Bolt Action AAR: “We’re supposed to be surrounded”

We played a three handed daytime game of Bolt Action on Saturday, to mark the first visit by Ian since he left for Asia in December. It was good to be back in BA after a run of Ancients games. Ian brought down his US paratroopers and Fallschirmjaegers and I wanted to include them in the game so I prepared a 1500 Point scenario very loosely based on Market Garden, as follows:

“The 101st Division has been holding the road open to Eindhoven, the first piece of the airborne carpet over which 30th Corps plans to roll in its drive to cross the Rhine. Delayed from the start, the Armoured column is struggling to stick to its timetable. The German forces have reacted faster than the Allies expected and are pulling together an increasingly powerful defence.

Place 3 objective markers along the main road, at 18, 36 and 54 inches from the Southern table edge.

1. Player A Deploys 500 points of US airborne, with no vehicle supports, within 12” of the 54” objective. They can use foxholes (rules in Battleground Europe).
2. Player B creates a 1500 Point German Army. They deploy 750 points of German troops anywhere on the table, no closer than 18” to any US unit. The remaining 750 points will be reinforcements.
3. On turn 1, Player C moves onto the table from the southern edge with 1000 points of Allied troops.

Each turn including the first, the German player rolls for random reinforcements using the standard rules, until all of them have arrived on table. For any armour in the list, the first successful reinforcement roll is ignored. As each reinforcing unit arrives, roll for the table edge along which it arrives: 1,2: North; 3,4: West; 5,6: East. No unit may enter from a point within 12” of Allied troops.

The game lasts 6 turns, with the possibility of a seventh on a roll of 4,5,6.

1 VP for each enemy unit destroyed; 2VP for each objective controlled by troops within 3”.

Matt used his US troops as the relief force, with a Sherman, half track-mounted squad and an infantry platoon. I created 750 points of Heer Grenadiers for the on table Germans and a selection of Waffen SS and Fallschirmjaegers squads, a Stug and a panzer grenadier squad for the reinforcements.

The objectives were represented by oil drums, milk churns and a dog kennel.

The US paras set up in foxholes around the bicycle workshop and the dog kennel objective. The on table Germans all set up to the East of the road, with two squads and an MMG behind a hedge facing South and the rest facing the Paras to the West.

In the first stage of the game, Matt’s relief force attacked the German hedge line while the rear area Germans, reinforced by two arriving squads, attacked the US Paras. In the second stage, the relief force destroyed the hedgerow Germans and advanced on the second German line, while the rear area Germans tightened their grip on the Paras. In stage three, the relief force was stalled by the destruction of an M3 halftrack, and held up long enough for the US Paras to be badly mauled and dislodged from the dog kennel objective. The game ran to a seventh turn and ended with the Allies holding 2 objectives for 4VPs, plus 3VPs for German units destroyed. The Germans meanwhile held one 2VP objective and destroyed 6 US units. So a German victory at 10 VPs to 7.

The game was closer fought than the final score suggests. The US Assault on the first German line was quick and effective, destroying a 10 man squad and an MMG in short order. The second German line held well however, and was helped by the arrival of the Stug which first destroyed the halftrack then placed itself in ambush round the curve of a hill, threatening to enfilade a further US advance northwards. As it happened, when the Sherman did move into view the Stug only managed a ‘crew stunned’, but this bought enough time for the Germans to wipe out the US Paras.