO. Now, I hadn't read the rules on this before using so I didn't grok to the inherant 1 gturn delay before you start rolling to get the shells coming in. Further, in this mission everything moves on, rather than starting on-board, so that's TWO turns before we start the rolling on turn three. I took mine as Vet with a buddy to help the chances of survival. Then my guys, an Assault Engineer squad (with a flamethrower) and two Guards squads with LMGs, the T-34/85, Heavy Mortar, DSHK HMG and sniper. Nathan had Germans, two squads with assault rifles, LMG squad, the sneaky recon tank, a Pak-40, heavy mortar and Pioneers. I had three LMGs in the army, Nathan had two, and we both had a flamethrower each.

 Nathan's Germans are at the top, so get to the edge of the ruins earlier. I basically end up trying to dig the Vets out of their while hoping to pound him with all my support weapons.... Including the mighty Soviet Red God of War. It was not to be. Nathan got an LMG in range of the Artillery FO and nailed them both first time. Ouch.

 I had some pin point fir of my own coming back at him. The trusty T-34/85 (best tank of the war) slotted the heavy mortar team. It killed the maximum three crew with it's AT shell. However, three is less than four, so that was more a moral, than an actual, victory. Nathan's troops were now stubbornly dug-in and the Germans were circling around my flanks. The Pak-40 actually got rolled up after the SU-76 activated, to get a long range shot at it through the ruins. It hit. A SU-76 does not like to be hit by a 75mm high velocity AT shell. Worse was to come. I may at this point have become over intent on getting some casualties on the Assault rifle squad in the ruins. I used my last activation to fire the LMG from my Assault Engineers at them. Then Nathan used HIS last activation to run a squad of German vets around the edge of the intact farmstead (Nathan was kind enough to ask where I had bought it...) to do the long range assault on my Vets. We struck simultaneously, and he wiped me out.

 Nathan had got a taste for this crazy assaulting thing. While his other two main squads looked on, he hit my next squad with the Vets from last turn. They were behind (not in) that ruin and so the Germans swung first. My guys got wiped out that time too. Sure, I killed them with my third squad but now the rot was setting in. I had taken out his heavy mortar, and his recon tank spent most of it's time hiding, but there were now big gaps in my line.

More movement saw the Pak-40 slot my T-34-85. Again, one shot was all he needed and that was the Soviet armour all gone.

We'd done some damage but not nearly enough. So Nathan won this one convincingly.  I think Nathan is learning how to focus his attack well and I will have to work a lot harder to not lose my units so cheaply. Well done Nathan, for a hard fought and fun fight amidst the ruins. Astute watchers will have noticed my white-washed assault gun differs a little from the one in the historical photo..... I think I need to get myself a SU-76 model.